News

11/16/10

Urban streams commonly have low abundances and poor diversity of many freshwater insects that fish and other aquatic animals eat. Even after people have restored these stream habitats, the waterways often remain biologically impoverished, with diminished numbers of fish. New research reported Nov. 8 at the annual meeting of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) in Portland, Oregon, has identified a probable culprit: pollutants in stormwater runoff that flushes through the streams.

Scientists have demonstrated that increasing urbanization leads to declining stream health, but they have struggled to pin down the causes. Urban stormwater runoff is a leading suspect. The force of runoff water rushing into these streams can cause physical damage to the streams' habitats. In addition, stormwater carries pollutants from numerous sources including vehicle exhaust, industrial plants, homes, and construction sites.

Kate Macneale and her colleagues at the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's Northwest Fisheries Science Center decided to focus on water quality's effects on the biological habitat of urban streams. They ran experiments to observe how runoff affected 35 types of insects that generally indicate good stream health and serve as valuable prey for juvenile salmon.

Alongside a creek in the Seattle area, the researchers set up a series of experimental channels, similar to rain gutters. They collected rocks that had been colonized by the insects from a relatively pristine watershed nearby and added them to the channels. Some channels received creek water that the scientists had filtered to remove most of its contaminants; the remaining channels carried unfiltered water. Analysis of the unfiltered creek water showed that it contained hydrocarbons, metals, and other pollutants.

The researchers placed fine-mesh nets at the channel ends to capture insects drifting downstream—a behavior that signals avoidance of some stressor. After a three-week period, they counted the numbers and type of insects that had drifted into the nets and those that had remained in the channels.

The first series of experiments, conducted during the autumn of 2007, showed no significant differences in insect survival between the filtered and unfiltered water, possibly because weak fall storms produced little runoff. However, in a second set of experiments during spring 2009, the researchers found that the overall abundance of insects remaining in the channels exposed to unfiltered water declined by about 26%. They also discovered that the species diversity in those channels had changed.

"Even relatively brief exposures to urban runoff can alter the diversity and abundance of stream communities," Macneale says. "We need to consider water quality in restoring fish habitat."

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10/26/10

If you had a leak in your roof or in the kitchen or basement, you’d probably think it a good idea to have it taken care of before matters got worse, and more expensive. 

If only we had the same attitude when it comes to the vast and intricately linked water systems in the United States. Most of us take clean and readily available water for granted. But the truth is that the nation’s water systems are in sorry shape — deteriorating even as the population grows and demand increases.

Aging and corroded pipes are bursting somewhere every couple of minutes. Dilapidated sewer systems are contaminating waterways and drinking water. Many local systems are so old and inadequate — in some cases, so utterly rotten — that they are overwhelmed by heavy rain.

As Charles Duhigg reported in The Times last March: “For decades, these systems — some built around the time of the Civil War — have been ignored by politicians and residents accustomed to paying almost nothing for water delivery and sewage removal. And so each year, hundreds of thousands of ruptures damage streets and homes and cause dangerous pollutants to seep into drinking water supplies.”

There is, of course, no reason for this to be the case. If this were a first-class society we would rebuild our water systems to the point where they would be the envy of the world, and that would bolster the economy in the bargain. But that would take maturity and vision and effort and sacrifice, all of which are in dismayingly short supply right now.

Improving water systems — and infrastructure generally, if properly done — would go a long way toward improving the nation’s dismal economic outlook. According to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, every dollar invested in water and sewer improvements has the potential to increase the long-term gross domestic product by more than six dollars. Hundreds of thousands of jobs would be created if the nation were serious about repairing and upgrading water mains, crumbling pipes, water treatment plants, dams, levees and so on.

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11/13/10

The temperature reading was a new scrap of information in the effort to answer one of the most urgent — and most widely debated — questions facing humanity: How fast is the world’s ice going to melt?

Scientists long believed that the collapse of the gigantic ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica would take thousands of years, with sea level possibly rising as little as seven inches in this century, about the same amount as in the 20th century.

But researchers have recently been startled to see big changes unfold in both Greenland and Antarctica.

As a result of recent calculations that take the changes into account, many scientists now say that sea level is likely to rise perhaps three feet by 2100 — an increase that, should it come to pass, would pose a threat to coastal regions the world over.

And the calculations suggest that the rise could conceivably exceed six feet, which would put thousands of square miles of the American coastline under water and would probably displace tens of millions of people in Asia.

The scientists say that a rise of even three feet would inundate low-lying lands in many countries, rendering some areas uninhabitable. It would cause coastal flooding of the sort that now happens once or twice a century to occur every few years. It would cause much faster erosion of beaches, barrier islands and marshes. It would contaminate fresh water supplies with salt.

In the United States, parts of the East Coast and Gulf Coast would be hit hard. In New York, coastal flooding could become routine, with large parts of Queens and Brooklyn especially vulnerable. About 15 percent of the urbanized land in the Miami region could be inundated. The ocean could encroach more than a mile inland in parts of North Carolina.

Abroad, some of the world’s great cities — London, Cairo, Bangkok, Venice and Shanghai among them — would be critically endangered by a three-foot rise in the sea.

Climate scientists readily admit that the three-foot estimate could be wrong. Their understanding of the changes going on in the world’s land ice is still primitive. But, they say, it could just as easily be an underestimate as an overestimate. One of the deans of American coastal studies, Orrin H. Pilkey of Duke University, is advising coastal communities to plan for a rise of at least five feet by 2100.

“I think we need immediately to begin thinking about our coastal cities — how are we going to protect them?” said John A. Church, an Australian scientist who is a leading expert on sea level. “We can’t afford to protect everything. We will have to abandon some areas.” 

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11/10/10

Neighborhood Parks Council (NPC) was awarded $175,000 from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to heighten local community involvement in the execution of the Blue Greenway through a Brownfields Area–wide Planning process. The Blue Greenway is San Francisco's vision for 13-miles of waterfront parks and trails running from the Giants' AT&T Park to Candlestick Point. Since 2003, NPC has advocated for this "green" corridor of activity, relaxation, and discovery along the Southeast shore of the city. Today the Blue Greenway gets one crucial step closer to becoming a reality.

Citywide momentum has been building on the Blue Greenway project over the last decade. San Franciscans' desire for a world-class waterfront along the eastern shoreline launched the Blue Greenway vision and led NPC to create a Task Force of more than 50 NGOs and government agencies to transform idea of the Blue Greenway into reality. This vision stresses contiguous waterfront revitalization that will include bike trails, parks, and other recreational opportunities that improve human and environmental health and neighborhood vitality. NPC's advocacy efforts also led to the adoption of the 2008 Parks Bond, which granted $22 million to the Port of San Francisco for several Blue Greenway projects now being planned for Port property.

"San Francisco is re-envisioning and revitalizing our Southeastern waterfront to create a Blue Greenway for future generations to enjoy," said Mayor Gavin Newsom. "Through the vision of the Port of San Francisco, the stewardship of the Neighborhood Parks Council, and support of the Environmental Protection Agency, this grant brings us another step closer towards realizing our vision of 13 miles of majestic waterfront parks and trails."

The geographic area of focus of NPC's Area-Wide Plan will include brownfield-impacted land currently not funded for remediation along the Blue Greenway alignment in Bayview, and India Basin. These neighborhoods represent the historical industrial heart of the city and are plagued by Brownfields, areas of containing industrial waste and toxins.

With the support of the EPA's Brownfields Area-Wide Planning Pilot Program, NPC will facilitate local engagement in area-wide planning of the Blue Greenway for the revitalization of the brownfield-impacted community of Southeastern San Francisco.  "EPA is excited to initiate this new program to help residents more fully participate in planning efforts in brownfields-impacted communities," said Jane Diamond, Director of EPA's Pacific Southwest Regional Superfund Division.  "With a combination of grant funding and technical assistance, EPA looks forward to seeing the results of the community's participation in the planning and development of the Blue Greenway in San Francisco."  

Drawing upon expertise from the Center for Creative Land Recycling (CCLR), EPA funding will also be used to generate an area-wide plan with the community that will address how to remediate and transform 5-10 areas along the Blue Greenway that continue to have negative health and safety impacts for adjacent low-income neighborhoods.

"The Blue Greenway project will completely transform our city, making the southeastern waterfront a world-class recreation destination that connects us to nature and creates a unique trail corridor for bikers, pedestrians, kayakers and others," Meredith Thomas, NPC Executive Director said. "To successfully implement this vision, we need to have strong leadership that will engage local residents in planning. Neighbors understand best what their communities need to become more green and prosperous."  

The NPC-led engagement process will give the neighbors an opportunity to express their open space, park and recreation needs.

CCLR is excited to be partnering with NPC on this important initiative designed to support a full community process for the development of parks and open space along our long neglected southeastern waterfront. CCLR will bring its expertise in the redevelopment of contaminated land having assisted hundreds of communities across the state with the clean up and revitalization of historically-neglected and environmentally-challenged property.

"In our work we witness the devastating effect that contaminated land can have on the landscape. The very existence of these neglected properties shrouded in some toxic mystery can have a suffocating effect on a community's sense of worth. We have also seen first-hand how the revitalization of these sites can breathe new life into old properties and lift the community spirit. We hope to bring this revitalization process to the southeastern waterfront," said Stephanie Shakofsky, Executive Director, CCLR.

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