AIR POLLUTION, EARTHQUAKES ETC.: 
CLEAN AIR:  IN THE NORTHEAST, AN OXYMORON?


An EPA power grab

By IAIN MURRAY & MARLO LEWIS
Last Updated: 1:20 AM, December 8, 2009
Posted: 12:06 AM, December 8, 2009

Environmental Protec tion Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson yesterday an nounced that the EPA has determined that global warming, allegedly caused by mankind's burning of fossil fuels, endangers public health.

The finding paves the way for a huge power grab by EPA bureaucrats -- indeed, more power than even they think they can handle: The likely regulatory cascade will end up with the EPA having complete control over the nation's energy supply and its use.

Large apartment buildings and hospitals would need EPA operating permits to continue running their furnaces. Lawnmowers and aircraft alike would be regulated for fuel economy like automobiles. And as the EPA orders a retooling or even closure of the nation's power plants, electricity prices would skyrocket, and blackouts would become common.

If you wanted to design an anti-stimulus package, you'd be hard-pressed to top this.

The EPA already holds massive power to stop energy projects. It has used its regulatory powers to hold up the construction of new coal, gas, nuclear and even renewable-power plants and electricity-transmission lines around the country. The US Chamber of Commerce's Project No Project Web site details hundreds of energy projects that could be providing many thousands of good jobs, but are now held up by regulatory delay (typically initiated by environmental groups).

Yesterday's finding will much expand those powers. It will trigger a regulatory avalanche that vastly expand the number of activities that require EPA permitting -- fast-food franchises, apartment buildings and hospitals will soon all have to face the same crushing federal bureaucracy that has bedeviled energy firms for years.

Essentially, the EPA's claim that it is obliged to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) as a pollutant will oblige it to impose costly, time-consuming permitting requirements on 1) tens of thousands of previously unregulated small businesses, under the Clean Air Act's Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) pre-construction permitting program, and 2) millions of previously unregulated entities, under the Title V operating-permits program.

The EPA recognizes the danger. It has issued a "tailoring rule" that warns that if PSD and Title V are applied "literally" to CO2 emissions, the permitting programs will crash under their own weight, construction activity will grind to a screeching halt -- and millions of firms will find themselves operating in legal limbo.

Realizing that this would still produce a thunderous political backlash, the EPA wrote the "tailoring rule" to limit its regulation of CO2 to facilities emitting 25,000 tons of gases a year -- even though the Clean Air Act requires it to cover facilities emitting just 250 tons.

That is, the EPA is trying to acquire the extra powers from the endangerment finding, while avoiding the accompanying duty of regulating small businesses.

But this blatant maneuver is unlikely to withstand legal challenge. The EPA will soon be blocking every new construction project you can think of.

The endangerment finding comes at a time when a batch of e-mails leaked from one of the most important climate-science research units in Britain has put the underlying science on which the finding is based under increased scrutiny.

The "Climategate" e-mails indicate likely manipulation of data, a concerted effort to prevent publication of skeptical views in the academic literature and an effort to hide data and methods in order to prevent outside researchers from checking the British scientists' results -- when such checking is the real test of knowledge in science.

The e-mails do not disprove that the world has been warming, or that fossil fuels have something to do with it -- but they do cast doubt on whether the current warming is in any way unusual.

That is an important consideration in deciding whether the current warming endangers human health and welfare. EPA's decision to simply ignore it and press forward with its endangerment finding represents a premature rush to judgment. Thus, the finding is a purely political move.

That is why we at the Competitive Enterprise Institute announced yesterday that we will file suit in federal court to overturn the endangerment finding on the grounds that the EPA has ignored major scientific issues, including but not limited to those raised recently in the Climategate scandal.

But lawmakers shouldn't rely on CEI to save America from the EPA's power grab. Congress should enact legislation, such as that offered by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), to make it plain that the Clean Air Act applies to emissions that directly threaten human health -- not ones that might be tied to climate change.

If Congress doesn't act, today's finding will destroy any hope of economic recovery. Millions of jobless Americans will have the EPA to thank for their misery.



Remember the Olympics August 2008?
Report Sees New Pollution Threat
NYTIMES
By ANDREW JACOBS
November 14, 2008

BEIJING — A noxious cocktail of soot, smog and toxic chemicals is blotting out the sun, fouling the lungs of millions of people and altering weather patterns in large parts of Asia, according to a report released Thursday by the United Nations.

The byproduct of automobiles, slash-and-burn agriculture, wood-burning stoves and coal-fired power plants, these plumes of carbon dust rise over southern Africa, the Amazon basin and North America. But they are most pronounced in Asia, where so-called atmospheric brown clouds are dramatically reducing sunlight in many Chinese cities and leading to decreased crop yields in swaths of rural India, say a team of more than a dozen scientists who have been studying the problem since 2002.

But the scientists who worked on the report said the blanket of haze might be mitigating the worst effects of greenhouse gases, by absorbing solar heat or reflecting it away from the earth. Greenhouse gases, by contrast, tend to trap the warmth of the sun and lead to a rise in ocean temperatures.

“All of this points to an even greater and urgent need to take on emissions across the planet,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, in Beijing, which the report identified as one of the world’s most polluted cities, and where the report was released. “The imperative to act has never been clearer.”

The brownish haze, sometimes more than a mile thick and clearly visible from airplanes, stretches from the Arabian Peninsula to the Yellow Sea. During the spring, it sweeps past North and South Korea and Japan. Sometimes the cloud drifts as far east as California.

The report identified 13 cities as brown-cloud hotspots, among them Bangkok, Cairo, New Delhi, Seoul and Tehran.

The report was issued on a day when Beijing’s own famously polluted skies were unusually clear. On Wednesday, by contrast, the capital was shrouded in a thick, throat-stinging haze that is the byproduct of heavy industry, coal-burning home heaters and the 3.5 million cars that clog the city’s roadways.

Last month, the government reintroduced some of the traffic restrictions that were imposed on Beijing during the Olympics; the rules forced private cars to stay off the road one day a week and sidelined 30 percent of government vehicles on any given day. Overall, officials say the new measures have remove 800,000 cars from the roadways.

According to the United Nations report, smog blocks from 10 percent to 25 percent of the sunlight that should be reaching the city’s streets. The report also singled out the southern city of Guangzhou, where soot and dust have dimmed natural light by 20 percent since the 1970s.

Rain can cleanse the skies, but some of the black grime that falls to earth ends up on the surface of the Himalayan glaciers that are the source of water for billions of people in China, India and Pakistan. As a result, the glaciers that feed into the Yangtze, Ganges, Indus and Yellow rivers are absorbing more sunlight and melting more rapidly, researchers say.

According to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, these glaciers have shrunk by 5 percent since the 1950s and, at the current rate of retreat, could shrink by another 75 percent by 2050.

“We used to think of this brown cloud as a regional problem, but now we realize its impact is much greater,” said Veerabhadran Ramanathan, who led the United Nations scientific panel. “When we see the smog one day and not the next, it just means it’s blown somewhere else.”

Although the clouds’ overall impact is not entirely understood, Mr. Ramanathan, a professor of climate and ocean sciences at the University of California, San Diego, said they might be affecting precipitation in parts of India and Southeast Asia, where monsoon rainfall has been decreasing in recent decades, and central China, where devastating floods have become more frequent.

He said that some studies suggest that the plumes of soot that blot out the sun have led to a 5 percent decline in the growth rate of rice harvests across Asia since the 1960s.

For those who breathe the toxic mix, the impact can be deadly. Henning Rodhe, a professor of chemical meteorology at Stockholm University, estimates that 340,000 people in China and India die each year from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases that can be traced to the emissions from coal-burning factories, diesel trucks and kitchen stoves fueled by firewood.

“The impacts on health alone is a reason to reduce these brown clouds,” he said, adding that in China, about 3.6 percent of the nation’s annual gross domestic product, or $82 billion, is lost to the health effects of pollution.

In Big Setback, Court Rejects Clean Air Rules
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 12, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court unanimously struck down a major component of President Bush’s clean air policies on Friday, effectively delaying further action on reducing smog and soot-producing emissions until the next administration takes office.

Administration Rejects Regulating Emissions (July 11, 2008) North Carolina and some electric power producers opposed aspects of the regulation, known as the Clean Air Interstate Rule, creating a rare instance in which President Bush found himself allied with enviromental advocates.

The act required 28 states, largely on the East Coast, to reduce the pollutants that can travel long distances in the wind, which the Environmental Protection Agency predicted it would prevent about 17,000 premature deaths a year.

”This the rare case where environmental groups went to court alongside the Bush administration,” said Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, a group that has criticized other Bush administration policies.

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the environmental agency overstepped its authority by instituting the rule. It said the Clean Air Act did not give the E.P.A. the authority to change pollution standards the way it did. Citing ”more than several fatal flaws,” the court scrapped the entire regulation.

”This is without a doubt the worst news of the year when it comes to air pollution,” Mr. O’Donnell said.

The environmental agency said the rule would have drastically reduced sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions, saving up to $100 billion in health benefits by preventing tens of thousands of heart attacks millions as well as lost work and school days.

While the Bush administration could appeal the decision, environmental groups called for Congress and the E.P.A. to quickly begin working on a new law or a replacement regulation.

The ruling was somewhat of a surprise, even to industry groups that had challenged aspects of the law. William M. Bumpers, a lawyer representing Entergy Corp., said a few electric companies flatly opposed the regulation but most generally favored it because it included cap-and-trade provisions that allow them to exceed emissions caps to buy credits from those who do.

“The power-generating industry had already invested billions and billions of dollars in anticipation of the trading market,” Mr. Bumpers said. ”They’re not happy with this development.”
Court overturns Bush air pollution rule 
DAY
Posted on Jul 11, 2008 11:45 AM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal appeals court has struck down an environmental rule that the Bush administration championed as crucial in protecting public health.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously rejected the Clean Air Interstate Rule, saying it found several flaws.

Announced in 2005, the regulation required 28 mostly Eastern states to reduce smog-forming and soot-producing emissions. Those chemicals can drift long distances in the wind. The EPA said the regulation would reduce pollution more than any clean air rule in a decade.

Advocacy group Clean Air Watch said the ruling was without a doubt the worst environmental news of the year and called on the Bush administration and Congress to quickly come up with a fix.
 Toxins reach remote lands:
DANGEROUS LEVELS: Study finds 20 parks that are contaminated.
Anchorage Daily News
By MATTHEW BROWN, The Associated Press
Published: February 27th, 2008 12:11 AM

BILLINGS, Mont. -- Pesticides, heavy metals and other airborne contaminants are raining down on national parks across the West and into Alaska, turning up at sometimes dangerously high levels in lakes, plants and fish.

A sweeping, six-year federal study released Tuesday found evidence of 70 contaminants in 20 national parks and monuments -- from Denali in Alaska and Glacier in Montana, down to Yosemite in California and Big Bend in Texas.

The findings revealed that some of the Earth's most pristine wilderness is still within reach of the toxic byproducts of the industrial age.

"Contaminants are everywhere. You can't get more remote than these northern parts of Alaska and the high Rockies," said Michael Kent, a fish researcher with Oregon State University who co-authored the study.

The substances detected ranged from mercury produced by power plants and industrial chemicals such as PCBs to the banned insecticides dieldrin and DDT. Those can cause health problems in humans including nervous system damage, dampened immune system responses and lowered reproductive success.

Contaminants that accumulated in fish exceeded human consumption thresholds at all eight parks that were studied the most: Sequoia and Kings Canyon, Mount Rainier, Olympic, Glacier, Rocky Mountain, Gates of the Arctic and Denali national parks and Alaska's Noatak National Preserve.

Also, mercury levels at eight parks and DDT levels at Glacier and Sequoia and Kings Canyon exceeded health thresholds for fish-eating wildlife. Kent said he found airborne contaminants are causing male fish to develop female organs in some parks.

Much of the contamination is thought to have come from overseas -- traveling global air currents from Europe and Asia.

But researchers said they were surprised to find substantial contamination from the local use of legal pesticides, particularly in agricultural areas around Glacier, Rocky Mountain and Sequoia and Kings Canyon parks.

A parks advocacy group called the federal report "a wake-up call" that should mobilize Congress to take a tougher stance on air pollution.

"We can take steps to reduce mercury emissions from power plants, steps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming," said Will Hammerquist with the National Parks Conservation Association.

The $6 million study is known as the Western Airborne Contaminants Assessment Project. It is the most comprehensive to date on the distribution and concentration of contaminants outside developed areas, according to the project's scientific director, Dixon Landers with the Environmental Protection Agency.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom that remoteness means less pollution, Landers said many of the parks -- particularly those at higher elevations and in colder climates -- actually are at higher risk.

Mercury from power plants in China, for example, is borne across the Pacific in clouds that rise up when they hit West Coast mountains. That causes the mercury to drop out of the clouds attached to rain droplets or snowflakes.

Over time, as the contaminants re-enter the atmosphere and then rain down again, they "hop-scotch" their way to higher elevations.

The study also included researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Forest Service.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The study at a glance

The study primarily examined three areas in Alaska:

• Denali National Park & Preserve, Wonder and McLeod lakes.

• Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve in the Brooks Range, Matcharak Lake.

• Noatak National Preserve near Kotzebue, Burial Lake.

The study found measurable concentration of contaminants in lake trout. Trout is a relatively long-lived fish species at the top of the food web, so mercury and other toxins are more likely to be found in them. They also are not eaten in great quantities by sport or subsistence fishermen, the Park Service said.

At Burial Lake, the average mercury concentration in lake trout was the highest among the parks studied.
School principal dies from Legionnaires' disease
DAY
Oct 3, 10:06 PM EDT

WEST HAVEN, Conn. (AP) -- Gov. M. Jodi Rell on Tuesday told state health officials to seek help from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in investigating two cases of Legionnaires' disease in West Haven, one of them fatal.

Howard Reed, 56, of West Haven, the principal at Garfield Elementary School in Bridgeport, died late Monday from the disease, the Connecticut Post reported. His son went to the school Tuesday morning to break the news.

"I felt this overwhelming responsibility for my dad to go to each classroom," Matthew Reed said. "I always heard he was in every classroom two to three times a day. I kind of wanted to take that walk that he would. It was important that I could do that for my dad."

Howard Reed died at Yale-New Haven Hospital, a week after he was diagnosed with the disease, a bacterial respiratory illness spread through air from a soil or water source. State health officials say there are 15 to 35 cases of Legionnaires' disease in Connecticut each year, and at least six people have died this year.
      
Rell said she was calling for federal help because it is important to find the source as quickly as possible to prevent more cases.

"Legionnaires' disease is not passed from person to person," Rell said, "but if there is a common source of contamination it needs to be rapidly identified and any necessary precautions need to be taken."

Dr. J. Robert Galvin, commissioner of the state Department of Public Health, said his agency is trying to determine whether the two cases are related. The other person who contracted the disease has been hospitalized. That person has not been identified.

Galvin said health officials have intensified surveillance of new cases of the disease. He said state health officials have briefed the CDC, which is providing its expertise.

Galvin said it was unusual for one town to have two cases of Legionnaires' disease at the same time.

Services for Reed are planned for Saturday in Milford.

It was not clear how Reed, a cancer survivor, contracted the disease.  State health officials told the Post last week that there was no reason to inspect Garfield School, which remains open. Parents have been advised that the school is safe.

Winter 'inversion' leads to air quality warning
Stamford ADVOCATE
By Tim Stelloh, Staff Writer
Published January 10 2008

Most people probably wouldn't associate bad air quality with winter.

But earlier this week, the state Department of Environmental Protection issued statewide warnings for "sensitive" groups such as the elderly, children and those with respiratory problems, because soot levels exceeded federal standards.

Unlike smog, or ozone pollution, which tends to increase on hot days, this week's spike had little to do with the spring-like weather, said Jude Catalano, a DEP air pollution control engineer.

It has to do with a phenomenon in which little wind leads to increased pollution near the earth's surface.

"In the winter, you get 'inversions' in the mornings and evenings. There's very little mixing of air," Catalano said. "It's like a cap that holds the pollution in closer to the ground level."

Monday, warnings were issued for most of the state's larger cities, including Stamford, New Haven and Waterbury, after officials found more than 35 micrograms of soot for every cubic meter of air measured within 24 hours in those areas, Catalano said.

Fine particle pollution can come from diesel exhaust, power plants and commercial boilers, among other things.

Tuesday, warnings were issued for Fairfield County's larger cities. Yesterday, as southerly winds picked up, the warning was called off, Catalano said.

Soot levels typically are 12 or 13 micrograms, though every winter for the last several years particulate levels spiked a half-dozen times from December to February, he said.

Federal levels used to limit the amount of soot measured in a 24-hour period to 65 micrograms for every cubic meter of air. In 2006, it was reduced to 35 micrograms.

The pollutants - which are a fraction of the size of a human hair and can be inhaled more easily than larger particle pollutants - have been associated with several health problems, including asthma in children, increased heart problems among the elderly and lung problems among young healthy adults, according to the American Lung Association.

A 2007 association report gave Fairfield County an "F" for its soot pollution.

"Connecticut has some of the most unhealthy air in the nation," said Margaret LaCroix, an association spokeswoman. "And Fairfield County is typically the worst."


Company shelves plans for "clean coal" power plant
DAY
Nov 28, 3:15 PM EST

MONTVILLE, Conn. (AP) -- A New Jersey-based power company said Tuesday that it will move ahead with its plans to build a natural gas-fired electricity generating plant in Montville, but has temporarily removed a "clean coal" component from the project.

NRG will build the $1.6 billion power plant so that the coal technology part can be added at a later date, said Ray Long, Northeast region director for the company said.

During the past year, NRG had proposed the "clean coal" plant as a way to use a cheap domestic source of fuel to produce electricity for 500,000 or more average-size homes while greatly reducing the effect on the environment.

NRG officials said they had to remove the "clean coal" portion from the final financial bids to be submitted next month because the company would not be able to meet a 2010 deadline set by the Department of Public Utility Control, among other reasons.
 
Long said NRG could have the coal technology portion built by 2013. He said the company had to modify its bids to meet DPUC specifications for the planned 630-megawatt plant.

The DPUC will soon be choosing a series of projects to receive state incentives designed to stimulate the construction of new power plants.

Environmental groups were already fighting the proposed Montville plant, saying the new coal technology still produces carbon dioxide, which, unless captured, contributes to global warming. The technology to capture the gas is still being developed.
NRG Energy On Environmental Groups' 2006 'Dirty Dozen' List;  Montville company calls criticism 'misinformed'
DAY
By Patricia Daddona
Published on 11/28/2006

State and local environmental groups have awarded NRG Energy Inc. in Montville and 11 other New England firms and agencies its 2006 “Dirty Dozen” prize for “threatening the environment.”

NRG owns and operates two gas- and oil-burning power plants in Montville, and proposes to replace them with a $1.5 billion combined-cycle natural gas facility. The facility could eventually be converted into a 630-megawatt “integrated gasification” combined cycle, or IGCC, plant that runs on coal.

On Monday, activists criticized the plan to build a gas plant first, calling it a “classic bait- and-switch” tactic, and awarded NRG a certificate with the “Dirty Dozen” label. But NRG maintains it can't build the cleaner coal plant fast enough to meet Connecticut's voracious energy needs.

If built, the converted plant would turn coal into a cleaner synthetic gas. With such a plant, most of the carbon dioxide emitted would be captured using advanced technology before it enters the atmosphere.

Sylvia Broude, a community organizer for the Toxics Action Center, a New England nonprofit watchdog, stood in front of the NRG property on Lathrop Road Monday with members of the Sierra Club, Clean Water Action and New London County Earth Day. Douglas Wray of the Earth Day group held a poster labeling the NRG proposal a “Trojan horse.”

Broude said NRG was using cleaner gas power as a lure for the less proven new coal plant.

“There's nothing clean about coal,” said Broude. “NRG needs to know that Connecticut residents are not fooled by this classic bait and switch.”

NRG decided to build a natural gas facility first, instead of an IGCC plant, because the state Department of Public Utility Control, which is seeking bids on new or revamped power generation, has found the state will need new plants in place by 2010 or 2011, said Ray Long, director for the company's Northeast Region.

“We don't believe we could get an IGCC plant built until about 2013,” said Long. “That effectively took that proposal off the table. What made the most sense to us was to bid a combined cycle plant and run it off of natural gas. It gives the state the option to come back and seek out coal power at a later time.”

The DPUC, the state's utility regulator, hired a consultant to assess state needs and design a bidding process for new generators. That consultant, London Economics, determined that as much as 312 more megawatts are needed in Connecticut next year “due to immediate deficiencies in supply.”

NRG could place a bid for its proposal on Dec. 13, along with 19 other bidders who have submitted qualifications to bid with the DPUC. Most of the data submitted so far, as well as the bids in December, are or will be confidential.

The DPUC plans to award bids early next year.

According to Broude and Roger Smith, a campaign director with the group Clean Water Action of Hartford, the converted coal facility, if built, would produce 5 million tons of carbon dioxide and 100 pounds of mercury. Even if most emissions were captured, small amounts of mercury would accumulate in water and soil and pose health risks to women of childbearing age, they said.

They would like to see environmentally cleaner options like wind and solar power or fuel cells, they said.

Long argues that the IGCC plant is the best technology available today because 65 percent of its carbon dioxide emissions are captured, which makes its emissions rate comparable to that of a natural gas plant. More than 90 percent of the mercury is removed, he added.

The gas and, possibly, IGCC plant together would “ultimately ... displace other older plants in the state that are mercury emitters, so the emissions are going to be driven down by the new plants,” Long said.

He declined to say how much the natural gas combined cycle plant would cost.

Other “Dirty 12” awards went to T.F. Greene Airport in Warwick, R.I.; Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee in Vernon, Vt.; the New York Department of Environmental Conservation and the Environmental Protection Agency in Albany and New York City, and several other companies from Maine to Massachusetts.
 
Decision a boost for cleaner air in Connecticut
Norwalk HOUR editorial
August 21, 2006

Connecticut, along with other Northeastern states, has won a significant victory for cleaning up the air that travels our way, propelled by the jet stream.
The pollution that spews over this state and our neighbors is generated by coal-burning power plants in the Midwest.

We can thank the U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago for this important step in cleaning up the atmosphere.

At stake are the efforts of the Northeastern states to force power plants to install better pollution controls to cut down the emissions that contribute to acid rain — the cause of environmental damages to our lakes.  Add to this the impact the airborne pollution has on young children who suffer daily asthma attacks and you have some idea of the ruling's significance.

We are aware of the strength of the coal lobby and its extensive television ad campaign selling the idea of cleaner-burning coal. That sounds like an oxymoron to us.
The crux of the state's argument will force the power plants to take yearly measurements of pollution rather than hourly ones as sought by the generating plant operators.
Hourly tests, according to the experts, would allow plants to operate no dirtier but more frequently, creating more pollution.

There is, of course, a caveat here. Given the resources of the coal and energy industries, you can bet the farm that this will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
State Joins Pollution Compact
December 16, 2005
By MARK PAZNIOKAS, Courant Staff Writer

Gov. M. Jodi Rell agreed Thursday to enroll Connecticut in a regional plan to reduce greenhouse gases.  Connecticut is expected to be one of seven Northeastern states signing on to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which sets goals for reducing carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants beginning in 2009.
 
"The agreement creates incentives that will reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and help free our economy from the price volatility of world oil and gas markets," Rell said.  After years of negotiation, Thursday was the deadline for committing to the regional compact.

Some environmentalists had feared that Rell might join fellow Republican governors in Massachusetts and Rhode Island by backing away from a tentative deal intended to encourage utilities to shift to cleaner-burning plants.  Gov. Don Carcieri of Rhode Island and Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts each raised concerns that the plan could drive up electricity rates. Romney had sought a cap on what power plants would have to pay if they exceeded emissions limits.

Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal told The Associated Press that Rhode Island wants more time to review the plan's impact on energy prices.  But Rell said she was satisfied the agreement is structured to protect consumers from major increases in energy costs.

"We worked hard to make sure there are not unacceptable cost implications," said Gina McCarthy, the environmental protection commissioner, who represented Connecticut in the talks.  The formal plan has yet to be released, but a draft proposal requires a 10 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020. Utilities that exceed the goals could sell credits to companies that do not.

The market approach "has been a very effective tool that's been used in our air programs over a decade," McCarthy said.  The other states expected in the plan are Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey and Delaware.  The plan is the latest effort in the Northeast to reduce air pollution.

The New England governors and Eastern Canadian premiers pledged in 2001 to reduce greenhouse gases.  The New England Climate Coalition has graded the six states and five provinces on their progress. Connecticut's grade this year was a B, the highest mark given to any of the states. 
Counties told to clean up polluted air
By Hoa Nguyen, Greenwich TIME
January 10, 2005

Fairfield and New Haven counties, which federal officials said have the most polluted air in New England, must work with nearby New York and New Jersey counties on ways to clean up the region's air pollution.

Fairfield and New Haven counties, 10 counties in northern New Jersey and New York City's five boroughs and Orange, Westchester, Rockland, Nassau and Suffolk counties together violate air quality standards for fine-particle pollution.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's final December finding requires the state to submit a pollution reduction plan by 2008. Efforts by Connecticut officials to appeal the EPA's decision so far have been unsuccessful.  The finding "essentially sets an obligation for Connecticut to work with New York and New Jersey," said David Conroy, the EPA's manager of air quality planning for this region.

High concentrations of fine particles are unhealthy, especially for people with heart, respiratory and lung diseases. Studies have linked particle pollution with asthma attacks, heart attacks, lung cancer and strokes, according to the American Lung Association.  Airborne particles and drop-lets come from cars and trucks, open burning of waste, wildfires, fireplaces, cooking, dust from roads and construction, agricultural operations and coal- and oil-burning boilers, according to the EPA.

In Fairfield County, air quality actually meets EPA standards set in 1997, which say that concentrations of particles as small as 2.5 microns in diameter -- or about 30 times smaller than human hair -- must not exceed 15 micrograms per cubic meter.  In Bridgeport, Stamford and Norwalk, the annual average of particulate matter hover around 13 micrograms per cubic meter, according to the EPA.

"It's meeting EPA's current standard but you know it's still high,'' Conroy said. "Fairfield County as well as New Haven County probably has some of the most elevated levels in New England."

Fairfield County's pollution levels and contribution to the traffic that enters New York City means that the area is part of a regional problem and should join the effort to collectively improve air quality, Conroy said.  In New York City, some monitors exceeded EPA standards by registering particulate matter between 15 and 17 micrograms per cubic meter.

But it's unclear what Connecticut could do to lower New York's readings, said Michael Geigert, a member of the state Department of Environmental Protection's air management bureau, which will help prepare the state's pollution reduction plan.

"The question we might have is what can Connecticut do to reduce levels in New York City," he said.

Although Connecticut won't be on the hook for a specific reduction in particulate matter concentrations, it will be asked to work with officials from the other states and to present programs in its own state to reduce air pollution, Conroy said.  Given the high volume of traffic in and out of New York City, reductions in motor vehicle emissions and diesel engine operations should be one of the things Connecticut considers, he said.

"There's challenges to developing a plan where you have multiple states involved, but EPA will be setting forth guidance," Conroy said. "We intend to give the states flexibility to implement programs that make sense given their contribution to the problem."

Once the plans are submitted in 2008, states will have until 2010 to bring particulate matter concentrations in line with standards.


Several schools raise concerns over artificial turfs
Danbury News-Times
Associated Press
September 17, 2007

STAMFORD -- Some critics of modern technology that is being used to replace natural grass with synthetic turf on athletic fields around Connecticut are calling for a moratorium until more scientific study is done.

Some people believe there are potential environmental and health risks because the material used as cushioning in the fields — ground-up rubber tires — may release harmful chemicals.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has called for $200,000 in state funding for further research after the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven released results of a study of the materials, known as tire crumbs.

The study, which was funded with a $2,000 grant by New Haven-based Environment and Human Health Inc., found that under laboratory conditions, the crumbs released at least four compounds under slightly elevated temperatures that can irritate eyes, skin and mucous membranes.

However, the lead author of the study says the work shows that additional studies are needed, since their testing was done in the lab, not out in the field.

"What we feel this work suggests is additional studies need to be done at actual installed fields," Mary Jane Mattina said. There are a lot of these fields being installed and the answers to these questions aren't out there."

Nancy Alderman, Environment and Human Health's president, said the results of the Connecticut study show enough information to halt the installation of new fields, at least until more work is done.

Rick Doyle, president of the Synthetic Turf Council, an industry group based in Atlanta, cited various studies, including one by FIFA, the international governing body for soccer, that have not found harmful health effects from the fields.

"If Connecticut feels it needs to look at it another time, it's up to them," Doyle said.

Blumenthal, who advocates further study, said there should not be a rush to stop using or installing the fields.

"I can understand the confusion and doubt because we don't have all of the answers," Blumenthal said. "I'm simply trying to be completely honest, as a non-scientist and a non-technician, in digesting what I've read and heard from experts, which is that there are several points of view."

An Earthquake Rattles the Midwest
NYTIMES
By Patrick J. Lyons
April 18, 2008,  9:43 am

People don’t often think of Illinois and California as two peas in a pod, whether culturally, politically, economically or demographically. But a rattling reminder came early this morning that deep down below the surface (say, six miles deep), they do have something big in common geologically: Both states are earthquake country.

At 4:36 a.m. Central daylight time, a quake of magnitude 5.2 (revised from an initial 5.4) struck the southeastern part of the state, centered five miles from Bellmont, a tiny farm town close to the Wabash River, which marks the border with Indiana.

For a quake that has not so far yielded any reports of injury or significant damage, it sure was felt far and wide: The Associated Press says it was felt as far away as Milwaukee and Cincinnati, and that skyscrapers in Chicago and Indianapolis were set to shimmying (that’s good news, compared to cracking and crumbling). An early morning radio host all the way over in Des Moines reported feeling her desk chair roll and shake beneath her. Even Grand Rapids, Mich., noticed the rumble.

The epicenter lies near the edge of a mid-American hot spot for earthquake activity stretching down the Mississippi valley from southern Illinois to northeast Arkansas. The zone doesn’t produce nearly as many noticeable earthquakes as the fault complex running down the West Coast, and in the popular mind, California has owned the Earthquake Country brand at least since San Francisco famously crashed and burned in 1906. (Odd coincidence: That one was on April 18, too.)

But the tectonic forces grinding and snapping away deep in the planet’s crust tend to do their thing without much reference to the public relations implications, and once in a while bring the unwary up short. A quake only one notch stronger in magnitude — a 5.3 — toppled chimneys, cracked plaster and broke windows across southern Illinois in 1968.

And a Big One is hardly out of the question: The fault running up the Wabash Valley that scientists are initially thinking may have been responsible for this morning’s temblor is part of the same system that produced two of the three strongest earthquakes ever recorded in the Lower 48: The New Madrid, Mo., quakes of December 1811 and February 1812, each thought to have been magnitude 8 or greater. (The strongest was a magnitude-9 whopper in the Pacific Northwest in January 1700, known mainly by the tsunami it created that lashed Japan.)

Update | Noon Eastern time

As many people are pointing out in the comment thread below, a second shock struck in almost the same location at 10:14 a.m. Central time. This one was somewhat weaker — 4.6 magnitude — but was still felt over a wide area. Many smaller aftershocks have also been recorded.

On the damage front, the Associated Press has word of a collapsed porch on a house in Mount Carmel and some fallen masonry in West Salem, but no reports of injuries. That’s about what you’d expect from a quake of this size.

Update | 5:00 p.m. Eastern

Thanks to the scores of people who shared their experiences in the comment thread, and to those who pointed out that an earlier version of this post referred incorrectly to Mount Carmel, Ill., as New Carmel.
More reports of building damage have been picked up by the news wires, mainly cracking masonry and the like, including an apartment building in Mount Carmel that had to be evacuated and a building in Louisville, Ky., that dropped a bunch of bricks on the surrounding pavement. Inspectors have been out checking bridges, power plants and other large structures to make sure nothing important shook loose, so far with happily negative results, the Associated Press reports.