Emerging Contaminants Program, Department of Defense

The Emerging Contaminants program, an Innovations in American Government Finalist, presented before the National Selection Committee in May 2009. The program promotes proactive, integrated risk management of chemicals used by Department of Defense to facilitate informed risk-based decisions that better protect the environment and serve the Department's operational capacities.

Watch this on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RBiKLzK4MA

---

House Passes Historic Waxman-Markey Clean Energy Bill

The House of Representatives passed the landmark American Clean Energy and Security Act, sponsored by Rep. Henry A. Waxman, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Edward J. Markey, Chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

This landmark bill will revitalize our economy by creating millions of new jobs, increase our national security by reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and preserve our planet by reducing the pollution that causes global warming.

"Today we have taken decisive and historic action to promote America’s energy security and to create millions of clean energy jobs that will drive our economic recovery and long-term growth," said Chairman Waxman. "After more than three decades of being held hostage to the influence of foreign energy suppliers, this legislation at long last begins to break our addiction to imported foreign oil and put us on a path to true energy security."

"Today the House has passed the most important energy and environment bill in our nation’s history," said Chairman Markey. "Scientists say that global warming is a dangerous man-made problem. Today we are saying clean energy will be the American-made solution. This legislation will create jobs by the millions, save money by the billions and unleash investment in clean energy by the trillions."

The bill contains the following key provisions:

* Requires electric utilities to meet 20% of their electricity demand through renewable energy sources and energy efficiency by 2020.

* Invests $190 billion in new clean energy technologies and energy efficiency, including energy efficiency and renewable energy ($90 billion in new investments by 2025), carbon capture and sequestration ($60 billion), electric and other advanced technology vehicles ($20 billion), and basic scientific research and development ($20 billion).

* Mandates new energy-saving standards for buildings, appliances, and industry.

* Reduces carbon emissions from major U.S. sources by 17% by 2020 and over 80% by 2050 compared to 2005 levels. Complementary measures in the legislation, such as investments in preventing tropical deforestation, will achieve significant additional reductions in carbon emissions.

* Protects consumers from energy price increases. According to recent analyses from the Congressional Budget Office and the Environmental Protection Agency, the legislation will cost each household less than 50 cents per day in 2020 (not including energy efficiency savings).

http://energycommerce.house.gov/

At the European Research and Innovation Exhibition in Paris, researchers introduced the first steps towards electric aviation.

One battery-powered plane could fly at speeds of up to 400kms per hour, and at heights of up to 6,500 metres altitude – and has enough power from its rechargeable lithium batteries to stay in the air for around 45 minutes.

Another plane, the Solar Impulse – powered by solar energy – is due to be unveiled this summer. The plane will have a huge wingspan – around 61 metres! The makers say it will be able to fly autonomously, night and day, and will be capable of flying right round the world, entirely powered by the sun.

If all goes well, the Solar Impulse is set to make a 36 hour flight at the end of the year.

So while these planes are only a first step, they are also a glimpse into the future of electric aviation.

http://www.euronews.net/2009/06/10/electric-aviation-on-the-horizon/


Related Link:

Washing Machine Only Uses One Cup of Water
http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/new-washing-machine-only-uses-one-cup-of-water/

The Canadian province of Ontario said Monday it is suspending a multibillion-dollar plan to build two new nuclear reactors because of concerns about the future of the favored bidder and cost overruns.

Ontario said a proposal from Atomic Energy Corp Ltd, which is owned by the Canadian government, was the only one to meet its requirements for building two new reactors by 2018 at its Darlington nuclear power plant site, east of Toronto.

The Canadian nuclear power industry was also hit Monday by a newspaper report (*see Related Link below) that said safety regulators have underestimated a feature at the country's electricity-producing Candu reactors, all designed by AECL, that might cause them to experience dangerous power pulses during a major accident.

According to an internal Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission document obtained by the newspaper, the nuclear stations have a feature known as "positive reactivity feedback," in which their atomic chain reactions automatically speed up if the water pumped into the reactors to cool them leaks. The report said that a water leak is one of the worst accidents possible at a nuclear station.

If the reactors aren't immediately shut down during such an incident, positive reactivity leads to a snowballing in the pace of nuclear reactions, which could cause damaging overheating, the newspaper said.

http://www.financialpost.com/news-sectors/story.html?id=1743737


Related Link:

Canada's Troubled Nuclear Industry: Ending a Dream, or a Nightmare?
The Government Opts Not to Pour More Money Down the Nuclear "Sinkhole"
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13871858

WHEN British consumers are compelled to buy energy-efficient lightbulbs from 2012, they will save up to 5m tons of carbon dioxide a year from being pumped into the atmosphere. In China, however, a heavy environmental price is being paid for the production of “green” lightbulbs in cost-cutting factories.

Large numbers of Chinese workers have been poisoned by mercury, which forms part of the compact fluorescent lightbulbs. A surge in foreign demand, set off by a European Union directive making these bulbs compulsory within three years, has also led to the reopening of mercury mines that have ruined the environment.

Doctors, regulators, lawyers and courts in China - which supplies two thirds of the compact fluorescent bulbs sold in Britain - are increasingly alert to the potential impacts on public health of an industry that promotes itself as a friend of the earth but depends on highly toxic mercury.

A survey of published specialist literature and reports by state media shows hundreds of workers at Chinese-owned factories have been poisoned by mercury over the past decade.

In one case, Foshan city officials intervened to order medical tests on workers at the Nanhai Feiyang lighting factory after receiving a petition alleging dangerous conditions, according to a report in the Nanfang Daily newspaper. The tests found 68 out of 72 workers were so badly poisoned they required hospitalisation.

A specialist medical journal, published by the health ministry, describes another compact fluorescent lightbulb factory in Jinzhou, in central China, where 121 out of 123 employees had excessive mercury levels. One man’s level was 150 times the accepted standard.

The same journal identified a compact fluorescent lightbulb factory in Anyang, eastern China, where 35% of workers suffered mercury poisoning, and industrial discharge containing the toxin went straight into the water supply.

It also reported a survey of 18 lightbulb factories near Shanghai, which found that exposure levels to mercury were higher for workers making the new compact fluorescent lightbulbs than for other lights containing the metal.

Full article:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6211261.ece


Related Link:

CFC Bulbs Risky: Health Canada to Study Ultraviolet Emissions & Mercury Poisonings
http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2009/06/29/9967011-sun.html

Environmentalists are quietly lauding the city strike for unintentionally converting people to their cause and living a lighter lifestyle.

"It's an unexpected consciousness-raising event," says Mark Winfield, professor of environmental studies at York University.

"When you're faced with a storage problem, it makes you appreciate how much stuff is coming in and out (of your home). You have to ask the bigger question about the role of this stuff and how much of it you really need."

The prospect of smelly garbage piling up on his neighbours' porches convinced Graeme Hussey to finish building the row of backyard compost bins he'd recently started. He invited four neighbouring families to drop off the kitchen scraps that normally would have gone out with their green bins.

"I went to get sushi last night and brought a Tupperware container because I didn't want to have the garbage at home," says Hussey, development director of the Parkdale environmental charity Greenest City. "It's interesting how (the strike) is really making you think."

http://www.thestar.com/article/658121


Related Link:

The Top 10 Ways to Reduce Your Garbage
http://www.thestar.com/Article/658123

New Environmental Funding Available for Ontario

The Earth Day Canada Community Environment Fund provides Ontario not-for-profit organizations and schools the opportunity to create and inspire environmental action in local communities. The Fund recognizes and celebrates the tremendous impact of grassroots projects, and provides up to $20 000 in financial support for local environmental initiatives.

To be eligible for a grant, applicants must clearly demonstrate benefits their project will have on the environment and local community and be open to the public.

The Fund offers two granting periods per year:

*Granting Period I*

Application Deadline: August 31, 2009
Announcement of Approved Grants: October 14, 2009

*Granting Period II*

Application Deadline: February 28, 2010
Announcement of Approved Grants: April 22, 2010

For application package or further details, please visit:
http://www.earthday.ca/envirofund

U.S. manufacturers, including major drugmakers, have legally released at least 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals into waterways that often provide drinking water , according to an Associated Press investigation.

Hundreds of active pharmaceutical ingredients are used in a variety of manufacturing, including drugmaking. For example, lithium is used to make ceramics and treat bipolar disorder. Nitroglycerin is a heart drug and is also used in explosives. Copper shows up in pipes and contraceptives.

Federal and industry officials say they don't know the extent to which pharmaceuticals are released by U.S. manufacturers because no one tracks them - as drugs. But an analysis of 20 years of federal records found that the government unintentionally keeps data on a few.
The AP identified 22 compounds that show up on two lists. The Environmental Protection Agency monitors them as industrial chemicals that are released into bodies of water under federal pollution laws. The Food and Drug Administration classifies them as active pharmaceutical ingredients.

The data don't show exactly how much of the 271 million pounds comes from drugmakers versus other manufacturers. To date, drugmakers have dismissed the suggestion that their manufacturing contributes significantly to what's being found in water. Federal drug and water regulators agree.

But some researchers say the lack of required testing amounts to a "don't ask, don't tell" policy about whether drugmakers are contributing to water pollution.
"It doesn't pass the straight-face test to say pharmaceutical manufacturers are not emitting any of the compounds they're creating," said Kyla Bennett, who spent 10 years with the EPA before becoming an environmental lawyer.

Pilot studies are now confirming those doubts.

Last year, the AP reported that trace amounts of a wide range of pharmaceuticals - including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones - were found in U.S. drinking water supplies.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation/v-print/story/1150904.html

An 'Organic' Highway - Noted architects propose building above Gardiner Expressway, not tearing it down



Les Klein, of Quadrangle Architects, unveiled his plans to add a new 7 km tree-lined park -- with lush grass, shrubs, and concession stands -- for pedestrians and cyclists eight metres above the current expressway yesterday at Moses Znaimer's 10th annual ideaCity.

GREEN RIBBON

"I have always believed that change in cities is best done when it's organic," Klein told the Sun yesterday following his presentation. "When I look at it (the Gardiner) and hear people say 'Tear it down,' it just doesn't strike me as the right thing to do. It's not organic."

Klein's "Green Ribbon" would initially run from Dufferin St. to the Don Valley Parkway and cost $500-$600 million.

Solar and wind power generators would provide electricity and also illuminate the lower levels, while a cover over the Gardiner would also reduce maintenance costs by reducing the need to plow it, and also slow the structure's erosion from winter salt.

"It's building on the strengths of the Gardiner, and eliminating its weaknesses," Klein said, calling the Gardiner too important to destroy.

"The flow of goods and services in and out of a city is the lifeblood of a city. You can't just, for the purpose of some ideology, cut it off."

The Gardiner Expressway, named after former Metro Toronto chairman Frederick Gardiner, was completed in 1965 and currently moves more than 200,000 vehicles a day.

"If you take yourself back 50 years, and think about what the Gardiner was when it was first built, it was ... an incredible symbol of change, economic growth, and progress," Klein said. "If you tear it down, it is gone, not to mention the kind of incredible traffic crises it's going to create."

Klein's firm, perhaps best known in Toronto for renovating a derelict warehouse into the CHUM-CityTV building at 299 Queen St. W., and turning a 1950s era office building into the BMW showroom near the base of the Don Valley Parkway, specializes in "creative, adaptive reuse."

Waterfront Toronto is curently studying what to do with the eastern extremity of the Gardiner, from Jarvis St. to the Don Valley Parkway, including spending $300 million to tear it down, a plan supported by Toronto Mayor David Miller.

INTERESTING IDEA

But Kevin Bechard, Waterfront Toronto's director of Environmental Assessments, said it is studying a broad range of options, not just demolition, and the current study's range is wide enough to include Klein's "interesting" idea.

"The range of the study is open to considering this interesting idea," Bechard said, adding Waterfront Toronto's goals for the Gardiner are to revitalize the waterfront, reconnect the city to the lake, balance travel, be sustainable, and create value for current waterfront investments.

http://spacing.ca/wire/2009/06/18/green-roof-meets-gardiner-expressway/

According to the National Post’s Allison Hanes, the money for the Sheppard LRT is not, in fact, part of the federal government’s stimulus program and is instead from the Build Canada Fund, which has been maligned frequently by municipal politicians for its endless red tape.

Spacing has also learned that the TTC will receive the money it has already spent preparing for the beginning of the Sheppard line construction from the provincial government through Metrolinx. Although Spacing has been given the impression that there is not a significant amount of money allocated to Sheppard in the TTC/City of Toronto capital budgets, we are still trying to confirm whether money had been planned for Sheppard in the 2010-2014 five-year capital plan. This post will be updated if/when that information is available to us.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Premier Dalton McGuinty this morning announced that the Sheppard LRT line would be funded through the provincial and federal economic stimulus programs.

The $950 million for the Sheppard line of Transit City will be two-thirds provincial money and one-third federal money. That money includes the funds required to pay for the streetcars expected to run on the new line.

The City of Toronto’s request for provincial and federal money continues to be considered by officials at both levels of government, however, no announcement was made on that front this morning.

Mayor David Miller announced on his Twitter feed that he and Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be at the Hillcrest TTC compound at 11AM for a good news announcement. While Mayor Miller didn’t say which project would be funded, Spacing has learned that the project is likely Transit City’s Sheppard line.

Although streetcar funding is a key priority for the TTC and was presented to both the provincial and federal governments in the hope of receiving stimulus funding, it is most likely that the TTC will receive Transit City funding for the Sheppard Line. It has been expected that the Sheppard LRT would have its contracts tendered during summer 2009, however, the April 1 announcement of provincial funding for Transit City excluded the Sheppard Line. This would explain why.

While the smart money is on a Sheppard LRT announcement, it is possible that a streetcar announcement will also be made given that the TTC’s deadline to order streetcars is fast approaching.


http://spacing.ca/wire/2009/05/15/breaking-news-sheppard-lrt-likely-to-be-funded-tomorrow-maybe-streetcars/

There is a new eco-friendly initiative at Oakville Place shopping centre that enhances the experience of eating in a Food Court and helps the environment. Beginning this month, customers now have the option to select their own restaurant quality plate and have their meal served without generating the waste from a disposable plate.

"At Oakville Place, we want to treat our customers to a more sophisticated shopping experience, and the first step in the Food Court is to enjoy a meal on real dishes. Once customers are finished their meal, we will remove their plates and tray – and we do the dishes!" says Jenny Jovanovic, Marketing Coordinator for Oakville Place.

The plate program was developed as a service to customers, but also as an earth friendly initiative. The new energy efficient dishwasher, the reduction in water use (only 4 liters of water per wash), and the huge impact it will have on the levels of garbage generated in the Food Court are all eco-driven. Oakville Place plans to expand this program to include other restaurant quality components in the future.

"It is a simple idea, but one that can make a big difference," Jenny says "and our goal is to build on our current programs. As a shopping centre, Oakville Place is committed to finding new ways to reduce energy and waste."

Environmental responsibility is a continuing priority for Oakville Place. The shopping centre purchases energy from Bullfrog Power, uses an electric car for exterior security patrols, switched to 'pesticide-free' landscaping and has a full service organic and recycling program. This new program is the start to reducing Food Court waste by 50% within the next year.

Based on calculations that the average school child with a disposable lunch generates 30 kilograms or 67 pounds of waste annually, and that this works out to 737 kilograms or 1,625 pounds of waste per year for every 25 students**, the waste reduction is expected to be substantial.

Oakville Place Shopping Centre is located at the Trafalgar Road exit on the Q.E.W., 25 minutes west of downtown Toronto and convenient to the Oakville GO station. For further information call Oakville Place at (905) 842-2140 or go to www.oakvilleplace.com.

Through implementing a landmark, earth friendly strategy, the Food Court at Oakville Place shopping centre is dishing up a lot less waste! As of May 1 diners have the option of selecting their own restaurant quality, washable plate, reducing the amount of waste generated by disposable plates. Don’t worry! It doesn’t mean having to wash your own dishes!

http://thegreenpages.ca/portal/on/2009/05/oakville_place_introduces_dine/