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Editor's
Notes:
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World
Water Monitoring Day is September 18. The Water Environment
Federation (WEF) invite citizens and organizations from around the globe
to perform basic monitoring of their watersheds between September 18 and
October 18.
The PADEP announced $154 million in
Growing Greener II grants to preserve open space and farmland, protect
watersheds, reclaim abandoned mines and remediate acid mine drainage. If
your organization received a grant and would like assistance with
implementation, please contact info@fxbrowne.com.
Company President and
founder, Frank X. Browne, Ph.D., P.E.
during the early days of F. X. Browne, Inc.
Photo courtesy of Ken Wagner
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Topic
of the Month:
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY F. X. BROWNE, INC!
CONGRATULATIONS ON 30 YEARS OF SERVICE
September 2007 marks the 30-year anniversary
of the founding of F. X. Browne, Inc. by our President, Frank X. Browne,
Ph.D., P.E. Over the years, F. X. Browne, Inc. has become known as a
leader in the field of science-based environmental consulting using the
latest innovative techniques and cost-effective management practices. More...
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Back in 1977, When F. X. Browne, Inc.
Began....
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Elvis Presley died. Fleetwood Mac released Rumors and
the #1 song of the year was You Light Up My Life by Debby
Boone.
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A first-class stamp cost $0.13 and a
gallon of regular gas cost $0.62 (you still had to specify
"unleaded" at the pump).
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Star Wars and Saturday Night
Fever hit the movie theaters. People didn't have
VCRs or even Betamaxes yet.
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Voyager 1 was launched and the space
shuttle Enterprise took its first flight. The Commodore PET2001 and
Apple II PCs were released, two of the first PCs to go on the market.
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Indigenous protestors in the Philippines
forced the World Bank to withdraw its financial backing for the
construction of four large dams along the Chico River, energizing a
global movement to protect rivers and resist new dam building.
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News Clips:
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Study Looks at Currents, Wind Impact on Pollution
Rutgers University and Monmouth County,
NJ, experts are looking at
the links between winds, currents and water cleanliness. More...
DEP Fines Jersey Shore Borough $3,000 for Sewage Planning Violations
PADEP has fined Jersey Shore Borough $3,000 for violating Act 537, the
Pennsylvania Sewage Facilities Act, in December 2006 and January 2007.
More...
State of PA to Developer: Weeds Gotta
Go
In an unusual
action, the PA Department of
Agriculture has ordered a developer to remove a state-designated noxious weed from wetlands
on his property. More...
New EPA Guidance on Watershed Permitting
EPA has published a new technical guidance that will help integrate
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits into
watershed management plans. More...
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Policy
Update:
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The draft 2007 Report on the
Environment: Highlights of National Trends was released for public comment and independent review by the U.S.
EPA. |
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A report from the March 2007 Experts Scientific Workshop, where 44
U.S. and international experts discussed critical research and science
needs for developing new or revised recreational ambient water quality
criteria in the near-term, is now available. |
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A new draft document
provides information on what data to collect when mapping wetlands that will
be uploaded to the National Wetland Inventory (NWI) and incorporated as
part of the wetlands layer of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI)
in the USGS National Map.
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The PADEP is seeking technical information
on water quality in several watersheds across PA for which it is doing a
stream redesignation evaluation. Data should be submitted no later than
September 10. The streams include: Bear
Run, Indiana & Jefferson Counties; Grinnage
Run, Greene County; Halter
Creek, Blair & Bedford Counties; Hotland
Run, tributary to Crum Creek Delaware County; and Sherman
Creek, Perry County.
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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is implementing a three-year pilot program to
allow people to buy Federal Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation
Stamps, commonly known as Duck
Stamps, online.
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American Rivers released its
report: What’s in Your Water: The State
of Public Notification in 11 U.S. States. The report finds that only one
state of eleven examined has adequate public notification requirements
for sewage spills.
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NYS DEC has confirmed
the presence of didymo in a
section of the Batten Kill in Washington County. This is the first known
presence of this aquatic nuisance algae, also called "rock
snot" in New York State.
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The Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment
Authority received U.S. EPA approval to use an innovative
financing approach using Clean Water State Revolving Fund money to
buy, sell, and create water quality trading credits.
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EPA is releasing Implementation Guidance for the Long
Term 2 (LT2) Enhanced Surface Water Treatment and Stage
2 (Stage 2) Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproducts Rules.
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Happy Birthday, Johnny Appleseed
On September 26, 1774, John Chapman, better known as Johnny
Appleseed, was born. He was a practical nurseryman, not a 'scatterer of
seeds' as people believed. He lived in Ohio and Indiana, wandering about
barefoot, clad in rags, tending the apple orchards he started wherever
he found a good spot. He walked alone without gun or knife. He chopped
down no trees and killed no animals.
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For forty-nine years he roamed the American
wilderness, devotedly planting apple trees. He created apple orchards in
the wildernesses of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana,
spanning an estimated area of 100,000 square miles. Some of these trees
are still bearing fruit after 150 years. http://www.geocities.com/tanseyjim/appleseed.htm
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Why Do We Celebrate Labor Day?
Labor Day, the first Monday in September,
is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and
economic achievements of American workers. "Labor Day differs in
every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any
country," said Samuel Gompers, founder and longtime president of
the American Federation of Labor. "All other holidays are in a more
or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man's prowess
over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved
by one nation over another. Labor Day...is devoted to no man, living or
dead, to no sect, race, or nation."
http://www.dol.gov/opa/aboutdol/laborday.htm
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Link of the Month:
Plan2Fund Objective Prioritization Tool (OPT)
Plan2Fund Objective Prioritization Tool (OPT), a free web-based Watershed
Planning Tool, provides an easy way for watershed groups to build consensus
as they evaluate competing goals and objectives. OPT allows users to rank
competing priorities by providing a user-friendly spreadsheet that makes
setting, weighing, and applying criteria simple. Watershed groups can set
their priorities with confidence and share the information with decision makers,
funders, and constituents. http://efc.boisestate.edu/opt
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Do It Yourself and Go Green
Want to find out how to build a rain garden,
make your own cloth grocery bags, or build a solar heater for your garage or a
wind generator for your yard? Instructables.com
has instructions for all kinds of do-it-yourself projects to help the nerd
in all of us be more environmentally conscious. Instructables has all
sorts of instructions, ranging from how to build your own Nintendo system or
homemade infrared goggles to instructions on how to kiss, pull a van uphill
with only a rope, or tear a phone book in half. Hours of entertainment!
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The website is also sponsoring the
Instructables,
Popular Science, and TreeHugger "Go
Green!'' Contest.
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New Tools and
Publications:
Two New Publications from the National Association of Counties (NACo)
NACo has updated a publication entitled Using GIS Tools to
Link Land Use Decisions to Water Resource Protection. The guide provides
practical case studies, a list of commonly available tools, and a newly
created tools assessment section. A second NACo publication, County Wetlands Data Guidebook,
is designed to help county officials obtain and
utilize wetlands data and maps for county purposes. These publications
are available now at http://www.naco.org/techassistance
under "Water
Quality."
Clean Water Act Jurisdictional
Handbook Released
Last year’s Supreme Court ruling in Rapanos v. United States
left regulators, activists, and landowners nationwide scrambling to understand
the scope of Clean Water Act jurisdiction over wetlands and streams. There is now a
comprehensive resource designed to shed light on the topic. The Clean Water Act
Jurisdictional Handbook, just released by the Environmental Law Institute (ELI),
lays out the various tests for Clean Water Act coverage under
current law. Additionally, the Handbook brings science to bear on the question
of determining CWA coverage for certain categories of wetlands and
streams. http://www2.eli.org:80/newbooks/cwa_handbook.htm
New EPA Water Quality Trading Guide Available
A new EPA publication will help the
regulated community design and implement voluntary water quality trading
programs consistent with EPA's 2003 National Water Quality Trading Policy.
The Water Quality Trading Toolkit for Permit Writers provides permitting
authorities with the tools they need to incorporate trading provisions into
required permits. The guide is focused on trading nitrogen and phosphorus, but
other pollutants may be considered for trading on a case-by-case basis. The
Toolkit discusses the fundamental concepts of designing and implementing trading
programs including the relevant geographic scope, effluent limitations and other
factors involved in defining a credit. http://www.epa.gov/waterqualitytrading/WQTToolkit.html
CWP Releases Latest Article in the Wetlands and Watersheds Article Series
Article 6 in the Center for
Watershed Protection series, "The Importance of Protecting Vulnerable
Streams and Wetlands at the Local Level," makes the case for expanded local
protection of vulnerable streams and wetlands that may not be fully protected by
state or federal law due to their perceived isolation from perennial or
navigable waters. This article summarizes state and local approaches to closing
this gap. http://cwp.org.master.com/texis/master/search/+/form/wetlands.html
Landowner's Guide to Phragmites Control
Available
The
Department of Environmental Quality's Office of the Great Lakes has released a
brochure focusing on the control of phragmites entitled, "A Landowner's
Guide to Phragmites Control." The guide was created to better demonstrate
and communicate effective treatment methods and regulatory requirements for
the invasive plant to the public and resource managers. http://www.michigan.gov/documents/deq/deq-ogl-Guide-Phragmites_204659_7.pdf
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Newsletter
Editor/ Design and Layout:
Rebecca
Buerkett |
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F. X.
Browne, Inc. – Environmental Consulting
Engineers – Planners – Scientists
30 Years of Excellence & Innovation
Corporate
Office: Lansdale, PA
Pocono Office:
Marshalls Creek, PA
New York Office:
Saranac Lake, NY
For more information, call us at (215) 362-3878 or visit:
http://www.fxbrowne.com.
For a printer
friendly version of the newsletter, click here.
Unless otherwise cited, all photos
in this newsletter © Rebecca Buerkett. Photos may not be used or reproduced without
permission.
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