State
City temporarily closes landfill on Rock Hill Road
Starkville Daily News
Mayor Lynn Spruill informed the Starkville Board of Aldermen at its Friday work session the city landfill on Rock Hill Road has been temporarily closed while it is brought back into compliance with standards set by the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ).
Top 5 things to reverse global warming
Clarion Ledger
The conversation over climate change is too often "doom and gloom," noted Katharine Wilkinson, senior writer for climate research group Project Drawdown, at a Millsaps College forum Friday.
LOWNDES COUNTY SUPERVISORS TO WORK WITH SOLAR COMPANIES
WCBI
LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Lowndes County Supervisors say they will work with two solar companies that are interested in locating in the area.
Mississippi considers poisons for wild hogs
Clarion Ledger
As wild hog populations continue to rise, Mississippi is looking for more effective ways to control them.
New USACE Mississippi Valley Division commander has done a lot
Vicksburg Post
“Hi, I’m Rick Kaiser.”
With that greeting, the new commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Mississippi Valley Division’s walked into his office and sat down to talk about his new command and his dual duties as the division commander and the position he will soon occupy as president of the Mississippi River Commission, which is responsible for making the Mississippi a reliable commercial waterway and protecting the towns, farms and homes along its banks from flooding.
State Government
State economic growth looks to be less than 1 percent in 2017
MBJ
JACKSON – The indicators state economists use to assess the health of Mississippi’s economy showed the same lethargy in August as they did at the start of the year.
Oil Spill
Study: Oil spill cleanup caused illness
Houma Courier
Seven years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill dumped millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, a federal study confirmed what one local doctor had suspected for years.
Chemicals used in the cleanup made thousands of people sick.
2010 oil spill funds remain elusive for coastal counties
News Herald
PANAMA CITY — Jim Muller’s typical day is full of details.
A weekly report from Bay County’s RESTORE Act coordinator lays out the steps he must follow on the path to securing the county’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill money: Update the status of Pot 1 grant applications, meet with finance staff, prepare for committee workshops, catch up the assistant city manager on the Carl Gray project.
Regional
Amount of ozone declines in state
Pollutants’ levels within U.S. limits
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Arkansas has posted yet another ozone season below the federal limit for ozone pollution.
After years of higher ozone readings and issuing occasional Ozone Action Days, even the parts of Arkansas traditionally most susceptible to ozone pollution are experiencing levels below the strictest federal standards.
Cleanup Under Way After Large Oil Spill Off Louisiana Coast
LLOG Exploration says offshore pipeline has released up to 9,350 barrels of oil
WSJ
An offshore pipeline fracture that has spilled as much as 9,350 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico near Louisiana appeared to be contained, the company responsible said on Sunday.
Oil rig explosion in Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana, injures 7
Times-Picayune
A platform that exploded in Lake Pontchartrain on Sunday night was undergoing cleaning, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joe Lopinto said. But he said an investigation would have to determine whether chemicals used in that process ignited before or after the explosion.
Federal, Louisiana state officials highlight seven south Louisiana marsh creation projects
The Advocate
News about Louisiana's coast is usually worrisome: more land lost, more lawsuits filed, more money needed.
National
EPA Seeks ‘Single Best Way’ to Work With States
Bloomberg
The EPA will review its oversight responsibilities to find the “single best way” to monitor state actions, part of Administrator Scott Pruitt’s promise to “rebalance” the agency’s relationship with the states.
With OK From EPA, Use Of Controversial Weedkiller Is Expected To Double
NPR
The Environmental Protection Agency
announced Friday that it will let farmers keep spraying the weedkilling chemical dicamba on Monsanto's new dicamba-tolerant soybeans and cotton. The decision is a victory for the biotech giant and the farmers who want to use the company's newest weedkilling technology.
Trump Names Former Texas Regulator as White House Environmental Adviser
NY Times
President Trump has nominated a former top Texas environmental regulator, who has argued that carbon dioxide is a harmless gas that should not be regulated, to be the White House senior adviser on environmental policy.
Common reasons FEMA denies money after major disasters
AP
Local governments and nonprofits trying to recover from major disasters have sometimes learned the hard way that money spent on protective measures, cleanup and rebuilding is not always reimbursed by the U.S. government.
Opinion
The Clean Power Plan’s Counterfeit Benefits
The Obama EPA claimed its regulation would have a $55 billion payoff. You’ll never believe how.
WSJ
By Steve Milloy
The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed repeal of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan is a milestone. No Republican administration has ever mustered the courage to roll back a major EPA regulation. In a clever twist, the Trump administration has done so by directly challenging the plan’s purported health benefits.
Press Releases
EPA and States' Collective Efforts Lead to Regulatory Action on Dicamba
10/13/2017
Contact Information:
WASHINGTON (OCTOBER 13, 2017) - EPA has reached an agreement with Monsanto, BASF and DuPont on measures to further minimize the potential for drift to damage neighboring crops from the use of dicamba formulations used to control weeds in genetically modified cotton and soybeans. New requirements for the use of dicamba "over the top" (application to growing plants) will allow farmers to make informed choices for seed purchases for the 2018 growing season.
"Today's actions are the result of intensive, collaborative efforts, working side by side with the states and university scientists from across the nation who have first-hand knowledge of the problem and workable solutions," said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. "Our collective efforts with our state partners ensure we are relying on the best, on-the-ground, information."
In a series of discussions, EPA worked cooperatively with states, land-grant universities, and the pesticide manufacturers to examine the underlying causes of recent crop damage in the farm belt and southeast. EPA carefully reviewed the available information and developed tangible changes to be implemented during the 2018 growing season. This is an example of cooperative federalism that leads to workable national-level solutions.
Manufacturers have voluntarily agreed to label changes that impose additional requirements for "over the top" use of these products next year including:
• Classifying products as "restricted use," permitting only certified applicators with special training, and those under their supervision, to apply them; dicamba-specific training for all certified applicators to reinforce proper use;
• Requiring farmers to maintain specific records regarding the use of these products to improve compliance with label restrictions;
• Limiting applications to when maximum wind speeds are below 10 mph (from 15 mph) to reduce potential spray drift;
• Reducing the times during the day when applications can occur;
• Including tank clean-out language to prevent cross contamination; and
• Enhancing susceptible crop language and record keeping with sensitive crop registries to increase awareness of risk to especially sensitive crops nearby.
Manufacturers have agreed to a process to get the revised labels into the hands of farmers in time for the 2018 use season. EPA will monitor the success of these changes to help inform our decision whether to allow the continued "over the top" use of dicamba beyond the 2018 growing season. When EPA registered these products, it set the registrations to expire in 2 years to allow EPA to change the registration, if necessary.
URI senior uses microbeads to trace road contaminants
Senior uses microscopic glass beads to track the path of storm water runoff—sediment and grime—that washes off roads and can damage the environment.
Posted on October 13, 2017
Tabatha Lewis is handling lots of beads these days, but they’re not the kind on necklaces.The University of Rhode Island senior is using microscopic glass beads to track the path of storm water runoff—sediment and grime—that washes off roads and can damage the environment.
Lewis is teaming up with Engineering and Geoscience Professor Thomas Boving to conduct the study. Her preliminary results were presented recently at the Showcase of Undergraduate Research, Scholarly and Creative Works on the Kingston campus.
With more than 4 million miles of roads in the United States, it’s critical to know what contaminants are in road runoff, and how far they’re traveling on abutting land. Lewis says there is no reliable system in place now to track runoff.
“We intend to change that through our experiment,” says Lewis, of Brookfield, Conn. “And, so far, it looks promising that we’ve come up with a method that works.”
“Colored Glass Microbeads for Tracing Roadside Sediment Transport” has captured the attention of the Rhode Island Department of Transportation, which is funding the project, along with the URI Transportation Center.
The project started in July, when Lewis placed the microbeads—in three different sizes—at six sites along Plains Road, near URI’s Greene H. Gardner Jr. Research Building. The microbeads are the size of natural soils and mimic their movements, which allowed Lewis to track the microbeads in ditches along the road.
“The number of microbeads we released was about 130,000 at each site,” says Lewis, an environmental science major. “We take samples every two or four weeks to determine how far the beads moved.”
So far, Lewis has collected five sample rounds from the ground. The data is translated into computerized “plume maps” that visually show what’s happening.
“I’m very excited about our results,” says Lewis. “The plume gets bigger as the microbeads move across the land. This is what we predicted might happen.”
Lewis says the project will continue with other URI students for the next few years.
In the future, engineers could use the microbeads to trace runoff that is potentially hazardous to streams or lakes nearby. Microbeads could also be used to trace oil spills on roads and highways.
“People don’t realize how damaging road runoff can be to surrounding waterways and lands,” says Lewis. “Road toxins can kill fish, harm plants and leach into the groundwater, so it’s important we understand the movement of these contaminants and sediments to protect the environment.”
Lewis’ interest in the environment was nurtured in high school. She recalls a paper she wrote involving the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, recognized as the worst oil spill in American history.
“We came up with a way to clean oil off the seabirds,” says Lewis. “We suggested dry shampoo. It didn’t work that well, but it gave me a taste of what I could do to preserve nature.”
One of her highlights at URI was a two-week trip to Goa, India, to create riverbank filtration systems that bring clean drinking water and irrigation water to nearby villages.
After graduation this spring, she hopes to join the Peace Corps and serve for two years as a water sanitation and hygiene education engineer in Panama. Her many projects at URI, including her microbeads study, have prepared her for new challenges.
“I’m so thankful to my professors—who are devoted teachers—and for the opportunity to do practical field work,” says Lewis. “I’m ready to jump into a job and do my part to protect the world.”
