·:[ Environmental News Bits ]:·
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has made available comprehensive reports and data on water enforcement in all 50 states. This is part of Administrator Lisa P. Jackson’s larger effort by to enhance transparency, promote the public’s right to know about water quality and provide information on EPA’s actions to protect water under the Clean Water Act.

In a memorandum issued last Thursday, Administrator Jackson directed EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) to develop an action plan to enhance public transparency regarding clean water enforcement. In the memo, she also calls for stronger enforcement performance at federal and state levels and a transformation of EPA’s water quality and compliance information systems.

In keeping with this directive, EPA has posted detailed information on the current state of clean water compliance and enforcement in each state, and copies of the latest clean water enforcement and compliance performance reports for each state to the agency’s Web site. EPA also launched new Web-based tools to help the public search, assess, and analyze the data the agency used to help prepare those reports.

These actions are among of several aggressive steps taken by Administrator Jackson to improve the nation’s water quality by increasing the transparency and effectiveness of the agency’s national Clean Water Act enforcement program.

The administrator’s memo directed the agency to take several actions, including:

• Improve and enhance the information available on the EPA website on compliance and enforcement activities in each state, showing connections to local water quality where possible;
• Provide information in a user-friendly format form that is easily understood and useable by the public;
• Raise the bar for clean water enforcement performance and ensure enforcement is taken against serious violations that threaten water quality; and
• Improve EPA’s enforcement performance in states where EPA directly implements the clean water program.

Administrator Jackson directed OECA to work with EPA’s Office of Water and to consult closely with EPA’s 10 regional offices and the states on the action plan. After obtaining input from other stakeholders, the assistant administrator of OECA, Cynthia Giles, will report back to Administrator Jackson in 90 days with recommendations.

More information on the state-by-state reports
http://www.epa.gov/compliance/state/srf/index.html

More information on EPA and state enforcement data
http://www.epa.gov/compliance/data/results/performance/cwa/index.html

Copy of the administrator’s memorandum
http://www.epa.gov/compliance/data/results/performance/cwa/jackson-ltr-cwa-enf.html

Read the full story at GreenerDesign.

Suppose you needed to determine what the top 10 biological designs are. What would they be? I know that one of my candidates would most certainly be the bird’s egg.

There are lots of different kinds of laid eggs in our world and I find them all fascinating no matter which class of animal, insect, fish, bird, reptile, amphibian or mammal (yes, the platypus and echidna are mammals and lay eggs) produced them. I would choose the bird’s egg, however, as a personal favorite. And for its representative, who could resist that largest of all bird eggs, the ostrich egg?

Read the full story in the Seattle Times.

Inmates at the Cedar Creek Corrections center are staffing a project to bolster the dwindling population of the Oregon spotted frog. The results of their 85-cent-per-hour job has stunned researchers.

Read the full story in Scientific American.

As the race to create clean, renewable power heats up, the solar industry is focusing on a technology in hopes of producing utility-scale energy.

Concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) solar power — which marries traditional solar photovoltaic technology to large-scale concentrated solar power plants — could ramp up utility-scale solar production, advocates say, especially in niche markets. But as with all developing technologies, the effort faces significant hurdles.

Read the full story in Scientific American.

A new framework for reducing carbon emissions takes a crack at the knottiest dilemma confronting a global climate solution: how to divvy cuts between rich and poor nations.

A new study published Monday attempts to sidestep the rancor, finding that virtually every country has a class of individuals—the so-called “high emitters”—enjoying a rich, carbon-intensive lifestyle. If those individuals, no matter their locale, are forced to take responsibility for their emissions, a great swath of countries become participants in the climate effort, the study claims.

Listen to the full story at NPR.

California is in the midst of one of its worst droughts in decades. Residents of Los Angeles are banned from watering their lawns during the day and can only use sprinklers twice a week. To enforce the laws, the L.A. “Water Conservation Team” has taken to the street in Priuses to find water offending scofflaws.

Read the full story at GreenBiz.

Last December, I wrote an article called “Sustainability 101: The Human Problem,” which outlined seven actions and principles that help companies embark on their environmental sustainability journey. The last action was “Focus on the Dollar Spent on the Margin,” and it could not be more relevant today.

Companies want to ensure the greatest environmental and economic return on each dollar (and hour) spent on sustainability. So which individuals or groups can you influence to support your sustainability efforts? Which individuals or groups pose the greatest business risk with respect to your environmental performance? Where do you start?

Read the full post at Green, Inc.

In addition to catching raindrops, homeowners and building managers are trying out another way to conserve water: composting toilets.

Last month the city of Austin, Tex., approved its first composting toilet. Columbus, Ohio is adding some composting toilets to its parks. Officials in Dutchess County, N.Y., are studying the concept.

Read the full story at NPR.

In the Barcelona suburb of Santa Coloma de Gramenet, the deceased are fighting climate change. Last November, the town’s cemetery installed more than 450 solar panels on tops of the mausoleums, called niches.

Listen to the full story from NPR.

Researcher Eric Johnson recently revealed that charcoal grills leave a much larger carbon footprint than their gas-powered counterparts. On what may be the busiest grilling day of the year, Guy Raz speaks with Johnson about his study.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

In the General Grant Houses in Manhattan, two women are spreading the word about recycling, door by door.

Read the full story in Scientific American.

From cell phones and computers to bicycle helmets and hospital IV bags, plastic has molded society in many ways that make life both easier and safer. But the synthetic material also has left harmful imprints on the environment and perhaps human health, according to a new compilation of articles authored by scientists from around the world.

Read the full story at GreenerDesign.

Ten polymers developed by Eastman Chemical Company have received Cradle to Cradle (C2C) silver certification. The materials are used in a wide range of products and industries, including architecture, design and construction.

The polymers were recognized for being 100 percent recyclable, as well as having low toxicity and hazard potential. The C2C certification process, administered by McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC), looks at the materials that products are made of, what can be done with them when they’re disposed of, energy and water use, and companies’ social responsibility strategies.

Read the full story at GreenBiz.

Despite being a centerpiece of celebrations the world over, fireworks displays often release toxic chemicals into the environment, from heavy metals to perchlorate…

But researchers are developing a new generation of fireworks that can shine just as brightly without having the same impact on the environment or human health. In an article in Chemical & Engineering News, a publication of the American Chemical Society, Bethany Halford says these nitrogen-rich formulas also use fewer color-producing chemicals, dramatically cutting down on the amount of heavy metals used and lowering their potentially toxic effects.

Read the full story at Green Inc.

A commercial shipment of biodiesel has moved through a pipeline in the United States for the first time, according to Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, a pipeline company.

Read the full story at Green Inc.

If the nation’s goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote the development of clean energy, is it easier to do this by managing the price of emissions and renewables, or by fixing the amount by which they are to be reduced (emissions) and produced (renewables)?

This may sound like an obscure policy distinction, but it is an old debate among environmental economists — and one that has gained new import in the debate over the climate bill passed by the House of Representatives last week.

Read the full story at ClimateBiz.

Dozens and perhaps hundreds of companies are frantically searching for the perfect biofuel. One is Qteros, a Massachusetts-based startup, spun off from Umass-Amherst, that has discovered and refined a microbe called the Q Microbe that turns biomass — switchgrass, wood chips, grass, corn stover or even municipal liquid waste — into ethanol. Qteros’s CEO is Dr. William Frey, former global director of biofuels at Dupont, who recently told a reporter that the company is “basically trying to become the Microsoft of energy.

Read the full story at ClimateBiz.

The insurance industry should view two recent climate change stories of significance as a clarion call to action.

Read the full story in Scientific American.

U.S. EPA is working to issue replacement rules for Bush-era regulations aimed at slashing power plant emissions of soot, smog and mercury as quickly as possible, the agency’s top air official told a Senate panel yesterday.

Read the full story in Scientific American.

Automakers are examining a variety of technologies to enhance fuel economy. But a group of undergraduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has found an overlooked source: shock absorbers.

Read the full story in Scientific American.

Instead of sequestering carbon dioxide to reduce its effects on global climate, why don’t we split it into harmless carbon and oxygen?James E. Miller, a chemical engineer at Sandia National Laboratories, breaks it down.

Listen to the NPR interview.

“Beyond Petroleum” has been a multimillion dollar ad campaign for British Petroleum. The company has spent the past several years touting it’s alternative energy plans. But now, the oil giant is closing down its Alternative Energy division, its investment cut, and its chief executive has taken early retirement.

Robert Siegel talks to Financial Times reporter Ed Crooks, who reports on the company this week in his article “Back to Petroleum.”

Read the full story at GreenBiz.

Joel Makower’s commentary on radical transparency and Marc Gunther’s post on Wal-Mart’s growing greenhouse gas emissions lead to a common question: How should corporations frame sustainability goals and achievements in reporting and communications?

Read the full story at GreenBiz.

This month, Earthbound Farm and Naked Juice have announced they’re each putting out products in plastic packaging made with 100 percent post-consumer recycled (PCR) content.

Read the full post at Green, Inc.

The Treasury and the Energy Department today unveiled long-awaited new rules under which the government will pay up to 30 percent of the cost of renewable energy projects.

Read the full post at Dot Earth.

After years of resisting efforts to define a dangerous level of warming in international climate discussions, the United States joined with the rest of the world’s major industrial powers on Wednesday in a (non-binding) pledge to avoid warming the planet beyond a threshold long favored by European governments and many climate campaigners as a no-go zone.

The chosen danger zone, derived from a host of scientific studies over the last two decades, lies 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) beyond the planet’s average temperature in 1850 or so. (That translates to about a 2 degree Fahrenheit warming from today’s global average, by some ways of measuring, of about 59 degrees.)

But, given the persistent lack of clarity on how much the world will warm from a certain buildup of greenhouse gases and the divergent views around the world on what an ideal climate is in any case, is this threshold meaningful or useful? (And of course there’s the question of whether it’s an utterly wishful goal given emissions trends and energy options, as Richard Black explores on his BBC blog.)

Read the full story at ClimateBiz.

Last month, an Alaska Airlines 737 aircraft took the first step in a project to dramatically cut emissions from air travel.

Read the full story at ClimateBiz.

Farm state politicians, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists have sold biofuels to rest of us as a way to revive rural America, attack the problem of global warming and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

In response, investors and taxpayers have poured many millions of dollars into corn ethanol. The returns have been skimpy.

That, at least, is the conclusion of a new report from the Worldwatch Institute called Red, White, and Green: Transforming U.S. Biofuels. The unhappy news is that we don’t seem to have learned much from our dismal experience with corn ethanol, and unless things change in Washington, we’re going to burn a lot more of it.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

There is now somewhere to take some of the 99.1 million television sets that sit unused in closets and basements.

Read the full story at GreenBiz.

Waste upcycler TerraCycle and bag-maker Yak Pak have teamed up to create a line of backpacks and other items made from reused vinyl billboards.

Read the full story in ClimateBiz.

In the energy and climate change debate, environmentalists are for the most part united in their feelings about coal (very bad), gasoline (avoid “gas guzzlers”),  nuclear energy (scary), hydropower (small is better than big),  wind (good unless you worry about birds), solar thermal (nifty) and rooftop solar PV (even niftier).

But what about natural gas, which is the source of more of our energy than coal, nuclear or all the renewable sources combined?

Read the full story at ClimateBiz.

Behavioral economists will tell you that the simple act of placing an electricity consumption meter in plain view can substantially cut a home’s energy use. The same goes for real-time miles-per-gallon meters in cars, which change the way we drive.

These findings tell us something about behavior:

When the price of costly activities isn’t hidden from us, we’re more likely to pursue those activities prudently.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

Brooklyn Bowl, which opens this week in Williamsburg, is an environmentally friendly rock club and bowling alley.

Read the full story at GreenerDesign.

The European Commission (EC) announced today that 10 mobile phone manufacturers and chip producers, including Apple, have signed up to an initiative designed to cut down on electronic waste and improve energy efficiency through the production of standardized mobile phone chargers.

Read the full story at GreenerDesign.

Cleaning company startup Xeros Ltd. and Cambridge Consultants have developed a washing machine that cuts water consumption by as much as 90 percent and launders clothes using reusable nylon polymer beads.

Read the full story at GreenBiz.

Social intrapreneurs or corporate changemakers, who initiate social and environmental projects to bring their ideals to work and create value for their companies, can exist in nearly every organization.

Yet it takes a conducive corporate culture to fully unlock their potential. And companies have much to gain by encouraging social intrapraneurship — from employee recruitment and retention to creating new environmental savings and economic opportunities.

Read the full story at ClimateBiz.

The Carbon Trust announced today it has made it easier for small- and medium-sized businesses to make their operations more efficient. The company expanded eligibility for the interest-free loan program, which will dole out £100m (US$165.6 million) over the next two years, including £84 million in new allocations from the 2009 government budget.

Read the full story at ClimateBiz.

Last week, at San Francisco’s new California Academy of Sciences museum, IBM gathered a host of industry leaders to discuss how IT can help companies green much more than their data centers.

The company made a host of announcements, including the development of next-generation lithium ion batteries, a superefficient water-cooled supercomputer, a partnership with the city of San Francisco to monitor and improve wastewater handling, and the launch of its Green Sigma Coalition, which aims to address the environmental impacts of a company’s operations, ranging from the data center and office facilities to retail space and manufacturing plants.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

Dow Chemical’s long-term interest in the ethanol produced by the algae is as a replacement for natural gas to make plastic.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

New laws allow residents to begin rainwater harvesting, a practice that water rights laws once prohibited.

See also The Legalities of Rainwater Harvesting at Green, Inc.

Read the full story in the New York Times.

A large area of marshlands will be lost despite a plan to restore the flow of muddy water, scientists reported.

Read the full post at Green Inc.

As the Arctic warms, an expected increase in shipping threatens to introduce invasive species, harm existing marine wildlife and lead to damaging oil spills, according to a recent report from the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum of Arctic nations.

Read the full story at GreenerDesign.

Bamboo has nothing but a positive reputation when it comes to the environment. It grows quickly, it doesn’t need pesticides or much water, it pulls carbon dioxide out of the air, and it can be used in a nearly unimaginable range of products. With its well deserved, eco-friendly reputation, companies have been quick to integrate bamboo into product lines and new bamboo-based businesses continue to pop up.

Read the full story at GreenerComputing.

An Apple ad campaign claims that its line of Macbooks is the “world’s greenest family of notebooks” — but a recent ruling by the ad industry’s self-governing body found that claim to be somewhat of an overstatement. Not clear yet is whether Apple will modify its ads.

Read the full story at GreenerBuildings.

It’s very interesting to me how certain principles can be broadly applied across industries. Take the principle of load diversity and full capacity utilization. This principle is used to great effect in the power sector, data centers and in some instances, buildings.

Read the full story at GreenBiz.

Teleworking, it seems, is as good for the company as it is for employees. In a recent survey of nearly 2,000 employees, Cisco found a slew of benefits to its flexible work program.

Read the full story at GreenerComputing.

A series of white papers released by the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) offer OEMs a guide to the environmental requirements and restrictions for different markets around the globe.

The four papers — one each for North America, Latin America, Asia and Europe — offer region-specific overviews of the regulations and requirements in place for companies that manufacture, distribute or dispose of electronics in those regions.

Energy and Water:  Preliminary Observations on the Links between Water and Biofuels and Electricity Production, by Anu Mittal, director, natural resources and environment, before the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, House Committee on Science and Technology.  GAO-09-862T, July 9.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-862T
Highlights – http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d09862thigh.pdf

Clean Air Act:  Preliminary Observations on the Effectiveness and Costs of Mercury Control Technologies at Coal-Fired Power Plants, by John B. Stephenson, director, natural resources and environment, before the Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.  GAO-09-860T, July 9
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-09-860T
Highlights – http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d09860thigh.pdf

Read the full report from the Congressional Budget Office.

Two teams of experts — one affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and one affiliated with Resources for the Future (RFF) — have estimated regional differences in the effects of policies that would increase the prices of fossil fuels in rough proportion to the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted when they are combusted, as would occur under a cap-and-trade program.

Read the full story from CBS5 (San Francisco).

A CBS 5 investigation which uncovered a huge loophole into California’s e-waste recycling laws is prompting enforcement action in a neighboring state.

California’s recycling rules are so strict that we send our electronic waste across state borders. CBS 5 Investigates found a huge pile of glass from California’s TVs and monitors in Arizona, a pile that environmental experts said contained potential environmental hazards. Now officials in Arizona agree.