Updated their Tree Carbon Calculator

Recently, the Forest Service has updated their Tree Carbon Calculator so that it works nationally instead of just for California. You can find the updated version in their Climate Change Resource Center. The calculator runs off an excel platform.
>>see Center for Urban Forestry Research
http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/programs/cufr/

January: National Radon Action Month

During January’s National Radon Action Month, the U.S. Surgeon General and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) urge all Americans to protect their health by testing their homes for radon.

Radon is a natural radioactive gas that you can’t see, smell or taste but could be present at a dangerous level in your home. As the second leading cause of lung cancer deaths in the U.S. and the first leading cause among non-smokers, radon claims more than 20,000 lives annually. If a high radon level is detected in your home, you can take steps to fix it to protect yourself and your family.

The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation is offering a limited amount of free radon test kits to Tennessee citizens. Please mail your request to: Radon Program, 711 R.S. Gass Blvd., Nashville, TN 37216 or email your request to TDEC.Radon@tn.gov. Be sure to include your name, address, city, state and ZIP code.

Wetlands: are they important?

There is a good article in Nashville City Paper today concerning wetlands. I guess very few people get up in the morning and think "What can I do today to protect a wetland?" Few do. What do 'wetlands' do and why should we protect them and what do they have to do with the price of eggs (well, they don't have much to do with the price of eggs but they sometimes are associated with the price of development and/or the roads we build). A wetland is not just a swampy area that has sketters and we should avoid. It can be a complex ecosystem that supplies habitat for plants and animals you don't find anyplace else. We usually describe wetlands as what function they supply to the watershed: such as flood control(if the wetlands had not been destroyed outside of New Orleans, Katrina would not have been half as bad); ground water recharge; as I said before, they supply habitat for sensitive animals and their functions go on. But they are located and function best where mother nature has put them. If a road or development comes in and needs that space to develop on, then what do we do? If the state considers them to be large enough (and The Army Corps of Engineer also has input here) then a 'developer' would be required to mitigate for the destruction of them. To replace near by "on-site mitigation" is the best choice because wetlands function best in the watershed where they are located. There are wetland bank credits that can be purchased for mitigation, but they are pretty expensive. Read the article in the paper....
>>>Read More

City's 'All Green' Stormwater Plan Raises Eyebrows at EPA

By TARYN LUNTZ of Greenwire
Published: December 24, 2009

....The New York City, for example, which averages an overflow a week, a rainy day means 500 million gallons of filthy discharges pouring into waterways, according to nonprofit watchdog group Riverkeeper. That foul brew contaminates drinking water, forces beach closures and pollutes shellfish beds.

Most cities are working with U.S. EPA to curb overflows as part of a mandate to cleanse waters to federal standards.

But the traditional options are expensive. Philadelphia, for one, found it would need to build a $10 billion sewage tunnel under the Delaware River to solve its overflow problem the standard way -- with so-called "gray" infrastructure.

So the city is proposing an alternate solution: Invest $1.6 billion to turn a third of the city green in the next 20 years. The plan involves replacing streets, parking lots and sidewalks with water-absorbing porous pavement, street-edge gardens and trees.
>> Read the rest

Nearly Half U.S. Lakes in Fair to Poor Condition

WASHINGTON, DC, December 18, 2009 (ENS) - The condition of 56 percent of the lakes in the United States is rated as good and the remaining 44 percent are in fair or poor condition, according to a draft study released by today by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
>> See more

EPA's Proposed Effluent Limitation Guidelines Are Here

EPA announced last week the long-awaited proposed effluent guidelines for construction sites and released a pre-publication version (you can see it here). Once the guidelines are published in the Federal Register, comments are due to EPA within 90 days. For all of us who work in the erosion and sediment control field and whose work might be affected, it’s worth taking a look at the full document. But here, in a nutshell, are some of the highlights. The full title of the proposed rule is “Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Construction and Development Point Source Category,” and its intent is to tighten controls on discharges from construction sites by establishing technology-based effluent limits and performance standards. First, the rule calls for non-numeric limitations that require all dischargers to provide erosion and sediment control BMPs, which are specified in the rule. Additionally, sites of 10 acres or more would need to have a sediment basin, or something that controls sediment to the same extent. For certain sites, though—“large sites located in areas of high rainfall energy and with soils with significant clay content”—EPA proposes a numeric turbidity limit of 13 NTUs. Because this level is hard to achieve with fine silty and clay soils by settling alone, EPA says such sites will probably need to use active treatment systems, such as the addition of chitosan or other polymers to promote flocculation, followed by some type of filtration. It also mentions electrocoagulation as a technology capable of reducing turbidity levels. The sites subject to this 13-NTU limit would include those of 30 acres or more with an average soil clay content of more than 10% and a rainfall erosivity factor (the “R” factor from the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation) of 50 or greater. (If you view the complete document, see Option 2 for more details on which sites would be subject to the numeric limit and what other possibilities EPA considered.) In areas for which the R factor hasn’t been calculated, total annual rainfall will be used as a criterion. (Discharge from rainfall exceeding the local 2-year, 24-hour storm, however, would be exempt from the limit.The proposal addresses the concern that polymers might be overused at some sites, and that discharges from those sites would be toxic. It judges the likelihood of this problem occurring to be low, however, citing the widespread use of polymers in wastewater treatment facilities. EPA is also asking for comment on setting a turbidity limit in the range of 50 to 150 NTUs, based on passive treatment. See the document for a discussion of this option. EPA says the rule will cost about $1.9 billion per year, and the document includes a detailed discussion of how it arrived at this figure.http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/guide/construction/

Managing Wet Weather with Green Infrastructure Action Strategy 2008

This Green Infrastructure Action Strategy is the product of collaboration among many agencies, organizations and individuals. The following organizations are primarily responsible for coordinating the development of this first iteration of the action strategy:

• American Rivers
• Association of State and Interstate Water Pollution Control Administrators
• National Association of Clean Water Agencies
• Natural Resources Defense Council
• The Low Impact Development Center
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

For more information on green infrastructure planning and implementation, and partnerships, visit the green infrastructure website at: www.epa.gov/npdes/greeninfrastructure
>>See Strategy
http://www.stormwaterpa.org/assets/media/benefits/gi_action_strategy.pdf