·:[ Environmental News Bits ]:·
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The latest issue of Renewable Energy Weekly is now available. Highlights include:

• US Leads in Wind Power Production, But Policy Uncertainty Weighs on Industry
• A New Environment for Biofuels
• Keeping the Industry in Check
• From the Heartland, a Microcosm of Energy Transition

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

A growing need to recycle millions of tires discarded annually is the impetus for the continued development of a proposed new ASTM International specification that provides standards for converting tires into an asphalt product.

WK20240, Specification for Performance Graded Tire Rubber-Modified Asphalt Binder is being developed by Subcommittee D04.40 on Asphalt Specifications, under the jurisdiction of ASTM International Committee D04 on Road and Paving Materials.

Read the full story at News.com.

Fuel producer Poet said on Wednesday that it will open an ethanol plant next year that will use corn cobs and fiber from kernels as a feedstock.

Construction on the $4 million pilot facility in Scotland, S.D., will begin by the end of the year and produce 20,000 gallons of ethanol per year.

A full-color, graphic version of this newsletter is available online at:
http://www.greenerbuildings.com/enewsletter

Last Swath of Fort Ord is Turned Over to Local Group for a $100M Privatized Cleanup
http://www.greenerbuildings.com/news/2008/08/13/last-swath-fort-ord-turned-over-local-group-a-100m-privatized-toxic-cleanup
By Leslie Guevarra
A 3,300-acre Superfund site at the once vast Fort Ord in Monterey County has moved from federal hands to a group of local authorities that will oversee a $100 million environmental cleanup funded by the U.S. Army and will set the stage for redevelopment.

Box of Rain: ­ States Take a Closer Look at Rainwater Harvesting
By Jeff Kray
http://www.greenerbuildings.com/column/2008/08/14/box-rain-rainwater-harvesting
Regulators have historically tended to look the other way when it comes to water captured as rain. But as water becomes more scarce, regulators are more closely scrutinizing the increasingly popular practice of
rainwater harvesting — collecting rainwater in barrels, buckets and tanks.

National Labs Help DOE Strive for Zero-Net Energy Commercial Buildings
http://www.greenerbuildings.com/news/2008/08/06/national-labs-help-doe-strive-zero-net-energy-commercial-buildings
By Leslie Guevarra
With guidance from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), five national laboratories are banding together to help speed development of marketable zero-net energy commercial buildings.

‘The Dollars and Sense of Green Retrofits
http://www.greenerbuildings.com/news/2008/08/01/the-dollar-and-sense-green-retrofits
Companies that pass up a chance to green their existing commercial buildings may never recover from the losses resulting from greater operating costs, lower productivity, negative brand image and declining attractiveness to workers, according to a recent study.

Johnson Controls Helps Green Olympic Venues
http://www.greenerbuildings.com/news/2008/08/05/johnson-controls-helps-green-olympics
Johnson Controls’ green building and efficiency solutions are up and running at 18 Olympic stadiums and supporting facilities, the firm said.

Waste Drywall Finds New Life As Gypsum Products
http://www.greenerbuildings.com/news/2008/08/05/waste-drywall-finds-new-life-as-gypsum-products
USA Gypsum has added a new product to its line of gypsum made from recycled drywall waste.

Aon Offers Green Building Insurance, Allstate Tests E-Payment, Eco-Contribution Program
http://www.greenerbuildings.com/news/2008/08/07/aon-offers-green-commercial-building-insurance-allstate-tests-e-pay-eco-contribution
By Leslie Guevarra
The Aon Corporation is offering a green insurance option for commercial property policyholders, and Allstate Insurance Company is expanding a market test of a paperless billing and pay process that’s paired with a conservation contribution program.

EPA Provides $500,000 to Green Brownfields
http://www.greenerbuildings.com/news/2008/08/11/epa-provides-500000-green-brownfields
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s program to help green brownfields is providing more than $500,000 in technical assistance to 16 projects nationwide.

Atco Signs Up to Help Ease Draw on NY Power Grid
http://www.greenerbuildings.com/news/2008/08/12/atco-signs-up-help-ease-draw-ny-power-grid
Atco Properties & Management has enrolled several of its commercial buildings in the PowerPay New York demand response energy conservation program that’s aimed at reducing blackouts and brownouts in New
York State.

50 Kohl’s Stores Awarded EPA’s Energy Star
http://www.greenerbuildings.com/news/2008/08/04/50-kohl%E2%80%99s-awarded-energy-star
The Kohl’s stores that earned the designation form the largest group of non-supermarket retail buildings to now bear the Energy Star

Retrofit Brings New Life to Old Industrial Park
http://www.greenerbuildings.com/news/2008/08/01/retrofit-brings-new-life-old-industrial-park
By Leslie Guevarra
San Jose moves a step closer to its vision for a green community with the transformation of a tired former industrial property into an eco-friendly business park that was crafted according to LEED standards.

Pulpwatch.org
http://www.greenerbuildings.com/resources/resource/pulpwatchorg
Pulpwatch.org provides an interactive map of pulp and paper mills, rating them on their environmental and social performance.

The Dollars and Sense of Green Retrofits
http://www.greenbiz.com/resources/resource/the-dollars-and-sense-green-retrofits
This study looks at why some organizations green an old structure instead of building a new one.

Read the full story in The Scientist.

The green carpet was rolled out on August 4 for the first-ever Ecological Society of America (ESA) Student Ecofilm Festival, part of the ESA’s annual meeting in Milwaukee, WI. There was no popcorn in sight, but there was plenty of beer and chips to go around — this is a city founded on brewing, after all.

The Ecofilm Festival was the brainchild of Alan Covich, an ecologist at the University of Georgia and former ESA president. Covich devised the event as a way for students to engage in educational outreach. Young ecologists cum filmmakers were invited to submit 5-7 minute short movies in one of three categories: “methods in ecology,” “pure nature,” and “humans and the environment.” A panel of eight judges — seven ESA members together with the EarthDance Environmental Film Festival’s founding director Zakary Zide — then chose the best film in each category. The winners received a free registration to the meeting, worth $150.

While researching something else this morning, I discovered that it’s been 30 years since Love Canal, NY was evacuated and declared a Federal disaster area. Around the first of the month, there was some coverage by the Associated Press and other media outlets. Here’s a sample:

• Scars linger in Love Canal – and former residents — Associated Press, August 1, 2008
• The lessons of Love Canal lost unless Superfund is fixed — New York Daily News, August 7, 2008. Opinion piece by Lois Marie Gibbs, one of the Love Canal residents who spearheaded the community effort to get the state and federal governments to do something about the problem.
• On Love Canal Anniversary, Regional Institute Looks at WNY’s Environmental Burden — University of Buffalo Regional Institute, August 6, 2008. News release announcing the publication of a policy brief entitled Thirty Years from Love Canal that looks at the effect the disaster has had on environmental policy and public awareness.

For some historical perspective, see:

• The Long History of a Toxic-Waste Nightmare, a timeline published by the New York Times on the tenth anniversary in 1988.
• The Love Canal Tragedy — EPA Journal, January 1979. Piece by Eckardt C. Beck, who was U.S. EPA Region 2 administrator from 1977-1979.
• The Love Canal Collections, an online archive of documents and press clippings from the University of Buffalo Library.