En mi casa, mi madre y yo frecuentemente nos cuestionamos qué opción es mejor para las aves: tener comederos llenos de alimentos para pájaros todo el año o sembrar plantas autóctonas en el jardín. Yo pensaba que al tener los comederos con semillas y alpiste en las rutas migratorias hacía que las aves permanecerían en las áreas norteñas en lugar de migrar a su debido momento. Al investigar el tema encontré que los cambios de temporadas en lugar de la abundancia de semillas era el factor determinante en la migración de aves. No hay una respuesta fácil para el debate sobre los comederos. Independientemente, si usted decide colocar un comedero para las aves en su jardín, el mantenimiento y la colocación del mismo desempeñan un rol en la protección de las aves. Además, debe limpiar los comederos regularmente para evitar que se creen hongos que podrían perjudicar a las aves. Personalmente yo prefiero las técnicas de jardinería ecológica como el manejo integrado de plagas y la siembra de arbustos y árboles autóctonos que naturalmente invitan las aves y la vida silvestre en su jardín.

No hay duda de que la prevención de la contaminación y las iniciativas de conservación de aves [http://www.epa.gov/owow/birds/bird.html] tienen un impacto positivo en las aves y nuestro Planeta Tierra. Por consiguiente, ¿podría comprometerse a tomar cinco pasos sencillos a favor de la protección ambiental? ¡Comience hoy! [http://www.epa.gov/espanol/seleccione5/]

Sobre la autor: Lina M. F. Younes ha trabajado en la EPA desde el 2002 y está a cargo del Grupo de Trabajo sobre Comunicaciones Multilingües. Como periodista, dirigió la oficina en Washington de dos periódicos puertorriqueños y ha laborado en varias agencias gubernamentales.

The Year of Science theme for November is Chemistry. Green chemistry—also known as sustainable chemistry—is the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use or generation of hazardous substances. It applies across the life cycle, including the design, manufacture, and use of a chemical product.

If you could be a green chemist, what would be the first product you would want to invent or develop?

The deadline is October 1, so get hopping!

Here are a few links to get you going:

• Promo video on YouTube.  You’ll enter the contest by creating a video response to it, and you can check out the other entries we’ve already received.
• Details about the contest, including the rules
• Info about lead poisoning

Go grab a camera, unleash your creativity, and enter!

Jeffrey Levy is EPA’s Director of Web Communications.

I wonder when you will start having conversations rather than just broadcasting on twitter…Lots of EPA broadcast channels on Twitter, exceptionally few conversations. I know, engagement is more work, wondering if you had thought about expanding into this area.

It was such a good question, I thought I’d respond publicly as well as emailing her.

Randa is right: the gold standard is conversing on Twitter and other social media sites, not just broadcasting. But she’s also right that it takes resources.  Not just someone’s time, but also having the right person, who’s plugged into what’s going on around EPA and who knows how to speak to the world on EPA’s behalf.

There are also different ways to use Twitter, and we’re experimenting with most of them.  For example, we’ve done a little live tweeting, with plans to do more.  There are also different approaches to who to follow, how frequently we can commit to posting, etc.

We do have a couple of good examples of interaction for content on a smaller scale than “all of EPA:”

• @EPAregion9 - Wendy Chavez in our San Francisco office.  I think Wendy is our best tweeter at the moment.
• @EPAespanol - Lina Younes at headquarters.  Lina leads our multilingual communications task force (have you seen all the languages in the upper right corner of our home page?), and she tweets in Spanish.

While we figure out the gold standard (interaction), we’re doing what we can on what I call the tin standard (broadcasting). Given the number of followers, it seems a decent number of people appreciate even that.  Here are some of our other accounts:

• @EPAgov - our main account.  Primarily our automated news release headlines and blog posts, plus a few web updates and manual tweets.  This account combines content that’s also split into individual accounts, and is also available on normal Web pages:
  • @EPAnews - news releases (same info as shown in our newsroom)
  • @greenversations - blog (same as the blog itself)
  • @EPAweb - updates to epa.gov (same info as shown on our recent additions page)
• @EPAlive - we’re occasionally experimenting with using this for live tweeting
• @EPAowow - Office of Wetlands, Oceans and Watersheds
• @EPAairmarkets - market-based regulatory programs to improve U.S. air quality
• @EPAregion2 - regional office in New York
• @EPAregion3 - regional office in Philadelphia

We’re also working up some conventions, like starting our account names with “usepa” and using the same seal as the avatar.

Not quite in the same category, some of us are also tweeting professionally. We’re not “representing” EPA per se, but we’re using it as a professional network and information source.  For example:

• @levyj413 - this is my Twitter account, and I use it to discuss social media in government (especially EPA)
• @suzack777 - this is Suzanne Ackerman on our web team.  Suzanne uses Twitter to research projects like blogger outreach, and uses Twitter to make contacts and discuss related issues.

So thanks, Randa, for reminding me that we need to communicate more about what we’re up to.  Stay tuned for updates about our other social media efforts, too (in the meantime, join us on Facebook!).

Jeffrey Levy is EPA’s Director of Web Communications.

• Listen for dripping faucets and running toilets. Fixing a leak can save 300 gallons a month or more.
• Turn off the water while brushing your teeth and save 25 gallons a month.
• Run your clothes washer and dishwasher only when they are full. You can save up to 1,000 gallons a month.
• Find out more ways you can conserve water

Can you think of other things we can all do to conserve water? Be sure to let us know so we can all save energy by practicing water conservation.

About the author: Michelle Gugger graduated from Rutgers University in 2008. She is currently spending a year of service at EPA’s Region 3 Office in Philadelphia, PA as an AmeriCorps VISTA.

Siempre me ha atraído el concepto del futuro. En los años sesenta, me acuerdo de haber ido a la Feria Mundial en Nueva York y haber visto varias exhibiciones que pronosticaban cómo la vida sería en el siglo 21. De hecho, mi programa favorito de dibujos animados, los Jetsons, era una serie cómica de ciencia ficción en animación que proyectaba la vida del siglo 25 como era concebida por los productores del programa en 1963. Habían robots, aparatos electrónicos, y autos que volaban. Si nos ponemos a pensar, la mayoría de estas ideas futuristas, salvo los autos voladores, se han convertido en realidad. Sin embargo, al recordar esta serie, noté algo recientemente que me puso a pensar. No había casi ninguna vegetación en ese “futuro”. No había árboles. No había verdor. ¿Acaso así será la vida en el siglo 25?

Si lo analizamos realmente, un futuro sin árboles ni vegetación no tan sólo sería preocupante, sino sería mortal para toda la humanidad. Muchos animales, inclusive los seres humanos, no podrían vivir sin vegetación alguna en la Tierra. Las plantas son necesarias por múltiples razones—nos brindan oxígeno y son la fundación de muchas cadenas alimenticias. Además, desempeñan un papel fundamental en la ecología—sirven para purificar la atmósfera de cantidades excesivas de emisiones de bióxido de carbono. Por lo tanto, cuando pensamos en desarrollo sustentable [http://www.epa.gov/Sustainability/index.htm ] y la protección ambiental, estas no son modas pasajeras. Son esenciales para nuestra supervivencia. Todos debemos de trabajar a favor del medio ambiente al comprometernos a tomar acción a favor de nuestro planeta [www.epa.gov/espanol/seleccione5 ] el Día del Planeta Tierra y todos los días.

Sobre la autor: Lina M. F. Younes ha trabajado en la EPA desde el 2002 y está a cargo del Grupo de Trabajo sobre Comunicaciones Multilingües. Como periodista, dirigió la oficina en Washington de dos periódicos puertorriqueños y ha laborado en varias agencias gubernamentales.

In 2009 dredging began in the Upper Hudson River to remove sediments with PCBs. Read more.

Last week, a team of archaeologists and divers evaluated the remains of a late-18th or early-19th Century boat long submerged in the eastern channel of Rogers Island. Enough of the boat was intact to see that it had a distinctive centerboard keel slot technology that was an important innovation in early American shipbuilding. Divers used a small hydraulic dredge (similar to a vacuum) to further expose the vessel, screened the dredged sediment, measured the vessel, and took photos and video of the work. Afterward, the vessel was exhumed in pieces and added to a collection of other large debris, like tree stumps, that will ultimately be disposed of at a permitted landfill. Unfortunately, the boat’s deterioration and its coating of PCB-contaminated sediment prevented it from being brought to the surface and restored.

The entire PCB-removal project has been done in accordance with the National Historic Preservation Act, which states federal agencies must take into account the effects of their actions on any district, site, building, structure or object listed in or eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. So far, archeologists have found 10 sunken vessels that are being evaluated in the first phase of the project.

So, how did this boat end up submerged by Rogers Island? Fort Edward’s historian, Paul McCarty, said there is no way to know if the boat was put there for a reason or if it was a wreck, but the odds are that the boat was sunk in an accident and left underwater as a derelict. He hopes the underwater investigation and subsequent report will give some indication of what timeframe the boat met its demise and, maybe, help us understand why it happened.

For each month in 2009, the Year of Science—we will pose a question related to science. Please let us know your thoughts as comments, and feel free to respond to earlier comments, or post new ideas.

The Year of Science theme for June is “Celebrate the Ocean and Water.”

Many EPA scientists celebrate the Ocean and Water by studying how to protect them and keep them clean for human and ecosystem health.

Now that summer is here, how do you plan to celebrate the ocean and water in the coming months?

I struggle with chit-chat at social gatherings when the inevitable, “What do you do?” question is asked. It is easy to say I work for the EPA. But if the party-goer probes further, my answer is usually, “Well I work with a group of scientists and engineers who do lots and lots of different complicated sciency things in the laboratory and in the field to protect public health and the environment.” Usually at this point they ignore me and turn to my wife, the professional photographer, in an effort to avoid being blinded with science.

Joking aside, science is at the very core of everything we do as an Agency. In a Regional office, most of the Science we perform is Applied Science…taking all of the data and conclusions of basic science research, national studies, and Agency policies and translating them into decisions that affect the public and the environment in a very real way, often in their own backyards. Here in Kansas City, I’m lucky to have a team of professionals that has received numerous top national awards and recognition in an ill-understood but extremely important scientific field, risk assessment. In fact, when I searched Greenversations it wasn’t even mentioned.

Risk Assessment is a scientific process used to characterize the nature and magnitude of health risks to humans, fish and wildlife from exposures to chemical contaminants and other stressors. It brings together many scientific disciplines including chemistry, biology, toxicology, geology, statistics and ecology, all with the goal of providing the scientific support behind the Agency’s decisions. Risk Assessment is the science behind the establishment of fish advisories, cleanup levels at hazardous waste sites, evaluating health risks associated with toxic air pollutants, and registration of pesticides.

Beyond the obvious ability to affect decisions regarding human health and the environment, those of us involved with risk assessment enjoy the discipline since it is constantly evolving. Updated information on the toxicity of chemicals continually emerges, new exposure pathways come to the forefront such as vapor intrusion and exciting activities are always around the corner such as the field as computational toxicology. It is both challenging and rewarding to ensure that the best science is brought to bear as we meet tough challenges in the coming years. We’ll be hard at work performing the science behind the scenes; however don’t be afraid to talk to one of us at a cocktail party. Scientists are people too.

It’s time for the dreaded task again: time to paint our house. As I discussed with my husband the possibility of hiring a contractor to paint the house exterior and for us to paint inside, our son’s asthma became a sudden concern. Paints, stains and varnishes release low level toxic emissions into the air for years after application . These toxic emissions stem from a variety of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which are a by-product of petrochemical-based solvents used in paints. Exposure to VOC’s in paint can trigger asthma attacks, eye, throat and nose irritation, respiratory problems, nausea, allergic skin reactions and dizziness among other symptoms. As one can imagine, painting our house would require extreme planning, including a temporary move.

EPA studies indicate that when people use and store products containing organic chemicals, they can expose themselves and others to very high pollutant levels. These elevated concentrations can persist in the air long after the activity is completed, thus causing the quality of indoor air to deteriorate.

Given our concerns, I decided to embark on an internet research of our alternatives for painting the house without affecting our son’s health. These is a list of the suggestions I found on various sites, including EPA’s

• Low VOC or No VOC paints are an excellent alternative for painting the inside of our house.
• Ventilation is very important while painting.
• Warnings in the labels are extremely important since these are aimed at reducing exposure of the user.
• Buying limited quantities might save us something more than money. By buying only what we need we won’t have to worry about the fumes and toxic materials emitted by these paints while being on storage. Gases can leak even when the containers are closed.
• By using the right equipment-including masks–as with any other household project–we can reduce our exposure to hazardous substances while completing our task.

So before mixing that paint, take the necessary steps to protect your family.