Environmental News

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa, August 6, 2008 (ENS) - The past week has ushered in the summer’s most sultry weather to date, but in our household, we like basic fresh air, unconditioned. So we use windows and fans when necessary.

In 2007, our heat pump ran a total of 10 days the entire summer. Our total cooling cost for 2007: $20. Cool.

Our primary strategy is windows management. When we know it is going to be a hot day, we close our windows by 9 am to keep in the cool air from the night before and use fans if we need to. When outside goes from 65 to 87, the inside of our house goes from 67 to 78. Very pleasant.

A residential central-air system uses roughly 3,560 kilowatt hours per season.

Assuming seven cents per kwh and 13,000 households in Cedar Falls, if everyone used their central air, residents of Cedar Falls would spend $3.2 million to keep cool.

In contrast, if everyone cooled with fresh-air technology - in our case, 284 kwh per season for fans - the electric-cooling bill for the whole town would be $258,440. Nearly $3 million per year in savings for Cedar Falls.

And if you extend the same ballpark calculation to Black Hawk County, the savings would be $11.5 million per year; for the Des Moines metro area, $42 million; and for the whole state of Iowa, $267 million.

It takes a ton of coal to produce 2,343 kwh of electricity. An average household burns 1.5 tons of coal per season for cooling. A 3,000-pound air conditioner!

Burning 1.5 tons of coal to cool just one house for one summer emits roughly 12 milligrams of mercury. Assuming 12 weeks of cooling, that amounts to one milligram of mercury per week, either here or near whichever power plant that produced our electricity. And that is just for one household.

The Food and Drug Administration’s limit on mercury ingestion for a 45 pound child is 0.056 milligrams per week.

Our household also uses another well-proven cutting-edge technology - the linear evaporative solar-drying system - as environmental activist and author Bill McKibben calls it - otherwise known as the clothesline.

Do we really need clothes dryers? They consume 1,440 kwh per year.

Cedar Falls spends $1.3 million on clothes drying every year; Black Hawk County, $5 million; Des Moines metro area, $19 million; and the whole state of Iowa, $117 million, to dry our clothes while warming the planet.

We have a set of clotheslines outside for fresh air to do the work. In winter, we use clotheslines set up in the basement, plus clothes racks.

Adding things up, Cedar Falls residents spend $4.5 million on cooling and clothes drying every year. What would be the community economic impact of retaining a significant portion of that $4.5 million locally?

After looking at actual electricity and natural gas use of numerous homes in my community, I discovered that some homes use eight times more electricity than my household and four times more natural gas. The potential to trim energy waste is tremendous. Acting on that potential will add self-reliance and resilience to our economic vitality.

This is not a technological issue; it is a cultural one. It is a matter of commitment and public policies that encourage massive reduction in energy use.

And that - aggressive energy conservation in homes, businesses, schools, churches, government buildings and transportation - should be the highest priority for local and state government policies. We already know everything we need to know to cut our energy consumption by half, if not more.

By Kamyar Enshayan

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WASHINGTON, DC, August 6, 2008 (ENS) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to conduct a detailed study of the disposal methods used by hospitals, long-term care facilities, hospices and veterinary hospitals that wish to discard unused pharmaceuticals.

The EPA is seeking more information on the practices of the health care industry to inform future potential regulatory actions, and identify best management and proper disposal practices.

EPA has assumed that one facility in seven, approximately 3,500 facilities, would be selected to receive the detailed questionnaire.

To gather this information, the agency has drafted an Information Collection Request and is now seeking public input on the request form. Public comments on the Health Care Industry ICR will be taken for 90 days after it is published in the Federal Register, which should occur shortly.

Drugs taken for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems contaminate U.S. waterways, according to a March 2008 report by the Associated Press National Investigation Team. The findings confirm a 2002 report by the U.S. Geological Survey that was the first nationwide study of pharmaceutical pollution in the nation's rivers and streams.

The questionnaire is one of several actions the agency is taking to strengthen its understanding of disposal practices and potential risks from pharmaceuticals in water.

The agency also is commissioning the National Academy of Sciences to provide scientific advice on the potential risk to human health from low levels of pharmaceutical residues in drinking water.

The Academy will convene a workshop of scientific experts December 11-12, to advise the agency on methods for screening and prioritizing pharmaceuticals to determine potential risk.

"The agency's work to increase industry stewardship and scientific understanding of pharmaceuticals in water continues," said Benjamin Grumbles, EPA's assistant administrator for water.

"By reaching out to the National Academy of Sciences and requesting information from the health care industry, EPA is taking important steps to enhance its efforts," he said.

The EPA is also expanding a recent fish tissue pilot study to include samples from across the country to determine whether residues from pharmaceuticals and personal care products may be present in waterways and the fish that inhabit them.

Grumbles says the agency is developing a methodology to establish water quality criteria to protect aquatic life and is conducting studies to examine the potential occurrence of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in sewage sludge and wastewater.

The agency has developed analytical methods capable of detecting pharmaceuticals, steroids and hormones at very low levels, he says.

The EPA also is participating in an international effort with the World Health Organization to study appropriate risk assessment methods for pharmaceuticals as environmental contaminants.

All these actions reflect advice the agency sought and received from a broad range of stakeholders including environmental and public health groups, drinking water and wastewater utilities, state water and public health agencies, and the agricultural community.

Grumbles says that the EPA's approach to learning about pharmaceuticals and personal care products in water is aimed at strengthening scientific knowledge, improving public understanding, building partnerships for stewardship, and taking regulatory action when appropriate.

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TAMPA, Florida, August 6, 2008 (ENS) - Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo is planning to install a solar system that can generate enough clean energy to power the zoo's Skyfari sky ride and will be connected to the electric grid through the zoo's main power system.

The zoo will partner with Tampa Electric and the University of South Florida's Power Center for Utility Explorations to develop, design and test the 15-kilowatt solar photovoltaic system.

The project, which includes solar panels and an inverter, as well as educational displays that will be installed at the sky ride entrance, will cost approximately $575,000. It will be funded in part by a grant from the Florida High Tech Corridor.

The interactive demonstration project will allow more than one million annual zoo visitors to find out more about solar power and encourage its use.

"All of the zoo's exhibits and programs are designed to engage and inspire visitors to treasure the natural world and act wisely on its behalf," said Lex Salisbury, the zoo's president and chief executive.

"This partnership offers a great opportunity for the zoo to lead by example," Salisbury said. "By developing and testing a renewable solar energy system, we hope to reduce the impact on the environment by conserving conventional power."

"Our project seeks to deliver electric power that is not only reliable, but also compatible with a natural environment, in harmony with people and animals," said Alex Domijan, professor in the USF College of Engineering and director of the Power Center for Utility Explorations.

The partners will also examine ways to strengthen the electric grid to handle the reverse flow of electricity as a result of what could be a significant increase in renewable generation from larger loads or from a number of smaller systems.

These additional loads from individual or business renewable energy sources have the potential to affect the reliability of electric service for neighboring customers.

Domijan explained, "Although the electricity grid has been designed for a one-way transfer of power from central station generators to consumers, with the distributed generation system being developed at the zoo using on-site renewable energy sources, such as photovoltaics, the grid's controls can be adapted for reverse power flows."

In Tampa, an increasing number of electricity customers are becoming interested in generating their own power from renewable resources such as the Sun.

In 2008, Tampa Electric customers added more than 110 kilowatts of solar energy to their homes and businesses.

"Tampa Electric is pleased to partner with USF and Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo to study and encourage the use of solar power in our communities," said Tampa Electric President Chuck Black. "One of our company's strategic goals is to engage the community while dramatically improving Tampa Electric's environmental profile."

Black said the company policy is consistent with Florida Governor Charlie Crist's policy of developing more renewable energy resources in Florida.

The zoo solar project will allow Tampa Electric and the Power Center for Utility Explorations to train a new high-tech work force in power engineering, the partners said in a statement Monday.

They also view the project as a public education opportunity, saying that the climate change issues that fit within the project framework will be showcased at the zoo for all to experience.

Recognized as the #1 zoo in the United States by "Child" magazine, the 60 acre Lowry Park Zoo displays 2,200 animals in natural habitats, and features water play areas, rides and educational shows.

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