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Editor's
Notes:
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Happy Engineers
Week on February 18-24!
The next Growing
Greener Grant application period is now open in PA. Applications are
due April 13. F. X. Browne, Inc. has had good success in helping our
clients obtain Growing Greener funding in the past. If you have a
project in mind, please contact us at info@fxbrowne.com. The
DEP is holding an information
session on February 8 at DEP’s Northeast Regional Office in
Wilkes-Barre.
American Rivers has extended their River
Photo Contest deadline to February 28. Finalists in three
categories: Best River Photo, Best Photo of People and Rivers, and Best
Wild & Scenic River Photo will be featured as eCards on their
website
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Topic
of the Month:
Conservation
Subdivisions Profit More than Just the Environment
Conservation
subdivisions are known to be more friendly to the environment than
traditional subdivisions. A study by Wayne State University Researchers shows that conservation
subdivisions are more friendly to the wallet as well. More...
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Buy a Computer, Plant a Tree
Michael S. Dell, founder of Dell
Computers, has a new goal:
planting trees. He said Dell would
begin a program called "Plant a Tree for
Me," asking
customers to donate $2 for every notebook computer they buy and $6 for
every desktop PC. The money would be given to the Conservation Fund
and the Carbonfund, two nonprofit groups that promote ways to reduce
or offset carbon emissions, to buy and plant trees.
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News Clips:
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Schuylkill's EAC Proposes Tree Cutting Ordinance
Schuylkill Township's Environmental
Advisory Council (EAC) is going beyond tree appreciation and urging an
ordinance to protect the trees and make it harder for property owners to
cut down vegetation. More...
Lake Wallenpaupack Watershed
Management Plan Now Available Online
The Lake Wallenpaupack Watershed
Management District (LWWMD) and F. X. Browne, Inc. recently completed an
update to the 1982 Lake Wallenpaupack Watershed Management Plan, which
is now available for download on the LWWMD's
website. More...
Bradford County PA Stream
Stabilization Funding Available
More grant funding will be made available
to Bradford County residents later this year for stream stabilization
projects. More...
Washington, D.C. Gets Greener
The Washington, D.C. Council recently passed a
bill requiring all new commercial buildings over 50,000 square feet to
meet the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards
of the U.S. Green Building Council. More...
Wetlands Curb Hog Hormones in Wastewater
Hog-farm operators have begun incorporating constructed
wetlands into their wastewater treatments to reduce nitrogen and
phosphorus in the effluent so that it can be spread onto crop fields
without causing environmental harm. But until recently, little research
had been done to investigate the system's potential to diminish hormones that hogs
excrete into wastewater. More...
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Policy
Update:
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PA Governor Rendell announced
the investment of $2.2 million in Pennsylvania’s municipalities,
municipal authorities and public school districts that will help to
improve public health and utility service by financing improvements to existing sewage facilities
and drinking water systems using new or innovative technologies |
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A recent
study by the US Geological Survey (USGS) has confirmed that proprietary additives
used to remove or prevent
dangerous ice buildup on aircraft are responsible for observed toxicity to aquatic life. |
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The PA DEP is inviting comments on a
proposed Total
Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for Coon Run Watershed in Crawford County.
DEP will hold a public meeting on February 1 at the Northwest Regional
Office in Meadville. Comments are due March 6. |
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A 15 year extension to the federal Abandoned
Mine Lands Trust Fund was recently passed that will deliver over $1
billion to Pennsylvania for abandoned mine reclamation.
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A
proposed
EPA rule would provide a financial incentive to states to use fees
when running a clean water permit program. EPA's rule would allot up
to three percent of state water pollution control grant funds to
states that have adequate National Pollutant Discharge Elimination
System (NPDES) permit fee programs. |
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Thirty
states and five territories will share $10 million in BEACH
grants for beach water-quality monitoring and public notification
programs. |
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The
PA DEP is requesting public comments on Total
Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) Plans in four Pennsylvania watersheds,
including Mill Run and Beaverdam Brach Watersheds (Cambria & Blair
Counties), Wells Creek Watershed (Somerset County), and Wisconisco
Creek Watershed (Dauphin & Schuylkill Counties). DEP is holding
separate public
meetings for each proposed TMDL during February 6-7. |
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The
multibillion-dollar cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay, which government
officials had pledged would succeed by 2010, will likely miss
that deadline by a wide margin - and, at the current pace, might
drag on for decades more, an EPA official acknowledged. |
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The
Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) has announced three
February meetings to give the public an opportunity to provide
feedback on the Interstate Flood Mitigation Task Force’s flood loss
reduction and flood mitigation draft recommendations for the Delaware
River Basin. |
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The
PA DEP is inviting comments on proposed Total
Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) Plan in the following watersheds:
Mahanoy Creek Watershed, Colmbia, Northumberland and Schuylkill
Counties (meeting February 6); Spring Run Watershed, Elk County
(meeting February 15); Walley Run Watershed, Clarion and Forest
Counties: (meeting February 15). |
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Each year, in affiliation with The Library of
Congress Center for the Book, River of Words conducts a free international
poetry and art contest for youth on the theme of WATERSHEDS. The contest
is designed to help youth explore the natural and cultural history of the
place they live, and to express, through poetry and art, what they
discover. About 100 poems and artworks from both US and international
entries are selected as finalists each year. The deadline for entry is
February 15. http://www.riverofwords.org/contest/index.html
2006 International
Art Prize Winner
Boat of Hong Kong by Leung Man Wai, age 11, Hong
Kong, China
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Famous Love Quotes
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 Falling
in love consists merely of uncorking the imagination and bottling the
common sense. -Helen
Rowland
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I will make love my greatest weapon and none on who I call can defend
against its force. My love will melt all hearts liken to the sun whose
rays soften the coldest day. - Og Mandino
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The
lover knows much more about absolute good and universal beauty than any
logician or theologian, unless the latter, too, be lovers in disguise. -
George Santayana
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When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know
peace. - Jimi
Hendrix
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Neither
a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to
the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius. --Mozart
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Link of the Month:
Ecosystem-Based Management Tools Network
Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM) is an
innovative management approach to address the challenges of protecting
ecosystems in light of human impacts on the earth. It considers all
ecosystem components, including humans and the environment, rather than
managing one issue or resource in isolation. EBM tools are software or other
processes that can help implement EBM by:
- Providing models of ecosystems or key
ecosystem processes.
- Generating scenarios illustrating the
consequences of different management decisions on natural resources and
the economy.
- Facilitating stakeholder involvement in
planning processes.
The EBM Tools Network is an alliance of EBM
tool developers, practitioners, and training providers to develop EBM tools
and support their use in EBM implementation in coastal and marine
environments. http://www.ebmtools.org/
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EPA Launches New WaterSense Label
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The EPA is releasing a final specification
for the latest generation of water-saving, high-efficiency toilets.
Those that use less than 1.3 gallons per flush and meet performance
standards for quality will qualify for EPA's new WaterSense label to
help consumers make informed buying decisions about water-efficient
products.
Toilet usage accounts for nearly
one-third of home water consumption. It is estimated that
high-efficiency toilets can reduce water bills by about 10 percent.
Replacing older, inefficient toilets could save more than 900 billion
gallons of water a year - enough to supply almost 10 million households.
http://www.epa.gov/watersense/
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New Tools and
Publications:
Hudson River Estuary Document Released
The New York DEC has released
The Hudson River Estuary Wildlife and Habitat Conservation Framework. This
framework describes key plants, animals and habitats in counties bordering the
Hudson River Estuary and identifies strategies for the protection of these
critical habitats. The report is intended to assist individuals, non-profit
groups and government officials in developing partnerships to conserve the
region's natural heritage and to protect this natural legacy. http://www.dec.state.ny.us/website/environmentdec/2007a/estuaryframework122706.html
Two New County Water Quality Issue Briefs Available
The National Association of Counties (NACo) recently released two issue
briefs published with support from EPA. The first issue brief, Using GIS Tools
to Link Land Use Decisions to Water Resource Protection, provides a list of
commonly used GIS tools available to help county leaders link land use decisions
to water resource protection. In addition, five county case studies are
profiled. The second issue brief, Total Maximum Daily Loads
(TMDLs) A Watershed
Planning Tool for Counties, is designed to provide local government staff and
officials with information to help navigate the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agencies Total Maximum Daily Load Program.
Latest CWP Wetlands Article
The Center for Watershed Protection just released a third article, Wetlands and
Watersheds Article 1: "Direct and Indirect Impacts of Urbanization on
Wetland Quality." The article reviews the current state of wetland science
as it pertains to impacts from urbanization and explores the potential
management implications for local natural resource managers and land use
planners. This article is the third in the
Center for Watershed Protection’s wetland series. http://www.cwp.org:80/wetlands/articles.htm
New Interactive Key to Wetland Monocots of the US
A new Interactive Key to Wetland Monocots of the US (ca.2400 taxa)
is available from PLANTS (plants.usda.gov). The data set was developed cooperatively by the Missouri Botanical
Garden and the USDA NRCS National Plant Data Center. The automated plant key lets you identify the monocots known to occur in U.S. wetlands.
http://npdc.usda.gov/technical/plantid_wetland_mono.html
New Geospatial Hydography Dataset
NHDPlus, a new National Geospatial Surfacewater Framework,
is a suite of application-ready geospatial products that build upon
and extend the capabilities of the National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) by
integrating the NHD with the National Elevation Dataset and the National
Watershed Boundary Dataset. NHDPlus includes an enhanced NHD stream network
with improved names, value-added attributes (such as stream order),
incremental drainage areas with landscape characteristics, and flow volume
and velocity estimates for pollutant dilution modeling. http://www.horizon-systems.com/nhdplus/
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Newsletter
Editor/ Design and Layout:
Rebecca Buerkett |
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