Sea of Distress 2017: The Foodservice Industry, Ocean Health, and Seafood Workers
Report ranks foodservice companies on their efforts to protect our oceans and seafood workers
by David Pinsky
October 24, 2017
Greenpeace’s Sea of Distress 2017 report evaluates and ranks 15 major U.S. foodservice companies on their commitments to sustainable seafood. How does your foodservice provider score?
Click here to download Sea of Distress 2017, Greenpeace’s second assessment of foodservice companies that feed millions of people every day who dine outside the home.
Unfamiliar to many, companies like Sysco, US Foods, Performance Food Group, Compass Group, Aramark, and Sodexo work to feed people in K-12 to university cafeterias, corporate dining halls, restaurants, sports arenas, amusement parks, hospitals, and home. These companies provide food and services for many clients from Google to Disney World, Burger King, Kennedy Space Center, Yosemite National Park, Florida State University, Hilton Hotels, and the Super Bowl.
This report identifies which major foodservice companies are leaders in responsible seafood and which are failing. While there are some improvements underway, several foodservice companies are still failing to provide responsible seafood.
Sodexo, Aramark, and Compass Group ranked highest yet again because of their focus on sustainable seafood, increasing their lead over the worst performers Maines Paper & Food Service, Shamrock Foods, and Elior North America. Each of the remaining nine profiled companies failed, including Sysco, US Foods, Gordon Food Service and Reinhart Foodservice. Performance Food Group overtook its competitor Sysco for fourth place and is close to receiving a passing score, while Centerplate and Delaware North are slowly improving as they devote more resources to responsible seafood.
Applauding industry leaders and exposing those lagging behind is key to getting foodservice companies to take responsibility to help protect our oceans and the people who depend on them.
Is the company providing food at your school, workplace, or favorite restaurant selling sustainable seafood? Learn more in Sea of Distress 2017.
The 2016 edition of Sea of Distress is available here.


Just as a highly irritated snake kills a man, nuclear plants silently kill mankind and nature for providing illegal money to the greedy contractors, officials and politicians ?
Nuclear Plants are just silent killers of man and Nature. In nature the Uranium ore contains 99.3% of Uranium-238 and the remaining 0.7% is Uranium-235 and they are almost harmless in nature. But greedy business people dig the Uranium ore and convert the least harmful Uranium-235 into the fuel form of Uranium-235 by purifying it to make it a fuel by enriching it from 0.7% to about 4%. It is packed into pellets which are put into Fuel rods and inserted into the core of the nuclear reactor for producing both electricity and Radioactive material for making the killer nuclear bombs. In the reactor when the nuclear atom is given a blow by a neutron, enormous intense heat and other poisonous Radio-active atoms like Xenon, Barium, Cesium, Strontium and Plutonium and a few neutrons are produced.
These radioactive substances are discharged into the air and water by several ways and they enter into the environment consisting of air, water and soil and foods like vegetables, fishes, prawns and they ultimately get into human beings and produce cancers and birth defects in generations of people for many decades to come.
These poisonous radioactive substances destroy natural and human life and culture and convert lands upto hundreds of kilometers into permanent nuclear burial grounds for ever.
1) AS A THREATENED COBRA KILLS A MAN, PURIFIED URANIUM IN REACTORS POISON MANKIND AND NATURE:
How the harmless Uranium ore materials in nature are converted by man into destructive and killer materials can be understood by the following simple example. For instance king cobras live in nature in anthills in forests and lead their normal life peacefully by catching their prey for food during nights. But greedy who want to extract their venom people go and poke their iron rods into their abodes and disturb the Cobras when they become angry and bite the trespassers to inflict death over them by their poisons. Similarly, the selfish business people are mining the harmless Uranium and converting it into harmful Enriched Uranium and then using it to produce electricity by means of the Nuclear plants and in the process they are producing Radioactive pollutants that poison man and nature as radioactivity gets into the environment. In course of time if an accident occurs in the Nuclear plant due to several reasons like in Fukushima or Chernobyl, the poisonous pollutants are thrown into the atmosphere and they kill thousands of people slowly and inflict cancer to millions of people living downstream upto hundreds of Kilometers as in case of Fukushima and Chernobyl accidents.
The Nuclear plant operators are misleading the public by stating that Nuclear power is safe and cheap just like the medical representatives of various pharmaceutical companies praise before the doctors about the virtues of their medical tablets and tonics as part of their sale promotion activity the nuclear authorities are praising the nuclear plants as safe and cheap energy producers which is a social crime. This misinformation is dangerous to public health and welfare because in European states almost all people agree that safety of Nuclear power is a Myth as accepted by Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany. She had consulted the genuine experts on nuclear plants and realized that nuclear safety is a myth and ordered for gradual closure of all the nuclear plants in Germany. If Indian Prime Minister and Union Cabinet Ministers including the Chief Ministers of the states want to know the truth about the safety of the nuclear power plants they must go and visit advanced countries like Germany and Japan and discuss the issue with foreign experts so that they can refrain from promoting nuclear plants as is done by the peoples leader like Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister of West Bengal. For more scientific details see the above web sites on this topic prepared by independent experts.
i) Center and State Government Nuclear experts are recklessly propagating that nuclear reactors are absolutely safe because firstly they are not at all experts as per Section 45 and 51 of Indian Evidence Act and they cannot understand nuclear safety as envisaged by the standards specified by International Atomic Energy Agency.
ii) The Government appointed experts have never studied how Fukushima reactors exploded only due to a series of human failures as had happened even in the case of Bhopal disaster. The experts never studied the case of Bhopal disaster to realize that human errors cause disasters for several reasons. The experts never studied even the 1985 reports on Environmental Impact Assessment report published by the British Government for 1100MW nuclear power plant at Sizewell including the risk analysis, disaster scenario depicting the travel of radioactive pollutants upto 160km from the reactor, the emergency evacuation procedures, rehabilitation of the victims and the cost benefit analysis. They have never studied even the causes and effects of nuclear reactor explosions in Three Mile Island in USA in 1979, the Chernobyl disaster in Russia in 1986 and Fukushima explosion in Japan in March 2011 and the damaging effects on public health and ecological systems and the enormous costs of compensation amounting to 4 lakh crores of rupees leading those countries to virtual economic bankruptcy.
3) SAFE LIGNITE COAL TO BE USED FOR ELECTRICITY PRODUCTION IS DIVERTED FROM TAMILNADU TO UTTARA PRADESH AND THRUST IMPORTED AND RISKY REACTORS OVER THE HEADS OF TAMILIANS:
While it was the duty of the experts to identify several alternate methods of producing the same amount of electricity in place of the proposed hazardous reactors they have omitted describing such alternatives by utilizing the cheaper, safe and socially acceptable solar power, wind power, natural gas and lignite coal which are available in plenty in India itself. The experts failed to point out to the state and central Governments that their plan to divert lignite coal from Neyveli of Tamilnadu to a far-off sate like Uttara Pradesh in North India to generate same electrical power amounts to denying the supply of electricity by using their own local resource instead of dumping on the heads of the people the most costliest and deadliest large reactors to be imported all the way of from the far off country like Russia. Such an action amounts to denying the right to life, right to health and right to livelihood of lakhs of people of Tamilnadu.
i) Since the Tamilnadu expert committee consists of 2 mechanical engineers, one commerce Post Graduate and one Physicist, they do not have the necessary academic background to grasp the fundamentals of the different kinds of radioactive substances in the natural background and their damaging impacts on the mode of braking the single strand and double strands of the helix in the DNA located in the Chromosomes present in the nucleus of the different kinds of cells present in different organs of humanbeings, animal population, marine fishery organisms and the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. They may not be in a position to grasp the food chains and food webs in nature through which the different kinds of radiation may enter the fisheries and other food. The biological magnification of some of these radioactive particles with both short and long half life spans are bound to cause prolonged damaging effects on normal cells and sperm cells which may result in the birth of mutilated and unnatural offspring.
ii) Consequently the state nuclear experts are disabled to grasp that any increase in radiation above natural background radiation is bound to damage the life systems by causing sickness including cancer and loss of immunity that are conducive for promotion of the incidence of several exotic diseases and new forms of ill-health in the organisms. Some of these experts blindly believe that as compared with the background level of radiation, their nuclear plants at Kudankulam containing one or more large sized reactors are going to contribute radioactive pollution to the Environment which will be negligible as compared with the background levels. These experts are blind to the real facts that a nuclear reactor discharges enormous amounts of radioactivity into the atmosphere and into the natural water courses like lakes and oceans on a very large scale as can be seen by the data published by several honest nuclear plant operators in other countries. See Website:
iii) The Indian experts also bluff the public by designating the nuclear accidents as excursions and nuclear plant locations which will be nuclear burial grounds as nuclear parks. They also do not know that nuclear reactors are responsible for several small scale, medium scale and large scale accidents running into hundreds of accidents per year as can be seen from the following website:http://www.ib.cnea.gov.ar/~protrad/biblioteca/3Accidentes.pdf (Item No.812, Page-115)
During all these accidents high levels of radioactivity will be discharged into the Environment but the plant owners never present the true facts to the public and hence the people only know these facts by the increased levels of cancer and birth defects among the population living in the vicinity of the nuclear plants in Rajasthan, Uttara Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamilnadu as assessed by the independent medical practitioners located in their respective areas. Thus nuclear plants are just silent killers of mankind and nature.
4) SAFETY OF REACTORS: In order to avoid the core melt-down, experts have provided a series of safety devices. One major line of defence is emergency core cooling system (ECCS) which provides an instantaneous water supply that keeps the core from melting. Another lineof defence is the concrete containment that surrounds the core and the pressure vessel so that even during a loss of coolant accident, no radioactivity will escape into the outside environment. Such engineering safety measures also fail sometimes. If the main pipe in the primary cooling breaks, immediately the control rods eliminate the nuclear fission process, halting the activity. But the radioactivity in the already disintegrating fission products cannot be arrested. In a 650MW plant, the heat formation by the radioactive disintegration process amounts to roughly 200MW three seconds after the reactor is switched off, 100 MW after one minute, 30MW after one hour and 12MW after 24 hours.
Under normal operating conditions, the reactor has an external fuel casing temperature of about 350oC, while the interior fuel rods remain at 2220oC. If the cooling liquid is lost, the outer surface of the rods heats up rapidly within 10 to 15 seconds, the fuel casing will begin to break down and within a minute, the casing will melt.
Unless the emergency cooling system comes into operation within a minute, the fuel (approximately 100 tonnes) and the supporting structure will all begin to melt, leading to a major accident. At this stage even if the emergency cooling system works, it will make the situation worse. The molten metals react with the cooling water to produce steam and hydrogen and heat from the fission products adds to this, thus sinking the melten core to the ground. In a 200MW nuclear reactor radio-fission products accumulated after one year would be equivalent to the amount released by approximately 1000 atom bombs of the Hiroshima variety. Since the reactor pressure vessel contains the core, any loss in the pressure vessel in excess of the supply from ECCS leads to the escape of the coolant, thereby exposing the core that gets overheated within seconds. The failure of the vessel can inflict serious damage to the core and also break the containment.
5) EMERGENCY COOLANT FAILS: According to the advocates of nuclear power when the primary coolant comes out of the major pipe break in the coolant water loop, the control rods are immediately driven into the core to stop the fission reaction and the ECC system releases the cool water from the accumulators intended to cope with such emergencies. But the environmental experts and opponents of nuclear power emphasise that by the time the emergency coolant water gets in the core, the temperature in the core would become so high that the water turns into high pressure steam, either obstructing the entry of more coolant or forcing it to exit through the breakage in the pipes so that the reactor core gets overheated to cause a major disaster. When the Aerojet Nuclear Company conducted tests of ECC system at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho, USA, mechanical failure occurred. Subsequent tests at Oakridge National Laboratories indicated that the Zircalloyclad fuel rods may swell, rupture and obstruct the cooling channel thereby preventing the emergency cooling water from reaching the reactor core. Fuel rod swelling commenced about 1400oF and at 1880oF the coolant channels were blocked by 50 to 100 percent and such a blockage could be catastrophic. The combined effect of the rapid cooling during an emergency core cooling with the rapidly rising pressure in a reactor vessel could lead to its rupture, an accident that no nuclear plant is designed to cope with. Failure of the vessel could occur due to inherent weakness in the construction of the vessel itself or due to factors such as molten fuel coolant explosion or the gross failure of the vessel support system. Steam generators also cause problems due to deformation of tubes because of corrosion of support of plate materials, fatigue failures and tube pitting problems. The feed water system piping is exposed to water-hammer, leading to the damage of valves. These valves on their own face problems from packing, gasket leakage and erosion. http://armypubs.army.mil/eng/DR_pubs/DR_a/pdf/tm5_698_4.pdf
i) Places to be evacuated during accident at Kudankulam: When an accident at a nuclear plant releases enormous quantities of radioactivity into the air, water and soil environment, there will be immediate fatalities and long-term genetic damage among the exposed populations. All the people within the zone of influence from the reactors must be evacuated. Evacuation must be completed within 6 hours for 2 to 5km, 12 hours for 5 to 25km, 24 hours for 25 to 75km and 40 hours for over 75kms downwind from Kudankulam as per the British Accident scenario for the 1100MW, Sizewell reactor, based on a wind speed of 5m/sec rainfall of 1mm/hour and natural stability conditions of the atmosphere. After thorough scrubbing and decontamination of lands, equipment and residences due to radioactive pollution from an accident, people may be permitted to return to their original residence along with their cattle and other properties after three weeks upto 170kms, one year upto 140km, from 5 years upto 115km, 10 years upto 98km and 20 years upto 77kms distance from the nuclear plant. Depending upon the weather conditions during the accident, certain places will be more affected than others. Many villages of Ramanathapuram, Tirnelveli and Kanyakumari of Tamilnadu and Trivandrum and Quilon districts of Kerala will be affected seriously. Killakkarai, Sattirakudi, Abiramam, Virudhnagar and Watrap of Tamilnadu and Gudalur, Thekkadi, Vengamala, Pantalam and Karunagapalli of Kerala lie within 170kms. Sayalkudi, Nattakkadu, Sivakasi and Sattur of Tamilnadu, Edathora, Aruppokottair, Srivilliputtur and Rajapaliyam lie in between 140km and 170kms. Karilgatti, Kalugumala and Puliyangudiof Tamilnadu, Tenmala, Kadakkal, Attingal and Kadiamkulam of Kerala lie within 115km. Taruvaikulam, Kadambur, Tirumalapuram and Tenkasi of Tamilnadu and Palad and Attipara lie within 98kms. Tuticorin, Kayattar and Trivandrum lie in between 98kms and 77kms, Sayarpuram Pudukkottai, tirunelveli, Ambassamudram, Mannar, Balaramapuram, Neyyattinkara, Nanguneri, Panakudi, Kolachel, Nagercoil and Cape Comorin lie within 77kms from the nuclear plant site.
6) WHY TAMILANDU NUCLEAR EXPERTS MISUNDERSTAND NUCLEAR SAFETY?: When radioactive atomic nuclei breaks up due to instability or impinged by neutrons radiation is released as particulates or high energy wave radiation. When such radiation hits on living cells the atoms in the cell get ionized. The atomic nucleus contains in its electronic sheath negatively charged electrons equal to positively charged protons in the atomic nucleus and so an atom is electrically neutral in its outward effects. If a negatively charged electron of Beta particle radiation bombards a neutral atom one or more electrons will be thrown out of the electoral sheath of the atom which becomes an ion that is a positively recharged atomic residue the newly formed ions have considerable electrical attractive power and so have capacity for strong chemical reaction. If such reactions occur in air or dead matter nobody bothers but if ionization of atoms occurs in living tissue it often causes damage resulting in cancer cells it causes severe damage like deformities, still births, enzyme defects and metabolic disorders. It has to be assumed that even the smallest quantity of radioactivity can cause a corresponding damage in living cells. If the radioactive particles or rays bombard a DNA molecule it causes ionization of atoms and the subsequent chemical reactions cause variations in basic arrangement of base sequels and break either a single strand or double strand of the double helix in DNA and so changes occur in the heritable information and the consequential damages on living organisms. The strand of the helix sequences of phosphoric acid residual and Deoxyribose residues while the bases contain ,Adenine,Thymine, Guanine, and cytosinev residues.
7) RADIATIONS DAMAGE THE HUMAN AND ANIMAL CELLS ALSO: Inside the nucleus of human cells there will be 23 pairs of chromosomes each of which is packed with DNA the genetic material to receive from the parents. The DNA is always exposed to damaging agents like ultraviolet light, chemicals and reactive oxygen species generated by ionizing radiation. Direct radiation like alpha or Beta (electrons) particles or X-rays which create ions that physically break one or both of the sugar phosphate backbones or break the base pairs of the DNA. The base pairs of ATGC are held together by weak hydrogen bonds. The bonding of these base pairs can also be damaged by ionizing radiation. The base pairs of the DNA form sequences called nucleotides which inturn form the genes. The genes direct the cell to make proteins which determine the cell type and regulate its working when such breaks occur the DNA repairs itself by a process called excision which occurs in 3 steps.
- Endonucleases cut out the damaged DNA
- Resysnthesis of the original DNA by DNA polymerase
- Ligation by which the sugar phosphate backbone is repaired
Since evaluation of species occurred in sea of radiation the DNA repair processes constantly occur.
WHY INDUSTRY HIDES FACTS ON RADIOACTIVE ROUTINE RELEASES ALSO:
Everyday DNA gets 10,000 injuries due to routine chemicals. A radioactive substance contains 1 curie when 37 billion radioactive disintegrations occur in it per cell. Natural radioactivity of earth per gram is 1 pico curie equivalent to 1 trillionth of a cancer. In dry air one Roentgen or Rad or Rem produces 2 billion ions per cm3. One Rad is the radiation dosage given out by 100 ergs of energy for gram of any substance. But since different radiations have different energy dosages their biological effectiveness is given a quality factor to identify Relative Biological effectiveness. The RB factor is one for Beta, Gamma and X-Ray radiations. While alpha and proton radiations have 10 times higher while neutron radiation has 4 units for slow neutron that gradually rise to 20 for fast neutron radiations. Proton at one 10-millionth part of a gram can cause cancer as it emits alpha rays of very high radiation doses with a high factor of 3 lakh units. If a lorry containing 25kg were to overturn in road accident the plutonium thus released could cause 250 billion cases of lung cancer. 25kg of Plutonium can be used for an atomic bomb. Tritium with its weak Beta rays comes into waste water at 100 curies to 1000 curies per annum for a nuclear plant of 1000MW capacity. During decay tritium atom emits an electron and is converted into stable Helium. Tritium occurs in natural waters at 40 pico curies per liter and in public water supplies its concentration is limited to 3 million pico curies per liter. If one strand of DNA breaks the second strand of helix as a duplicate repairs like replacing one spoiled bulb by a new one and holds the chromosome together. Even when double strand breakages for a radiation of 100 to 500 rads exposure the repair is done in 2 to 8 hours. But when dosage of 0.08 rads per year for a decade caused extra chromosomal damage among people of Alaska. There will be 600 millions cells in one CC . In Humans one percent of single strand lesions (breaks) are converted to about 50 double strand breaks in DNA for cell cycle. Similar to the double produced by 1.52 to 2 Grays of sparsely ionizing radiation. Although DSBs are repaired on a reliable basis, the errors in repair mechanism often cause high rate of cancer in human beings. 100 rads Gamma rays cause 300 tracks cross every nucleus of the cell based on 630KeV Gamma rays from Ce 137 and one track for nucleus is due to 0.33 rads of Ce 137. Background radiation causes a fraction of one track per year. An X-ray produces 6 to 10 tracks per cell nuclei. A Gamma ray produces one MeV( soft Gamma ray gives 100 KeV) Beta particle produces 2 MeV and Alpha particle produces 6 MeV. 1 Sv or 100 rems give one Joule per kg of energy in human tissue. Radiation causes DNA damage in Million molecule lesions per cell per day. Human exposure to background radiation is about 2.4 mSv per year and the nuclear plants add to the public about 1 mSv and 20 mSv for workers per year and this limit is based on the assumption that there is no threshold dose below which there would be no effect which means that any additional dose will cause proportional increase in damage to public health and it is based on the precautionary principle which is universally accepted. While one kg of granite or coffee produces 1000Bq, one kg of coal ash 2000 Bq, one kg 7000 Bq and 1 kg of low level radioactive waste produces one million Bq. Since the Indian Nuclear Power Corporation hides facts about routine releases of radioactivity from nuclear power plants it becomes inevitable for Indians and others to know the true facts from published literature in other countries dealing with nuclear power plants. The following website present the detailed data http://www.ieer.org/sdafiles/16-1/tritium_releases.html
Consequently the common people cannot trust the experts of the Government organization about radiation exposure due to nuclear power plants and hence must anticipate that under different kinds of nuclear accidents there will be large scale radioactivity discharged into the environment at all the existing plants which are causing serious health impacts as reported by independent scientists. Since the nuclear plants cannot be prevented by the Indian experts to discharge radioactive pollution from the reactors the people have to make their own estimates in the matter and visualize what kinds of illnesses including cancer are waiting in the wings to harm lakhs of people in the near and distant places from Kudankulam reactors upto hundreds of kilometers downwind.
Description and Effects of Different Doses and Dose Rates
Description / Effects
0.3 to 0.6 mSv/a
|This is the typical range of dose rates from artificial sources of radiation, mostly medical.|
0.2 to 0.8 mSv/a
|This is the range of worldwide average annual radiation dose from ingestion of foodstuff and water. Variations about the mean values by factors 5 to 10 are not unusual for many components of exposure from natural sources.|
2.4 mSv/a (approximately)
|The normal average background radiation from natural sources. Approximately half of this exposure is from radon in air.|
|This is the highest known average annual dose from background radiation that occurs in the Kerala and Madras states in India where a population of over 100 000 people is exposed to this level.|
|This dose averaged over 5 years is the limit for regulated practices and working activities such as the nuclear industry employees and mining and mineral processing workers, who are closely monitored.|
|This dose is conservatively the lowest dose rate where there is any evidence of cancer being caused. It is also the dose rate that arises from natural background levels in several places. Above this, the probability of cancer occurrence (rather than the severity) increases with dose.|
|This dose accumulated over some time, would probably cause a fatal cancer many years later in 5 of every 100 persons exposed to it (i.e. if the normal incidence of fatal cancer were 25%, this dose would increase it to 30%).|
1 000 mSv
|This dose received as a short-term dose would probably cause (temporary) illness such as nausea and decreased white blood cell count, but not death. Above this dose the severity of illness increases with dose.|
Between 2 000 and 10 000 mSv
|This dose over a short-term dose would cause severe radiation sickness with increasing likelihood that this would be fatal.|
10 000 mSv
|This dose in a short-term dose would cause immediate illness and subsequent death within a few weeks.|
9) DAMAGE TO LIFE FORMS IS OFTEN IRREVERSIBLE AND INEVITABLE MAKING NUCLEAR SAFETY A PIE IN THE SKY AND HENCE PEOPLE MUST OPPOSE THEM:
When an electron passes through a biological cell the electron releases its energy along its path (called a track) by interacting with the electrons of nearby molecules. The energy thus released is absorbed by atoms near the track causing excitation ( a push in the orbit of an electron to a higher energy level) or ionization (release of an electron from the atom) and the residue unstable atoms are known as radicalsand are chemically highly active. X-ray and gamma rays unlike Beta particles release high speed electrons from atoms first. Positively charged particles transfer energy to molecules in the cells electrically uncharged neutrons impact of the nuclei of hydrogen atoms namely protons. Since the masses of the proton and neutron are similar the impact results in an elastic scattering process as occurs in Billiards game. The ejected protons work like charged protons. Ionizations due to radiation act directly on cell molecules or indirectly on water molecules causing water derived radicals which react with nearby molecules causing breakage of chemical bonds or addition of oxygen atoms by oxidation of the affected molecules. The major effect in biological cells is at DNA breaks either in single strand or double strands and the later is important biologically. Single strand breaks can be repaired normally because of the double stranded nature of the DNA(the two strands complement each other so that an intact strand serves as a template for repair of its damaged opposite strand) In case of double strand breaks the repair is more difficult and the erroneous rejoining of broken ends may occur and such misrepairs cause mutations, chromosome abrasions or cell death.
Radiations differ not only by their components like electrons, protons and neutrons but also by their energy. Radiations by neutrons and alpha particles cause dense ionization along their track and are called High Linear Energy Transfer ,High LET radiation that is energy released per unit length of the track. Low LET radiations by X-Rays and Gamma rays produce ionizations sparsely along their track and homogeneously within the cell. High LET radiations release energy in a small region of the cell and the localized DNA damage caused by High LET radiations is more difficult to repair than the diffuse DNA damage caused by the sparse ionizations from Low LET radiations. The same radiation dosage produce the same total number of ionizations with the difference that Low LET radiation causes sparse ionizations whose damaging effects can be normally repaired while the High LET radiation causes dense ionization along their track causing double strand breaks which are more difficult for repair and hence are bound to cause cell deaths or mutations resulting in cancer and other forms of illness.http://www.rerf.jp/radefx/basickno_e/radcell.htm
10) CRUCIAL ROLE OF THE PUBLIC TO SAVE THEIR RIGHT TO LIFE, RIGHT TO HEALTH AND RIGHT TO LIVELIHOOD AT ANY COST:
When India became independent Mahatma Gandhi addressed a public meeting on the occasion. He said “by making Pandit.Jawahar Lal Nehru as the Prime Minister of India I call him an uncrowned King of India. Like anyone of us he is a humanbeing and all of you know that to err is human. In course of his work to uplift the nation he will plan and execute several developmental projects during the course of administration he may commit some errors who will correct such errors. His Minister or his administrative officers will not dare to point out his mistakes and rectify them and then who will take the responsibility to put the nations destiny on the right track”. Since none of them people presented the meeting opened their mouths he told them point blank “ it is you, the people of this great social welfare state in the democracy who have to correct even the mistakes of a Prime Minister. If you do not come forward to rectify such defects you are unfit as responsible citizen of the great social welfare state. Similarly Prime Minister Mrs.Indira Gandhi also wanted all the responsible citizens to protect public interest and for the purpose amended article 51A and introduced sub clause “g” by which she proclaimed that it is the first duty o the responsible citizen to protect the water, the air, the forests, the wild life and to develop compassion for all living creatures. “That is why it has been always said that eternal vigilance is a price that the Indian people have to pay to sustain their democracy. Thus it is the people of India who have to fight against the anti peoples actions perpetrated by the Government at the state and Central levels to safeguard the health and welfare of the present and future generations of the people in India. Coming to the case of Kudankulam nuclear reactors the people must play an active role to stop them as they are just silent killers.
In case of Kudankulam reactors it is better that the local people and school children must collect funds by begging in Tamilnadu villages and towns and present the money to the Chief Minister and Prime Minister for abandoning the present reactors on the plea that in case these reactors experience explosions on the pattern of Fukushima rectors, the people have to pay a heavy penalty of Rs.4 lakh crores which will make the state and the country fall into the trap of economic bankruptcy. Infact in one of the villages of Cuddapah the school children who found that their family members addicted to liquor are not only dying but also ruining their families because the state Government has considered liquor business as their main economic source of survival. The children wanted to pay that amount realized through liquor sales to the state Government to ban liquor sales so that the families will save their own heads of families who are the bread winners. In Tamilnadu the experiment can be copied and implemented to stop the reactors and thereby stop the state Government do indirectly declare a nuclear war on millions of people of South Tamilnadu.
Even in history there are many instances when a Kingdom was invaded a treacherous foreign ruler the local people used to fight against the invasion or alternatively purchase peace by paying compensation money to the invader. Veera Pandya Kattabhraman refused to yield to the dictators of the treacherous British rulers so he was hanged in public. Today the people of this historical Pandyan Empire have to save their lives and of their progeny against the invasion by the people in the North of Pandya Kingdom in Tamilnadu and those from the North India. The Pandyans if they want the survival of their future generations they must resort to this alternative course of action as followed by the children of the Cuddapah village of Andhra Pradesh.


This report explains how the need for lighting products in places like Africa remains critical, as a large portion of households still have no access to electrical services.
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This website features links to United Nations Development Programme case studies and publications on how energy can be used to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, which is one of eight UN Millennium Development Goals for 2015.
The Global Environment Facility has supported technologies including solar thermal heating, solar thermal power, off-grid and on-grid solar photovoltaic, wind power, small hydro power, geothermal power, and biomass in projects globally.
This database describes energy efficiency policies and measures in about 90 countries. Information was collected with surveys in about 50 countries and literature reviews in the remaining, which included national energy efficiency plans and other maintained databases.
This report is the first in a series of three issue briefs on "Keys to Achieving Universal Energy Access," a three-day workshop held by WRI and the DOEN Foundation.
The World Bank and the International Finance Corporation provide the Global Solar Atlas—in addition to a series of global, regional and country GIS data layers and poster maps—to support the scale-up of solar power in their client countries.
TRANSrisk conducted 15 case studies that explore the transition to low-carbon economies, including 14 country-level case studies and one at the global and regional level.
This report is the fifth in a series documenting the World Bank Group’s progress in supporting renewable energy and energy efficiency. It details the successes of, and lessons learned from, the investments made by the World Bank Group over the past five years.
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This special issue of the Environment & Urbanization journal was edited by the Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) network.


News - 2023
We are pleased to announce a series of four seminars hosted by the Natural Resources Institute (NRI) of the University of Greenwich, under its Food and Nutrition Security Initiative (FaNSI). The seminars to be held in January and February 2023, will provide the occasion for NRI researchers, students and FaNSI partners to share with a wider audience, their recent research addressing challenges and potential solutions relating to food and nutrition security in sub-Saharan Africa.
In April 2022, NRI sent two of its experts to Uzbekistan to support farmers in solving agricultural pest problems in ways which minimise risks to people and the environment. Professor Richard Hopkins, Head of NRI’s Agriculture, Health and Environment Department, and Hans Dobson, Professor of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and a Crop Protection Specialist, travelled to the Uzbek capital Tashkent with colleagues, Dirk Babendreier and Manfred Grossrieder from CAB International (CABI), who brought complementary strengths in the area of biocontrol, research and implementation.
On Tuesday 24 January 2023, Rehman Chishti, MP for Gillingham and Rainham and Cllr Jan Aldous, The Worshipful The Mayor of Medway, joined Professor Jane Harrington, Vice Chancellor of the University of Greenwich, to declare open the brand-new food innovation centre at the Medway campus in Chatham.
NRI’s Dr Kendra Byrd is co-author of a new study published in the journal Nature Food, which explains how small fish such as herring, sardine and anchovy could play a big part in tackling malnutrition and the food insecurity crisis across the globe. Until now, very little was known about the affordability, availability and superb nutritional value of these pelagic fish, so-called because they live in open waters rather than near the bottom, or the shore.


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3rd Annual Free the Snake Flotilla
September 8, 2017 @ 5:00 pm - September 9, 2017 @ 5:00 pm
This family-friendly event will feature two nights of camping at Chief Timothy Park in Clarkston, WA., along with guest speakers, live music, food and a paddle into the lower Snake River canyon. Please join hundreds of activists from around the Pacific Northwest to advocate for the removal of the deadbeat four lower Snake River dams! Register here.
For more information


Sweden: FriGeo Establishes Important Collaboration Agreement
FriGeo and two other specialists of freezing technology, National Nuclear Laboratory Limited (NNL) and Studsvik UK Limited, have signed a collaboration agreement regarding further development of the existing freezing technology.
“Our aim is to bring new and innovative decommission technology to the nuclear industry resulting in innovative and value adding solutions for customers across the world,” they said.
During freeze stabilization blocks of the bottom sediment are frozen below water and stabilized before being lifted. Frozen sediments are nearly as hard as concrete and the content of the frozen block, whether a contaminant or a valuable object, will stay safely embedded in the sediments while being salvaged to land.
Artificial ground freezing has been in the existence for over 100 years and is a proven method used to provide earth support for excavations in the mining and construction industry.
“This collaboration is a milestone for us taking an important step into the international nuclear market,” said And Klas Dagertun, CEO at FriGeo.
Press Release, June 12, 2014


Wow, there's just so much happening at Minsmere - and we haven't even got to May yet!
After yesterday's stone-curlew was spotted from the approach road, another was located on the Konik Field, where it showed well all afternoon. Although they are waders, stone-curlews are rarely seen near water, so this was particularly notable location.
Other notable waders yesterday included six wood sandpipers flying north (an excellent count), two greenshanks and two spotted redshanks. A drake garganey was on the Levels, and five late brent geese dropped in.
It was good day for passage migrants. No fewer than three red kites flew through during the day, and a buzzard was spotted. Wheatears were widespread - at least nine on the reserve. Two black terns, single white and yellow wagtails and a female redstart in the dunes near East Hide were also noteworthy.
Garden warbler numbers have increased in recent days, with at least nine around the reserve. A cuckoo was heard again on the Levels, and a lesser whitethroat in North Bushes. A grasshopper warbler continues to sing along the North Wall.
Another bird with a reeling song similar to a grasshopper warbler is the much rarer Savi's warbler. One was heard between West and South Hides at 7 am this morning, and for a little while afterwards, and may still be in the area, but they are easiest to hear early and late in the day.
Among our popular regular species, bitterns continue to show from Bittern and Island Mere Hides, hobbies dart above the reedbeds, marsh harriers are doing regular food passes, sand martins are busy around the colony, and the nightingale near the car park entrance was feeding in the open this morning. Finally, a nuthatch was on the feeders outside the tearoom yesterday.
On the insect front, the first small coppers were noted around the stone-curlew viewpoint yesterday.
With the Bank Holiday weather forecast for cooler, wetter weather, i hope spring migrants will continue to arrive to be enjoyed by our many visitors.


An explosion from the much larger proposed Sabal Trail fracked methane pipeline could be much worse. And remember, much of this toxic fossil fuel pushing through leaking veins throughout the country is for export to other countries, to profit a few companies at locals’ expense. Maybe you’d like to come to Leesburg, GA to say a few words about that.
ABC 13 Eyewitness News wrote 26 June 2014, Gas line explosion sends 150-foot flames up in air,
EAST BERNARD, TX (KTRK) — Authorities are investigating an gas explosion near a compressor plant just west of East Bernard in Wharton County.
It happened at FM 1164 just south of Highway 59.
According to the Office of Emergency Management, a gas line adjacent to the Kinder Morgan compressor plant blew out, destroying the roadway and catching a nearby truck on fire. Flames as has as 150 feet were shooting out of the blaze.
One person suffered a minor injury and was transported to Oak Bend Hospital in stable condition.Continue reading 150-foot flames from methane pipeline explosion in east Texas 2014-06-26


The following is a guest post by Gary Strachan, an international vineyard and winery consultant specializing in the start up of vineyards and wineries. Please see his complete bio at the end of this post!
Do you ever have that feeling that no matter what you do it isn‚Äôt working?¬† Maybe go back to bed and start the day over?¬†¬†¬† It‚Äôs a bit like operating a vineyard.¬†¬† Say it‚Äôs been a tough spring and bud break was late.¬† You expect the crop to mature late, especially if you leave too many clusters, so you cluster thin heavily to accelerate ripening.¬†¬†¬† Then you have a perfect summer and the growth in the vineyard looks like a jungle because you didn‚Äôt balance it out with a heavy enough crop load.
Murphy‚Äôs Law says that ‚ÄúWhatever can go wrong will go wrong, and in the worst possible way.‚ÄĚ¬†¬†¬† The point ofthe exercise is to always have a Plan B so that the ‚Äúworst possible way‚ÄĚ is more acceptable.
The best possible Plan B is to do a careful assessment of the site before you plant. ¬†This is the only time to choose and modify your terroir.¬†¬† With a good terroir, the vagaries of weather become less severe.
I prefer an eastern exposure because the site warms more quickly in the morning sun and is sheltered from the intense heat of the afternoon.¬†¬† A western exposure can be an advantage in marginal locations where an extra increment of heat is required to ripen long season varieties, but there is also the risk of overheating the vines in the afternoon and suppressing photosynthesis.¬†¬† Exposed red grapes may be heated to the point that the evaporation of flavour compounds exceeds their rate of synthesis on hot days.¬†¬†¬† Picture the problem a plant has to adapt to a daily twenty degree change in temperature.
Slope is important.¬†¬† A 5% slope is enough to provide good air drainage, without creating traction problems.¬†¬†¬† A 30% slope will collect a higher temperature, but is harder to service.¬†¬†¬† Beyond 30% you may have to cope with the inefficiencies of terraces.
If the site is rolling, you must accept that every change in slope will affect fruit composition.¬†¬†¬† There will also be a difference between top, bottom and centre of a slope.¬†¬† Before you plant, decide how important it is to have uniform composition of the fruit from your vineyard.¬†¬† If uniform composition is important, then the top soil should be removed, the site recontoured and¬† the soil profile restored.
While on the subject of soil profile, we should consider how to support healthy roots.¬†¬†¬† Look for well drained soil, hopefully with humus or silt near the surface.¬†¬† If the site has fine soil that drains poorly, then the vineyard must be deep ripped prior to planting.¬†¬† Plants in fine soil should also have assistance to establish by auguring or ditching the planting site and mixing in sharp sand with the fine soil.¬†¬† Be extremely careful with an auger.¬†¬†¬† If you drill in wet clay or silt, you may polish the boundaries of the hole and constrain root growth inside an impenetrable plant pot.
Grapes have a spurt of root growth in spring and again in fall.¬†¬† Prior to bloom they require water at essentially the drained upper limit of soil then gradually less water until veraison.¬†¬† In late summer, when roots have progressively more difficulty to extract water, the root tips begin to release the plant hormone ABA.¬† ABA stimulates the production of phenolic compounds, hardening of the vine, fruit maturation, and suppresses cane elongation.¬†¬†¬† Encourage the roots to seek water but don‚Äôt put them into distress.¬† ¬†A good soil profile facilitates this.¬† If there is a water barrier or ground water source two or three metres beneath the surface, this is the best of all possible worlds, but it may not be possible in sand or gravel.¬†¬† ¬†If you must do a major recontour, consider the composition of sub soil as well as top soil.¬†¬†¬† If your site surface is OK, rip it and leave the profile alone.
One of the major problems that must be adjusted prior to planting is soil pH.¬† If pH adjustment is required, it will take several tons of either powdered limestone or sulphur per acre.¬†¬†¬†¬† After all other operations are completed, the pH adjustment should be tilled into the soil prior to planting, and preferably prior to posting and irrigation installation.
Elevation can be important if it is extreme and results in a shorter growing season, but can be an advantage if it provides good air drainage and good slope and orientation.
The important thing to remember about your terroir is that a good terrior can facilitate maintaining balanced growth in the vineyard in spite of changes in rainfall or temperature from year to year.¬†¬†¬† A good terroir has an exposure that collects more energy than is required on a sunny day but collects enough energy for full growth on an overcast day.¬†¬† The temperature should be moderated by proximity to water.¬†¬† Look around you.¬†¬† A good terroir is beautiful.
This article was first published in British Columbia Fruit Grower and has been republished on this blog with permission from the author.
Gary Strachan is an international vineyard and winery consultant who lives in Summerland, British Columbia. ¬†He is a former Agriculture Canada research scientist who studied cool climate grape varieties and and winemaking. ¬†He taught viticulture and enology courses at Okanagan College and Vancouver Island University for over 25 years. ¬†He is the former Canadian delegate to the O.I.V. and is current Chairman of BC’s Sustainable Practices Committee. ¬†Much of his professional practice is centered on the design and¬†start up¬†of vineyards and wineries.
Gary Strachan is listed¬†on LinkedIn.


Rake Up Boise is this Saturday. Thank you to the hundreds of volunteers who will be out raking up more than one thousand yards for people who are older or who have disabilities. Team leaders picked up cases of leaf bags last Saturday.
Most leaves will have fallen by this Saturday, but some leaves are stubborn.
Those leaves are firmly attached. The condition is called marcescence, and it’s a bit of a mystery. Some trees are more prone to hanging on to dead leaves than others, such as oak and beech trees, and also shrubby trees. The reasons include timing of freezing temperatures, rain, snow, and probably more things science doesn’t know about yet.
Some trees will hang on until new leaves emerge in the spring. Nothing you can do to hurry it along. Trust Mother Nature.


"This is the ultimate survival guide for our species. Lester Brown plots a path around and beyond the looming environmental abyss with courage, compassion and immense wisdom." —Jonathan Watts, Asia Environment Correspondent for The Guardian and author of When A Billion Chinese Jump on World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse
Chapter 5. Stabilizing Climate: Shifting to Renewable Energy: Energy from the Earth
The heat in the upper six miles of the earth’s crust contains 50,000 times as much energy as found in all the world’s oil and gas reserves combined—a startling statistic that few people are aware of. Despite this abundance, only 10,500 megawatts of geo¬thermal generating capacity have been harnessed worldwide. 64
Partly because of the dominance of the oil, gas, and coal industries, which have been providing cheap fuel by omitting the costs of climate change and air pollution from fuel prices, relatively little has been invested in developing the earth’s geothermal heat resources. Over the last decade, geothermal energy has been growing at scarcely 3 percent a year. 65
Half the world’s existing generating capacity is in the United States and the Philippines. Mexico, Indonesia, Italy, and Japan account for most of the remainder. Altogether some 24 countries now convert geothermal energy into electricity. Iceland, the Philippines, and El Salvador respectively get 27, 26, and 23 percent of their electricity from geothermal power plants. 66
The potential of geothermal energy to provide electricity, to heat homes, and to supply process heat for industry is vast. Among the countries rich in geothermal energy are those bordering the Pacific in the so-called Ring of Fire, including Chile, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, the United States, Canada, Russia, China, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Australia. Other geothermally rich countries include those along the Great Rift Valley of Africa, such as Kenya and Ethiopia, and those around the Eastern Mediterranean. 67
Beyond geothermal electrical generation, an estimated 100,000 thermal megawatts of geothermal energy are used directly—without conversion into electricity—to heat homes and greenhouses and as process heat in industry. This includes, for example, the energy used in hot baths in Japan and to heat homes in Iceland and greenhouses in Russia.68
An interdisciplinary team of 13 scientists and engineers assembled by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2006 assessed U.S. geothermal electrical generating potential. Drawing on the latest technologies, including those used by oil and gas companies in drilling and in enhanced oil recovery, the team estimated that enhanced geothermal systems could be used to massively develop geothermal energy. This technology involves drilling down to the hot rock layer, fracturing the rock and pumping water into the cracked rock, then extracting the superheated water to drive a steam turbine. The MIT team notes that with this technology the United States has enough geothermal energy to meet its energy needs 2,000 times over. 69
Though it is still costly, this technology can be used almost anywhere to convert geothermal heat into electricity. Australia is currently the leader in developing pilot plants using this technology, followed by Germany and France. To fully realize this potential for the United States, the MIT team estimated that the government would need to invest $1 billion in geothermal research and development in the years immediately ahead, roughly the cost of one coal-fired power plant. 70
Even before this exciting new technology is widely deployed, investors are moving ahead with existing technologies. For many years, U.S. geothermal energy was confined largely to the Geysers project north of San Francisco, easily the world’s largest geothermal generating complex, with 850 megawatts of generating capacity. Now the United States, which has more than 3,000 megawatts of geothermal generation, is experiencing a geothermal renaissance. Some 126 power plants under development in 12 states are expected to nearly triple U.S. geothermal generating capacity. With California, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, and Utah leading the way, and with many new companies in the field, the stage is set for massive U.S. geothermal development. 71
Indonesia, richly endowed with geothermal energy, stole the spotlight in 2008 when it announced a plan to develop 6,900 megawatts of geothermal generating capacity. The Philippines, currently the world’s number two generator of electricity from geothermal sources, is planning a number of new projects. 72
Among the Great Rift countries in Africa—including Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Djibouti—Kenya is the early leader. It now has over 100 megawatts of geothermal generating capacity and is planning 1,200 more megawatts by 2015. This would double its current electrical generating capacity of 1,200 megawatts from all sources. 73
Japan, which has 18 geothermal power plants with a total of 535 megawatts of generating capacity, was an early leader in this field. Now, following nearly two decades of inactivity, this geo¬thermally rich country—long known for its thousands of hot baths—is again beginning to build geothermal power plants. 74
In Europe, Germany has 4 small geothermal power plants in operation and some 180 plants in the pipeline. Werner Bussmann, head of the German Geothermal Association, says, “Geothermal sources could supply Germany’s electricity needs 600 times over.” Monique Barbut, head of the Global Environment Facility, expects the number of countries tapping geothermal energy for electricity to rise from roughly 20 when the century began to close to 50 by 2010. 75
Beyond geothermal power plants, geothermal (ground source) heat pumps are now being widely used for both heating and cooling. These take advantage of the remarkable stability of the earth’s temperature near the surface and then use that as a source of heat in the winter when the air temperature is low and a source of cooling in the summer when the temperature is high. The great attraction of this technology is that it can provide both heating and cooling and do so with 25–50 percent less electricity than would be needed with conventional systems. In Germany, for example, there are now 130,000 geothermal heat pumps operating in residential or commercial buildings. This base is growing steadily, as at least 25,000 new pumps are installed each year. 76
In the direct use of geothermal heat, Iceland and France are among the leaders. Iceland’s use of geothermal energy to heat almost 90 percent of its homes has largely eliminated coal for this use. Geothermal energy accounts for more than one third of Iceland’s total energy use. Following the two oil price hikes in the 1970s, some 70 geothermal heating facilities were constructed in France, providing both heat and hot water for an estimated 200,000 residences. In the United States, individual homes are supplied directly with geothermal heat in Reno, Nevada, and in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Other countries that have extensive geothermally based district-heating systems include China, Japan, and Turkey. 77
Geothermal heat is ideal for greenhouses in northern countries. Russia, Hungary, Iceland, and the United States are among the many countries that use it to produce fresh vegetables in the winter. With rising oil prices boosting fresh produce transport costs, this practice will likely become far more common in the years ahead. 78
Among the 16 countries using geothermal energy for aquaculture are China, Israel, and the United States. In California, for example, 15 fish farms annually produce some 10 million pounds of tilapia, striped bass, and catfish using warm water from underground. 79
The number of countries turning to geothermal energy for both electricity and heat is rising fast. So, too, is the range of uses. Romania, for instance, uses geothermal energy for district heating, for greenhouses, and to supply hot water for homes and factories. 80
Hot underground water is widely used for both bathing and swimming. Japan has 2,800 spas, 5,500 public bathhouses, and 15,600 hotels and inns that use geothermal hot water. Iceland uses geothermal energy to heat some 100 public swimming pools, most of them year-round open-air pools. Hungary heats 1,200 swimming pools with geothermal energy. 81
If the four most populous countries located on the Pacific Ring of Fire—the United States, Japan, China, and Indonesia—were to seriously invest in developing their geothermal resources, they could easily make this a leading world energy source. With a conservatively estimated potential in the United States and Japan alone of 240,000 megawatts of generation, it is easy to envisage a world with thousands of geothermal power plants generating some 200,000 megawatts of electricity, the Plan B goal, by 2020. 82
64. Karl Gawell et al., International Geothermal Development Directory and Resource Guide (Washington, DC: Geothermal Energy Association (GEA), 2003); EER, Global Geothermal Markets and Strategies 2009–2020 (Cambridge, MA: May 2009).
65. Geothermal growth rate calculated using Ruggero Bertani, “World Geo¬thermal Generation in 2007,” GHC Bulletin, September 2007, pp. 8–9, and EER, op. cit. note 64.
66. Bertani, op. cit. note 65, pp. 8–9; Kara Slack, U.S. Geothermal Power Production and Development Update (Washington, DC: GEA, March 2009); EER, op. cit. note 64; number of countries with geothermal power from Karl Gawell et al., 2007 Interim Report: Update on World Geothermal Development (Washington, DC: GEA, 1 May 2007), p. 1; share of electricity calculated using installed capacity from Bertani, op. cit. note 65, p. 9; capacity factor from Ingvar B. Fridleifsson et al., “The Possible Role and Contribution of Geothermal Energy to the Mitigation of Climate Change,” in O. Hohmeyer and T. Trittin, eds., IPCC Scoping Meeting on Renewable Energy Sources, Proceedings (Luebeck, Germany: 20–25 January 2008), p. 5, and from “World Total Net Electricity Generation, 1980–2005,” in DOE, EIA, “International Energy Annual 2005—World Electricity Data,” at www.eia.doe.gov/iea/elec.html, updated 13 September 2007.
67. World Bank, “Geothermal Energy,” prepared under the PB Power and World Bank partnership program, www.worldbank.org, viewed 23 January 2003.
68. Jefferson Tester et al., The Future of Geothermal Energy: Impact of Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) on the United States in the 21st Century (Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2006); John W. Lund and Derek H. Freeston, “World-Wide Direct Uses of Geothermal Energy 2000,” Geothermics, vol. 30 (2001), pp. 34, 46, 51, 53.
69. Tester et al., op. cit. note 68, pp. 1–4; Julian Smith, “Renewable Energy: Power Beneath Our Feet,” New Scientist, 8 October 2008.
70. Rachel Nowak, “Who Needs Coal When You Can Mine Earth’s Deep Heat?” New Scientist, 19 July 2008; Tester et al., op. cit. note 68.
71. UCS, “How Geothermal Energy Works,” at www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/renewable_energy_basics/offmen-how-geothermal-energy-works.html, viewed 22 April 2009; Slack, op. cit. note 66.
72. “Geothermal Power Projects to Cost $US19.8 Bln, Official Says,” op. cit. note 6; Ed Davies and Karen Lema, “Geothermal-Rich SE Asia Struggles to Tap Earth’s Power,” Reuters, 30 June 2008; Bertani, op. cit. note 65, pp. 8–9; “Energy Dev Corp.: Bid to Become Top Geothermal Producer,” Agence France-Presse, 14 January 2009; Geysir Green Energy, “Philippines,” at www.geysirgreenenergy.com/Operations-and-Development/asia/philippines, viewed 22 April 2009.
73. German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), “African Rift Geothermal Facility (ARGeo),” at www.bgr.de/geotherm/projects/argeo.html, viewed 22 April 2009; U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), “Hot Prospect—Geothermal Electricity Set for Rift Valley Lift-Off in 2009,” press release (Nairobi: 9 December 2008); Bertani, op. cit. note 65, pp. 8–9; DOE, op. cit. note 3.
74. Yoko Nishikawa, “Japan Geothermal Projects Pick Up After 20 Years: Report,” Reuters, 4 January 2009; Bertani, op. cit. note 65, pp. 8–9; Lund and Freeston, op. cit. note 68, p. 46.
75. Werner Bussmann, “Germany: The Geothermal Market is Expanding,” presentation to the Renewable Energy Exhibition, Lyon, Paris, 25–28 February 2009; Jane Burgermeister, “Geothermal Electricity Booming in Germany,” Renewable Energy World, 2 June 2008; UNEP, op. cit. note 73.
76. DOE, EERE, “Energy Savers: Geothermal Heat Pumps,” updated 24 February 2009, and “Energy Savers: Benefits of Geothermal Heat Pump Systems,” updated 30 December 2008, both at www.energysavers.gov; Burgermeister, op. cit. note 75.
77. Iceland National Energy Authority and Ministries of Industry and Commerce, Geothermal Development and Research in Iceland (Reykjavik, Iceland: April 2006), p. 16; World Bank, op. cit. note 67.
78. Lund and Freeston, op. cit. note 68, pp. 34, 51, 53.
79. World Bank, op. cit. note 67.
81. Lund and Freeston, op. cit. note 68, pp. 46, 53.
82. United States from Tester et al., op. cit. note 68; Japan based on assumption that Enhanced Geothermal Systems could double 72,000 MW potential, from Hirofumi Muraoka et al., “Assessment of Hydrothermal Resource Potentials in Japan 2008,” Abstract of Annual Meeting of Geo¬thermal Research Society of Japan (Kanazawa, Japan: 2008); Hirofumi Muraoka, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, e-mail to J. Matthew Roney, Earth Policy Institute, 13 July 2009.
Copyright © 2009 Earth Policy Institute


2.2.1 Study area and sites
The study was conducted in Jambi province, Sumatra, Indonesia. The region is tropical humid, with mean annual precipitation of 2235 mm yr-1 and average annual temperature of 26.7° C (Drescher et al., 2016). The study sites were located just south of the equator (01.95° S and 103.25° E), within the commercial oil palm plantation PT Humusindo, near Bungku village. Mean elevation is 47 m asl. The biodiversity enrichment experiment (EFForts-BEE) was established in monoculture oil palm plantations. Oil palms were planted in a 9 m x 9 m triangular grid resulting in approx. 143 oil palms per hectare; the age of the oil palms at the time of study was approx. 9-15 years (Teuscher et al., 2016). The broad age range refers to the entire experiment with 56 plots that covers an area of about 150 ha. After thinning of oil palms, six native tree species were planted in a 2 m x 2 m grid.
The tree species were mixed in a way to maximize the number of hetero-specific neighbors (i.e. no con-specific rows or groups) (Teuscher et al., 2016). There are 52 experimental plots varying in plot size and in tree species diversity level. In addition, there are also 4 control plots with oil palm management as usual, and no enrichment planting. Our main study site was at a 40 m by 40 m plot with six tree species planted (figure 1) and a nearby monoculture control plot of the same size. The agroforest plot was selected based on the criteria plot size (as big as possible, i.e. 40 m by 40 m) and highest tree diversity level (six tree species). The monoculture control plot was located approx. 60 m away from the agroforest plot. At the selected agroforest and monoculture study plot, oil palms were of similar age. In the agroforest, the studied oil palms had an average meristem height of 6.8
± 0.2 m (mean ± SD), while the sample trees had an average height of 4.7 ± 0.6 m (Appendix A). The reported measurements were conducted between September and November 2016, which was the beginning of the rainy season.
Figure 1: Aerial view of a studied oil palm agroforestry plot. Three years prior to the study, the stand was thinned with reduction in oil palm stems by 40% and six tree species were planted
2.2.2 Sap flux measurements
Eight palms and 16 trees were equipped with sap flux sensors. Selected tree species were Archidendron pauciflorum, Parkia speciosa, Peronema canescens and Shorea leprosula.
As Shorea leprosula did not perform well on the multi-species plot, it was measured on a nearby single tree species enrichment plot, under otherwise very similar conditions. One further tree species, Dyera polyphylla, was not included in the measurements because almost all individuals had died on the multi-species plot and no plot with well performing Dyera polyphylla trees was available nearby. Archidendron pauciflorum, Parkia speciosa and Peronema canescens are early successional and light demanding species (Aumeeruddy, 1994; Lee, Wickneswari, Clyde, & Zakri, 2002; Orwa et al., 2009;
Lawrence, 2001); Shorea leprosula is considered a gap opportunist (Ådjers, Hadengganan, Kuusipalo, Nuryanto, & Vesa, 1995; Bebber, Brown, Speight, Moura-Costa, & Wai, 2002).
Sap flux sensors were installed in four trees for each tree species and on four oil palms in an oil palm agroforest, and additionally on four oil palms in the oil palm monoculture.
For trees, we used heat ratio method sensors (HRM, Burgess et al., 2001; ICT International, Australia). One HRM sensor per tree was installed radially into the xylem at breast height.
To process raw data we used the software Sap Flow Tool, version 1.4.1 (ICT International, Australia). The mean sap velocity output data was converted into ‘sap flow’ (cm3 h-1) by multiplying it with the cross-sectional water conductive area Ac (cm²). As the studied trees were rather small (diameter at breast height, DBH < 11 cm), we considered Ac to be equal to the cross-sectional area at breast height. Estimation errors associated with assuming fully conductive cross-sectional areas of the relatively small trees for the up-scaling to tree water use are likely to be small; for similar sized trees Delzon, Sartore, Granier, & Loustau (2004) found a difference of approx. 4% with this assumption.
For oil palms, we used thermal dissipation probes (TDP, Granier, 1985) as this method had previously been tested on oil palm and a sampling scheme had been developed (Niu et al., 2015), which we followed closely. Like Niu et al. (2015), we installed the TDP sensors in leaf petioles rather than the stem of oil palms due to presumably higher vessel density and homogeneity in vascular bundle distribution (Madurapperuma, Bleby, & Burgess, 2009;
Renninger, Phillips, & Hodel, 2009). Niu et al. (2015) also tested the influence of leaf characteristics such as leaf orientation, inclination and horizontal shading on leaf water use for 56 oil palm leaves, but no statistically significant effects were observed. The authors argued that the examined factors partly counteract (Niu et al. 2015). We followed their suggested scheme in our study and selected four leaves per palm in the cardinal directions.
Sap flux density Js (g cm-2 h-1) was calculated using the equation derived by Granier (1985), but with oil palm specific, calibrated equation parameters (Niu et al., 2015). Zero-flux conditions were examined following Oishi et al. (2008); it was found that zero-flux conditions were met during the early morning hours during our entire sap flux measurement period. Individual leaf water use rates (kg day-1) were calculated by multiplying Js daysums by Ac of the according leaf petioles. Those were derived from a previously presented linear relationship between petiole baseline length (which was measured with a caliper) and Ac at the location of the sensor (Niu et al. 2015). Individual daily leaf water use rates were averaged for each palm and multiplied by the number of leaves per palm to derive palm water use rates (kg day-1). Water use rates were based on averages of three sunny days on
which soil moisture was non-limiting in order to minimize the effects of varying environmental conditions; this approach is in accordance with previous research on oil palm water use (e.g. Hardanto et al., 2017; Niu et al., 2015; Röll et al., 2015). In the nomenclature across the applied sap flux methods, we follow Edwards, Becker, & Cermák (1997) in expressing individual tree and oil palm water use as mass per time (kg day-1) and stand-scale transpiration in ‘mm day-1’.
2.2.3 Drone image acquisition and processing
At the time of the sap flux measurements, drone flights were conducted using an octocopter (MikroKopter OktoXL, HiSystems GmbH, Germany) equipped with a digital RGB camera (Nikon D5100, Japan). Flight routes were planned with MikroKopter-Tool V2.14b. Flight altitude was 39 m above ground, flight speed was 7.2 km h-1 and one picture was taken per second (Appendix B).
The flight missions were performed in circular and grid pathways to get different perspectives and an overlap of 70% for the construction of 3D maps. After eliminating blurry pictures, 3D point clouds were created from an average of 600 geo-referenced images per study site with Agisoft Photoscan Professional 1.2.6 software (Agisoft LLC, Russia). The achieved point cloud density was 3 points cm-2. In the analysis, we used the pictures from one single flight to construct the 3D models.
The workflow included image alignment, georeferencing, building dense point clouds, the generation of digital elevation models (DEM) and orthomosaic generation. Ground-control points printed as 8-Bit barcodes and laid out during the flight campaigns were used to determine the overall positional accuracy of orthomosaic images. The 3D point clouds were generated using the Structure from Motion (SfM) technique (Westoby, Brasington, Glasser, Hambrey, & Reynolds, 2012; Lowe, 2004). Orthomosaic and digital elevation models (DEM) were created for each plot for further visualization and interpretation.
In order to create canopy height models (CHM), digital terrain models (DTM) were generated from the point cloud data. For this, the three main parameters (maximum angle, maximum distance and cell size) were defined with Agisoft’s ground point classifier tool and used to differentiate ground and non-ground points. The classified ground points were converted to raster format as DTM. Further, we overlaid the DEM and DTM and applied
smooth filters to derive the canopy height model. Subsequently, crown polygons were delineated for target trees and oil palms through visual interpretation and tree location information. One major challenge of using aerial imagery for delineating individual tree canopies is the overlapping of crowns. It was not major issues in our study as the studied trees are young and located in gaps created by the previous thinning of oil palms. The 3D crown models of the studied palms and trees (extracted from the SfM point clouds) were derived from multiple shots at different angles and positions, thus allowing to delineate even overlapping canopies. Additionally, the very high point cloud density of 3 points cm
-2 allowed modeling the crown structures in great detail. However, for some sample trees we experienced difficulties with automatic 3D segmentation, e.g. when branches from different trees connect (Tao et al. 2015). In such a case, we performed additional manual segmentation and processing and added clusters for the automatic approach (Trochta, Kruček, Vrška, & Kraâl, 2017). The individual canopy height of trees and meristem height of oil palms were obtained by overlaying individual crown polygons with the CHM. For trees, the highest point in CHM within the individual crown polygon was considered as the canopy height of trees (Birdal, Avdan, & Türk, 2017), while the lowest point was taken as the meristem height of oil palms. As a ground-based reference, canopy height of each individual was measured using a pole, and canopy width and projection area were established with the vertical sighting method (Preuhsler 1979, also see Pretzsch et al. 2015) in the eight cardinal directions. The heights obtained by the drone-based and the ground-based methods were well correlated along a 1:1 line (R2 = 0.69, P < 0.001; Appendix C).
Also, the canopy diameter obtained by terrestrial measurements and drone based analyses were highly correlated along a 1:1 line (R2 = 0.95, P < 0.001), suggesting the applicability of the drone based approach. The PolyClip function in Fusion software v3.6 (USDA, USA) was used to extract individual point clouds for each tree and oil palm crown. Crown variables of each individual were obtained using measurement marker functions in the same software. For crown volume and planar area, the point clouds were interpolated in R software v3.4.3 (R Development Core team, 2016) using the Alphashape3D (Lafarge &
Pateiro-Lopez, 2014) and rLiDAR (chullLiDAR2D, Silva et al., 2017) packages, respectively.
There are several different ways to compute crown volumes including convex hull and alpha shape algorithms (Colaço et al., 2017). In convex hull, it constructs an envelope by considering the number of input points belongs to the convex hull to represent the outward
curving shape of tree crowns. In the alpha shape approach, a predefined and reduced alpha value serves as size criterion to construct more details, thus shrinking the corresponding convex hull closer down to the 3D point cloud (Pateiro-Lopez and Rodriguez-Casal, 2010;
Colaço et al., 2017). In our study, we calculated the crown volumes for both trees and oil palms with a convex hull algorithm and alpha shape algorithms, the latter using the alpha values 0.75, 0.50 and 0.25 (Appendix D). Two contrasting models (convex hull and alpha shape 0.25) are illustrated in figure 2 for a studied oil palm and a studied tree.
2.2.4 Statistical analyses
To test for differences in tree water use among species, and for differences in oil palm water use between oil palm agroforest and oil palm monoculture, we used ANOVAs, followed by Posthoc Tukey’s HSD; differences were assumed as significant at P < 0.05.
Plant size related variables such as crown volumes as predictor of plant water use were tested by linear regressions. We tested the variance of residuals for normal distribution by the Shapiro-Wilk test and homoscedasticity with residual plot analysis. The null hypothesis of normality was rejected at P < 0.05.
The linear regressions served as the basis for subsequent scaling of tree- and palm-level water use to stand-level transpiration. To compare the uncertainties associated with different scaling variables, we performed parametric bootstrapping with the linear relationships between water use and the predictor variables with 50,000 iterations using the R package ‘boot’ (Canty & Ripley., 2017; Davison & Hinkley, 1997). This yielded estimates of means and corresponding standard deviations as measures of uncertainty.
All statistical analyses and plotting were performed with R version 3.4.3 (R Development Core team, 2016).
Figure 2: Canopy of an oil palm and a tree (Shorea leprosula) using point clouds from the drone missions and convex hull and alpha shape algorithms. Other tree species are shown in appendix D.


Presence of the genus Lampetra in Asturias (Northern Spain)
In July 2009, larvae of Lampetra sp. were caught in the river Deva, northern Spain. This first record of this genus in the Cantabrian coast represents a significant extension of its range in the Iberian Peninsula. The analyses of two mitochondrial genes and some morphologic and meristic characters confirmed the identification of the genus.


‘Haneul Madang’ Rooftop Garden at Busan City Hall Open to the Public1 year 3 weeks ago
BUSAN, South Korea -- Busan City plans to run a discovery program for the Haneul Madang rooftop garden at Busan City Hall, from March through November.
The 3,659 square meter rooftop garden, built on the fourth floor roof of the City Hall building, consists of 6,872 trees of 36 different species and 13,314 flowers and herbs of 48 different species.
The program will run every day, Monday through Friday, from 9:30 a.m. until 12 noon. A...


Identifying Reservoir Architecture in Mio-Pliocene Canyon Systems of the Northern Kutei Basin
Reader, Joanne; Vendrell-Roc, Jaume; White, Roger
Salamander Energy Plc, Singapore, Singapore.
Recent acquisition of 3D seismic data in the Bontang and SE Sangatta PSCs, Northern Kutei Basin by Salamander Energy Plc has enabled detailed mapping of Mio-Pliocene aged deepwater slope canyon and fan systems using seismic amplitude analysis and seismic facies mapping techniques. Gross canyon geomorphologies, dimensional data, internal depositional architectures and stacking patterns have been defined and documented and demonstrate the presence of significant sedimentary feeder systems on the paleoslope. Narrow linear upper slope canyons broaden and amalgamate into much larger canyons on the mid to lower slope areas. A wide variety of internal seismic facies architectures have been identified, from laterally continuous semi-confined sheet geometries through to channel-levee geometries. These architectures vary with position on the slope and through geological time and reflect the switching of sedimentary input areas on the shelf. Local syn-sedimentary tectonics including both extensional and compressional thrust faulting have in some areas modified depositional patterns, deflecting channel systems and causing significant sediment ponding in places. A high degree of vertical stacking of canyon systems against large scale inversion anticlines is common. These areas provide excellent drilling targets for exploration wells in the area. Gross canyon geometries and internal canyon seismic facies architectures have also been compared to the modern day seabed and published shallow seismic profiles in the Kutei Basin area and demonstrate that the present is indeed the key to the past for the Northern Kutei area. Comparison with other subsurface field analogues provides some additional comfort. This work has provided support for a new geological model for these exploration blocks in the far northern part of the Kutei basin which is distal from the modern day Mahakam Delta proven hydrocarbon province.
AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90155©2012 AAPG International Conference & Exhibition, Singapore, 16-19 September 2012


Keep up to date with the latest news, insights and features from the Adelphi Group of Companies
Autumn at Adelphi
October 11, 2018
[:en]The Adelphi site has an array of beautiful, weird and wonderful flora throughout the year, which
our Estates Director Chris Bedford appreciates and documents.
This Autumn is looking particularly wonderful; scroll down and see some of the species we’ve seen so far…
Autumn is also the time for Chris to be sent skywards in the scissor-lift, clearing and maintaining our solar panels…


Wells that serve more than two million Californians are contaminated with nitrates at levels that surpass public health standards, California Watch reports. In small towns and rural settings, schools and families often don’t have access to groundwater filtration systems. Tap water spiked with high nitrate levels can lead to illness in infants and some studies have found connections to certain cancers in lab animals.
By Julia Scott
California Watch, Special to Circle of Blue
John and Rosenda Mataka never gave a thought to their tap water until 1995, when the city of Modesto took over the town of Grayson’s water supply wells and informed everyone that they had been drinking nitrate-contaminated water for over a decade.
Modesto officials began conducting regular tests of Grayson’s two production wells. The state Department of Public Health reacted to the results by requiring the city to install a treatment plant to rid the water of dangerous nitrate levels.
“I was angry. We just weren’t told. Every year they said the water was fine,” said Rosenda Mataka, who raised her son Emiliano on compromised tap water.
Although Emiliano and his parents show no indication that their health has been harmed by the water they drank for years, the Matakas worry about the long-term health impacts of exposure to tainted drinking water. Tap water spiked with high nitrate levels can lead to “blue baby syndrome,” which cuts off an infant’s oxygen supply. Some studies have found connections to certain cancers in lab animals.
Grayson’s water treatment system provides an oddly incongruous sight: an assortment of gleaming pipes and tanks that tower above apricot orchards and alfalfa fields, with a tall fence wrapped around them and a big warning sign that says “Caution: Chlorine.”
It’s Grayson’s accidental landmark, a symbol of the hidden legacy that has prevented this rural outpost of 1,200 from becoming the prosperous Modesto suburb it could have been.
In a way, Grayson is lucky. Most small communities of its size with serious nitrate problems can’t afford expensive water treatment plants. That means these communities, made up largely of low-income families who work the fields, end up drinking whatever comes out of the tap, even if the water violates public health standards for nitrates.
At least one million Californians rely on private wells that have no public health oversight. These residents are at high risk for nitrate contamination because their wells are shallower than municipal wells. Nitrates are colorless and odorless, making them hard to detect without lab testing.
At the other end of the spectrum, cities in Southern California have spent millions of dollars on nitrate treatment plants because they have no other choice – dirty or not, the groundwater is crucial to meet population growth while access to imported water shrinks. The Irvine Ranch Water District, for instance, built a $33 million system to remove nitrates in 2007. It costs an additional $2.3 million a year just to operate and maintain. The plant itself serves 50,000 water customers in Orange County.
Other California communities will be facing the same tough choices in the coming years. California’s population is projected to increase 53 percent by 2050. Of the 50 million people who will one day call this state home, many will settle in the greater Los Angeles area, Inland Empire, and parts of the Central Valley – areas that overlie some of the most nitrate-contaminated groundwater in the state.
City planners are looking to groundwater to supply one-third of the water needed to accommodate California’s coming population boom, or 1.1 trillion gallons per year – more than any other source, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
Looking around Grayson today, it’s hard to believe the town was once in the running to become a major suburb of Modesto. Twenty years ago, a developer was planning to build a 633-unit subdivision at the site of a peach orchard in Grayson.
Those dreams were dashed shortly after Modesto installed a de-nitrification plant. Although it can barely afford it, the city spends $800 per acre-foot of water to make water drinkable for Grayson’s 1,200 residents – up to $19,440 a month, four times the cost of the treated Tuolomne River water Modesto pipes to half its 210,000 residents.
Another problem is the leftovers: Grayson’s ion exchange process leaves behind hundreds of tons of saline brine that can’t be recycled or reused, so Modesto pays extra to export four truckloads of it each week to a Bay Area wastewater plant. At those prices, the city quickly concluded it couldn’t afford any new water connections in Grayson and banned them outright. The ban is still in place today, minimizing the area’s population growth.
“If water wasn’t a problem here, the whole area would be developed in a heartbeat,” said John Mataka, who works for Stanislaus County as a behavioral health specialist. He and Rosenda both advocate for environmental justice issues with a variety of local and state organizations.
Experts say the slow spread of nitrates underground has already affected millions of Californians, mostly due to a legacy of leaky septic tanks and intensive nitrogen fertilizer-based farming over the last 60 years. Nitrates are the leading cause of well closures in California. Scientists say that if nitrate concentrations don’t taper off, the pollution will eventually sink deep enough to affect the well water that millions of Californians depend upon.
Studies have shown that although only 3.5 percent of public water supply wells in the Central Valley exceed the public health limit for nitrates today, an additional 13 percent of wells are at substantial risk of contamination.
That message is somehow getting lost on people, says Karen Burow, a Sacramento-based scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey. Past farming practices have already contributed to tomorrow’s nitrate problems, and today’s contributions are making the problem worse.
“I think that’s the most important point we can get across – that there is a lot of nitrate in shallow groundwater and it’s moving, and we don’t see it going away very fast. There is some urgency for the policy people to figure out what to do,” Burow said.
Solving the groundwater problem will take imagination – and a lot more money than the state is spending. California voters have passed two water bonds since 2002, worth more than $8 billion. Roughly $2 billion was allocated for clean, safe drinking water.
No estimate exists for what it would cost to clean up the nitrates in our groundwater basins, in part because the state has limited knowledge about where the pollutants are and where they go when they reach the water table.
The Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that the cost of treating all the polluted groundwater in California over the next 20 years, including nitrates, would amount to $7.5 billion.
Tackling the source
Activists and regulators agree that the best way to solve the nitrate problem is to prevent it. But that is easier said than done. State regulators have started requiring certain operations to limit the nitrogen they apply to land. Records show, however, that in many cases, officials have been aware of ongoing nitrate pollution for years – and took little action to address it.
One of the best examples of this is the state’s dairies, which grow crops with manure. Many dairies lack enough cropland to absorb all the nitrogen they produce. As a result, they over-apply liquid manure, causing nitrate problems.
Most dairies began testing their domestic wells for nitrates in 2007 and 65 percent of the dairy wells exceeded the public health limit for nitrates. Forty-two percent of wells had nitrate levels that were twice the drinking water standard.
Many dairies moved north, to the Central Valley, after Chino water regulators passed strict rules limiting the number of cows.
Since 2000, the state has mandated that 48 dairies submit groundwater test results – in response to numerous other findings of nitrate contamination on their land. Yet none of the dairies were fined, required to cease operations or asked to clean up a nitrate problem identified by the state.
Dairies receive violation letters for not monitoring properly, but exceeding the nitrate limits rarely has serious consequences.
Records show some dairies were even suspected of spreading contamination to adjacent lands, potentially affecting the drinking water of neighbors and farmhands living onsite. But only one dairy, The Bosma Milk Co. in Tipton, received a violation letter specifically for high nitrates in groundwater beneath the property, according to an online database of state enforcement actions.
The Bosma Milk Co. has reported nitrate concentrations above the public health limit since 2003. Like many other Central Valley dairies with nitrate problems, nitrate concentrations in some of Bosma’s wells spiked as high as five times the pollution limit between 2000 and 2007.
The dairy received a violation letter in 2008, but no fine. The Central Valley Regional Water Board has asked the dairy to collect more information before it takes action.
Gary Bosma, co-owner of Bosma Milk Co., said he and his brother Jake have gone out of their way to comply with water quality requirements imposed by the state. He suggested that regulators would have a hard time proving that nitrates were coming from Bosma given that there are other dairies in the area.
“We have neighbors and the water moves around in the aquifer. Just because one well pops up positive doesn’t mean it’s coming from that dairy,” Bosma said.
Officials say they have been aware of nitrate issues at dairies for a long time.
“The solution isn’t usually to just shut down a dairy. The ones that we found having problems, we’ve worked with them to get more land, improve their cropping practices, in some cases line manure basins,” said Ken Landau, assistant executive officer of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board.
In 2007, Central Valley regulators started requiring most dairies to develop plans to manage their manure to reduce water contamination. Another rule, the first of its kind in the country, required dairies to sample their domestic wells for nitrates. If the levels are too high, the dairy needs to pay to install additional monitoring wells to gauge the extent of the contamination.
The program was welcomed by environmentalists, but Dairy CARES, a statewide dairy-industry coalition, feels the requirements are too burdensome. The group is working on an alternative that calls for installing wells in select regional locations to monitor contamination, an approach that would avoid pointing fingers at individual dairy operators.
“It’s a much broader scale than holding an individual responsible for their exact actions,” said Darrin Polhemus, deputy director of the State Water Resources Control Board’s division of water quality. “Obviously that’s what we’ll want to get to eventually, but that’s not the focus. It’s not designed to find that one guy out there.”
An expensive problem
It’s too late to prevent nitrate contamination in many Southern California groundwater basins, especially in heavily urbanized portions of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
It’s a problem that harkens back to the region’s agricultural legacy. Land now covered with suburban neighborhoods once sprouted with citrus trees and vegetable fields where farmers used nitrogen fertilizer. Until recently, the Chino Basin was home to more dairies than anywhere in the world.
Nitrate problems were detected as early as the 1970s in the Chino Basin, one of the largest groundwater basins in the state. The area is at the heart of California’s Inland Empire and home to more than a million people. Nitrate concentrations in the worst-hit parts of the basin were double the EPA threshold in the 1980s and quadruple the limit by 2000, according to records.
Regulators with the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board tried with limited success to contain the problem by banning dairies from applying manure to land in the Chino Basin in 1999.
Today, residents pay high water bills to bankroll multimillion-dollar nitrate treatment plants in places like Pomona and Riverside. The Inland Empire Utilities Agency in western San Bernardino County is in the midst of a $300 million project to expand its nitrate removal plant as part of an aggressive strategy to cope with drought-related limits on imported water.
“We recognized that imported water was vulnerable and less reliable,” agency General Manager Rich Atwater said. “We’ve literally hit the wall with the Delta. We’re in a huge economic recession and everybody recognizes that we’re going to go from 38 million to 50 million people in the next 25 years, and Southern California is a big part of the demand.”
Times have changed since the 1970s, when water managers could just shut down a well and dig a new one if nitrates became a serious problem. Atwater says the causes of nitrate contamination were ignored for too long, creating a problem for everyone in the region.
“All that nitrate contamination that we’re addressing today is literally a legacy of 50 to 100 years ago,” Atwater said. “Prevention is so much more cost effective – 10, 20 times as much. It’s so much more expensive to remove the contaminant from the groundwater basin than to keep it from getting there in the first place.”
In Modesto, the city has had to shut down 10 of its 140 municipal wells because of nitrate contamination in the past 15 years, and there will likely be more, said Allen Lagarbo, deputy public works director.
“All cities on wells in this area start developing contamination problems eventually,” he said.
The combined population of cities in the Sacramento Metro region and the San Joaquin Valley is projected to top 9 million by 2030. The population in the Central Valley has doubled every 30 years since 1900 as residents move onto former farmlands.
Meeting those future water demands is not as simple as building a new generation of nitrate treatment plants, as Modesto has discovered. The most common technologies to remove nitrates, ionic exchange and reverse osmosis, can be expensive and cumbersome.
“We do this crazy thing now and take pristine, beautiful water and put it on our farms, and the minute it soaks into the ground it’s filled with nitrate, and then we ask cities to clean up marginal water and use it as drinking water,” said Jean Moran, professor of earth and environmental science at CSU East Bay and a former groundwater research scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
A Sacramento solution?
In the Central Valley, farmers may soon face regulations on their use offertilizer similar to an order imposed on dairies in 2007. The agricultural industry wants those rules to remain voluntary and says it would be unfair for regulators to require farmers to comply with strict statewide water quality standards.
Nitrogen fertilizer use in California has stabilized at an average 700,000 tons each year, but it’s unclear whether voluntary strategies have made a difference for nitrate levels so far. It took 50 years to detect nitrate problems in many areas and it will take decades to see changes, experts say.
One option would be to require farmers to limit the amount of fertilizer they apply to their fields. That would require new legislation. The State Water Resources Control Board does not have the authority to impose those limits.
Lawmakers have directed hundreds of thousands of dollars of aid to small communities struggling with nitrates, and established demonstration projects for good farming practices through the University of California. But when it comes to tackling fertilizer itself, results have been mixed.
Former Bay Area state Assemblyman Johan Klehs tried to pass a bill in 2006 that would have raised the mill tax on fertilizer. The money would have been used to provide grants to communities affected by nitrate contamination. (In California, fertilizer is exempt from local and state sales taxes). The bill died in the Assembly’s Agriculture Committee.
“All efforts along those lines automatically go to the ag committee and they die there. Legislators are not friendly to anything that could negatively impact agriculture,” said Debbie Davis, legislative analyst with the Oakland-based Environmental Justice Coalition for Water.
State Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez, D-Shafter, calls nitrates “a backwater issue in Sacramento.”
“These are the kinds of things public policy makers need to hear,” he said. “It’s always difficult to get any of these things on the radar screen. … We’ve got to get our farmers to recognize the long-term impact of these materials on water systems. People say it’s the end of a major, multi-billion dollar industry without these fertilizers.”
Scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey have calculated that even if fertilizer inputs ceased immediately and forever, nitrate levels would continue to climb for many more decades before starting to decline because of the lag time in deeper aquifers.
All the more reason to take preventative action, says Eli Moore, a research associate with the Oakland-based Pacific Institute.
“We can deal with nitrate contamination once it’s already reached the tap water, or we can try to prevent nitrate contamination before it becomes a problem,” Moore said. “It’s really a question of whether we as Californians are going to ensure that all Californians have access to clean drinking water.”
Grayson’s moratorium on new water connections hasn’t kept people from building new homes and simply digging their own backyard wells at the risk of exposing themselves to dangerous levels of nitrates.
Nitrate concentrations in Grayson’s raw water have tested as high as 65 milligrams per liter over the past 15 years. The public health limit is 45 milligrams per liter. One milligram is equivalent to half a teaspoon in a swimming pool. It may not seem like much, but for vulnerable populations, like infants, the effects can be acute, experts say.
“If this is an issue now, can you imagine a town three times the size?” asked John Mataka. “It would have been a calamity.”
This story was produced in collaboration with KQED Central Valley Bureau Chief Sasha Khokha and Christopher Beaver of CB Films. It was edited by Mark Katches. It was copy edited by William Cooley. For the whole story, plus interactive tools, film clips, a photo slideshow and links to a three-part series on nitrates produced by KQED Radio, visit California Watch. Read more of California Watch’s work on Circle of Blue.
Circle of Blue provides relevant, reliable, and actionable on-the-ground information about the world’s resource crises.