Greenversations

I have lived in Olympia, Washington, for 30 years now and I believe that people here feel we live in the “greenest” part of the country. But is this really true? Wild salmon are rapidly becoming extinct and orca whales living in Puget Sound are some of the most contaminated mammals on the planet.

We are now on the third iteration of a plan to save Puget Sound. The new plan, the Action Agenda, is a significant improvement over past plans - it merges salmon recovery with overall restoration and sets a target date of 2020 for a healthy Puget Sound. It is a great plan - but can we turn the plan into action as the title suggests? We would like your help in answering this question.

Later this summer EPA will send out a formal request for project proposals for about $19 million in federal funds to restore Puget Sound. This money will go to implement the Action Agenda and follow all of our requirements for an open transparent competitive process. The Action Agenda, however, provides a pretty big umbrella to work under and we want to be as strategic as possible. How can we focus this money to have the greatest impact on the restoration of Puget Sound? - or to better understand the problems of Puget Sound for the scientists and researchers out there.

I invite you to become familiar with the problems facing Puget Sound by visiting the Puget Sound Partnership website, and please share your advice. If you are more into videos, check out the Poisoned Waters segment which aired on PBS earlier this year. Help us put our money where our mouth is so that we can indeed become the greenest corner of the country.

About the author: Tom Eaton is EPA Region 10’s Executive Lead for Puget Sound. Originally a Hoosier and a Boilermaker to boot, Tom has 32 years of public sector experience in environmental management working for EPA and the State of Washington.

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

You can’t talk science without talking about statistics! EPA’s statisticians are scattered throughout many different programs and their work supports the work of EPA’s scientists. We even have several statisticians who have been designated as Fellows of the American Statistical Association, a prestigious honor in our field. It’s a great feeling to know that a national statistical organization values the contributions of EPA’s statisticians, and it’s a heady experience to know that I can just pick up the phone or send an email to ask for help from one of the Fellows. They’ve always been very generous with their time and it’s fascinating to hear about their projects. We also have access to talented statistical contractors, and I’ve learned a lot from them.

After 20 years at EPA, I still find my job exciting and challenging. In the Office of Water, statisticians work with scientists and engineers. We move from project to project, learning about the subject matter and figuring out the best way to collect and analyze the data that’s needed. Because we use statistical techniques to select facilities for our surveys, our data analyses produce statistically valid estimates about water conditions for the entire country. Often, we have to find a different statistical technique than we’ve ever applied before for these surveys and data analyses. And then, because we strive to be transparent in statistics and every other aspect of a project, we spend a lot of time writing. Federal Courts have even referred to our documents in upholding water pollution regulations. We also participate in international statistics conferences to share what we’ve done and what we’ve learned about the environment by applying statistical techniques in collecting and analyzing data. We may not be considered a federal “statistical agency” like the Census Bureau, but statistics is very much a part of science at EPA.

About the author: Marla Smith works as a statistician in EPA’s Engineering and Analysis Division within the Office of Water. The Division works to reduce industrial and municipal impacts on water bodies and aquatic life by identifying technological solutions.

As the Beach Program Coordinator for EPA’s office in Chicago, I’m often asked whether it’s safe to swim in Lake Michigan. My answer is yes, it is safe to swim in the lake, but there are things that swimmers need to know before they go to the beach to help keep themselves - and others - from getting sick at the beach.

When you’re at the beach, be sure to wash your hands as soon as you leave the water and alwaysbefore eating anything. Don’t feed the birds, as their fecal matter can contribute to poor water quality and may cause beach closures. Also, be sure to use the bathroom facilities when nature calls, and encourage your friends to do the same. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been at the beach and hear people tell their friends they have to go to the bathroom - then watch them get up and walk towards the shore! The most important tip is make sure that you stay out of the water if you are sick, as you may share your illness with others.

Even though many beaches are regularly tested for bacteria levels, it can take up to a day to get water quality samples back from the lab, so water quality results aren’t posted until the following day. Being an informed swimmer will help keep you healthy. I generally tell beach goers that a good rule to follow is to avoid swimming during, and up to a day or two after, a rainstorm. Pollutants, such as fertilizers, pesticides, and animal waste, may be washed off the land and into the water during the rain, which could pollute the beach water.

What do you do when you see a sign at the beach that advises against swimming? Swimming in contaminated water can make you sick, ranging from sore throats and diarrhea to more serious illnesses. EPA and CDC are currently studying the relationship between water quality and illness, and the results of the study, due out in 2011, will help better protect swimmers.

In the meantime, you can help make your favorite beaches better during your summer break by volunteering to adopt a beach! Go to the Alliance for the Great Lakes’ website at greatlakes.org to find out how you can become part of their Adopt-a-Beach TM program.  Volunteers help collect data on different aspects of their beach to investigate pollution sources, collect and dispose of litter, and sample water quality. Or visit http://www.oceanconservancy.org/site/PageServer?pagename=icc_home in the 24th annual International Coastal Cleanup on September 19. Let’s keep our beaches clean! Do you know of other ways to volunteer to keep our beaches clean? Share your stories and contacts with us here!!

About the author: Holly Wirick started with EPA in 1991 and has served as the Regional Beach Program Coordinator since EPA’s Beach Program was established in 1997.

When I first moved to Colorado, I spent my summers hiking streams and collecting aquatic insects. I visited many high mountain streams that were dammed and diverted to provide water to cities along Colorado’s Front Range. In their natural state, these rivers flowed raucously over boulders, watering streamside plants, flooding wetlands, and creating fabulous habitat for fish and other aquatic critters. Downstream of the dams, the streambeds were sometimes completely dry - other times with only a thin trickle of water.

At this very moment, there are thousands of dams in Colorado that are withdrawing water from Rocky Mountain streams. Once diverted, the water moves through networks of ditches and aqueducts, sometimes tunneling through mountains and across the Continental Divide, to distant farms and cities. But the water taken from these streams is not enough to meet growing demands. In the future, water demand will far exceed supply. In response to this need and recent drought conditions, water developers in Colorado are proposing to exercise some of the last remaining water rights – for spring snowmelt peak flows in the wettest of years.

Diverting snowmelt flows from our rivers is a controversial and complex issue, both politically and environmentally. On one hand, cities want this water to support economic growth, including new commercial and residential development. However, these flows are critical to aquatic ecosystems, rearranging sediments for fish habitat, assisting Cottonwood regeneration, recharging groundwater and flooding backwater wetland habitats. Countless plants and animals rely on these flows for their long-term survival. Many of these rivers are already anemic from water withdrawals and we are approaching a tipping point beyond which the resiliency of these ecosystems will be tested.

What are our options?

As scientists, we must apply our knowledge to better balance human needs and the needs of our rivers’ inhabitants. Various water supply and smart growth solutions are available that could maintain natural ecosystems while meeting the needs of communities. Water conservation will play an increasingly critical role in allowing for a sustainable water future. Moving forward, researching and implementing state of the art water conservation technologies is key.

Your perspective on water differs whether you live near the Great Lakes, in the arid west, or by the coast. We must all begin thinking about the sustainability of our water supplies and how we can meet our needs while also protecting our rivers, lakes and wetlands.

What do you think?

About the author: Julia McCarthy is an Environmental Scientist with the EPA Regional Office in Denver, CO. She works in the Clean Water Act regulatory program on rivers and wetlands. Her background is in aquatic ecology and freshwater conservation. She recently worked on a video titled ‘Wetlands and Wonder: Reconnecting Children With Nearby Nature.’ Check it out at http://epa.gov/wetlands/education/wetlandsvideo/

About the author: Jeanne Voorhees is an environmental scientist at EPA in Boston, Massachusetts. She began working at EPA (1997) helping to protect and restore water quality in rivers and streams, and continues this with her focus now on doing her Dream Job in wetlands.

I was raised on Long Island (New York) and enjoyed hours playing in woods behind our home, never realizing the muck I tromped through or the hummocks of tussock sedge I hopped upon were considered part of a wetland. I just knew I loved watching waterbugs, catching turtles, frogs, and salamanders, and getting muddy. I even enjoyed peering through a microscope looking at smaller forms of life found in muddy ponds and remember the first Paramicieum I saw. It was that moment, 38 years ago, I dreamed of becoming a “scientist.” Now I’m at EPA doing my Dream Job helping to protect and understand the biology, ecology and health of our wetlands in New England. What better job could I possibly ask for?

As a child I didn’t know the wetlands behind my parent’s house were acting like a sponge to absorb water that would have otherwise flooded our basement. I didn’t know wetlands help clean the ponds and rivers we swam and fished in. Although I didn’t know these and other wetland functions, I did know they were home to unique and beautiful plants and animals worth protecting. I encourage you to discover more about wetlands and the benefits they serve at EPA’s wetlands website.

I am privileged to work with wetland scientists across New England exploring such questions as, “How do we know a wetland is healthy?” We may monitor it using computer models with maps, algae (one celled organisms), soils, water chemistry, and other measures to help answer our questions. We might find a wetland is missing bugs and plants that belong in a healthy wetland, and then begin identifying the potential source(s) of the problem so it can be restored to a healthier system. The source could be a failing septic system, or polluted runoff from a parking lot. This is only one issue that monitoring wetlands can help identify.

I encourage you to visit a wetland this week, maybe it’s in your own backyard, to discover its unique qualities and report your findings here. Ask yourself, “What do I see, hear and smell? Is this wetland healthy and how do I know?”

On September 23, 2008 I was touring the Upper Santa Cruz River with Amy McCoy of the Sonoran Institute as my watershed tour guide. The trip was awesome; I never knew that the southeast corner of Arizona was so beautiful.

Towards the end of our day trip Amy was anxious to get back to Tucson to attend an important City Council meeting, I didn’t know it until later that it was the vote on the Grey Water Ordinance that Amy was trying to make it to. The Sonoran Institute, using EPA Targeted Watershed Grant funds, helped to put together the ordinances for the City Council vote.

Because there’s so little surface water in the Tucson area, the city’s major water source has always been groundwater. The Grey Water Ordinance is aimed at reducing the use of scarce drinking water to irrigate desert landscapes. The city estimates that 45 percent of water use is for landscaping, and using rainwater and gray water would greatly reduce this.

The ordinance requires rainwater harvesting plans and capturing systems for any new commercial building built after June 1, 2010. The Ordinance requires that new homes built after that date be plumbed for gray water irrigation systems. This means having a drain for sinks, showers, bathtubs, and washing machines separate from drains for all other plumbing, to allow for future installation of a gray water system.

A key factor contributing to the success of this ordinance was the involvement from the entire community, from plumbers and landscapers to the Friends of the Santa Cruz River, they all added their support for the ordinances success. In addition to the community support, an EPA grant helped finance some of the work towards creating the ordinance language.

The City of Tucson was selected for a Pacific Southwest Regional Environmental Award and on the day of the awards ceremony, I had no idea who was coming to accept the award, but had heard that Councilman Rodney Glassman was coming. He was the driving force behind the ordinances, but I had no idea what he looked like. Well, Rodney is about 6’8”, and super energetic, really hard to miss. Once we connected it was great to sit and chat with him, he is very passionate about the ordinances, Tucson, and Arizona. Way to go Councilman Rodney Glassman and the City of Tucson!

About the author: Jared Vollmer works in the Watersheds Office at the EPA, Region 9 office. His work is primarily with the State of Arizona, Department of Environmental Quality, on reducing nonpoint source pollution in Arizona’s impaired watersheds. In addition, Jared works directly with the Sonoran Institute, a recipient of EPA’s Targeted Watershed Grant, located in Tucson in the Santa Cruz Watershed.

After the success of President Obama’s political campaign, it became impossible to ignore the importance of emerging Web technologies. A Web presence characterized by information sharing, social networking and online communities emerged as a powerful way to transform a fledging grassroots movement into a national campaign. In 2008, Craig Hooks, former Director of the Office of Wetlands, Oceans and Watersheds, recognized the opportunity for EPA to utilize Web technology to get citizens involved in addressing environmental challenges together. He proposed the idea of a video contest to engage the public and to help solve problems associated with non-point source water pollution.

Although there have been great improvements in water quality over the past three decades, there is still a massive problem resulting from human activity on the land. Educating citizens about actions that they can take to reduce their impact is vital to improving the nation’s water quality.

The contest was a new way for the Office of Water to experiment with participatory governance using the Web. I’m happy to say that it worked well beyond our expectations. We marketed the contest using social media channels, creating a special EPA group on YouTube and filming our own promotional video, publicizing it on various Web pages, such as VidOpp.com and Fastweb.com, creating a Facebook group page as well as using more traditional outreach such as listservs. It helped that I am a twenty-year-old intern, comfortable with these cutting-edge marketing technologies.

We had modest expectations. The Radon Video Contest conducted last summer by the Office of Air and Radiation generated thirty videos, and we assumed we would receive about the same number. We were wrong. As the contest drew to a close, we began to get overwhelmed. By midnight, more than 250 videos had been submitted.

The judging proved somewhat challenging because of the range of topics and variability in quality. But in the end, we selected two outstanding top videos, “Protect our Water-Check Cars for Oil Leaks” by Lucas Ridley and “Dastardly Deeds and the Water Pollution Monster” by Nora Parren, along with twenty-one videos honorable mentions.

This contest was a monumental success. Collectively, our YouTube contest channel generated more than 18,000 collective views at the contest close and 28,839 views as of today. The interest it has generated has been amazing, and EPA has begun to realize the potential for government to gain the public’s interest using emerging Web technologies. We have been flooded by calls and emails from other EPA offices as well as other government agencies and nonprofit groups that wish to run similar Web contests. On June 10, 2009 Web 2.0 became the one millionth word to be added to the English language dictionary, showing how truly epic this movement is. This is the beginning of a new age for the government and with social media tools at our disposal, individuals can truly participate in their government.

Check out the contest winners.
View all the contest entries.

About the author: Rebecca Neary has been interning with the Office of Wetlands, Oceans and Watersheds at Headquarters since January 2009. Rebecca will be beginning her Masters Degree in Environmental Policy and Natural Resource Management at Indiana University this fall.

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

I’ve had many people ask me why the dredging is being performed with environmental clamshell buckets instead of using the hydraulic (with a hose and suction) method. These people point to the fact the clamshells are encountering a large volume of logs, sticks and wood shavings, which prohibit the jaws of the buckets from closing tightly and cause water to spill out as the buckets are raised from the river bottom.

Interestingly, that copious river debris (a casualty of the Adirondack logging trade) is one of the main reasons hydraulic dredging wouldn’t work well for this project. That debris – and the rocky nature of the river bottom – would clog hoses and greatly hinder dredging progress. Furthermore, the project spans 40 miles, so using hydraulic dredges would require an extensive infrastructure of pipeline and pump stations up and down the river corridor. But the most important factor is that engineers determined the resuspension of sediment is nearly the same using either method of dredging. Resuspension occurs when the river bottom is disturbed and dirt (in this case dirt with PCBs clinging to it) gets churned up. When this happens, the water-born sediments float downstream, so keeping resuspension to a minimum is an important project goal.

It is important to remember that PCB-tainted sediment dropping out of the clamshells typically settles to the bottom in a relatively short distance and gets removed in subsequent passes of the dredge. Moreover, PCB levels during all dredging operations are closely and continuously monitored to ensure compliance with EPA’s resuspension standard. And, so far, the monitoring has shown the sediment resuspension hasn’t caused an the drinking water standard for PCBs to be exceeded, and the first monitor is only one mile downstream of the dredging. Information about the monitoring for the project can be found at this site: www.hudsondredgingdata.com/. All things considered, the decision to use clamshell buckets was the right one.

About the author: Kristen Skopeck is originally from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She is an 11-year Air Force veteran and was stationed in California, Ohio, Texas, Portugal, and New York. After working for the USDA for three years, Kristen joined EPA in 2007 and moved to Glens Falls, NY to be a member of the Hudson River PCB dredging project team. She likes to spend her time reading, writing, watching movies, walking, and meeting new people.

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

On June 15, I joined about a dozen colleagues from state and federal environmental agencies, academic institutions, and private industry aboard the Research Vessel Rachel Carson .  We were joined by an AAAS Fellow working at EPA, along with her daughter, a middle school student, to learn about environmental sensor technologies used to monitor the Potomac River.

The field trip included a “show and tell” of high-tech equipment, such as automated, solar-powered, web-enabled, sensors moored to research buoys that collect a host of data on water quality and environmental conditions. There was even a demonstration of a radio-controlled mini-submarine fitted with water quality and bathymetry monitors and side-scan sonar.

As impressive as all the high-tech equipment was, I was reminded of some of the lessons I learned from one of my first jobs, working in the environmental health unit of the City Health Department in Madison, Wisconsin: the importance of cooperation and remembering to use our “human” sensors.

Cooperation
While on board the Rachel Carson, I was struck by the exemplary cooperation among VA and MD environmental agencies. They have collaborated across political boundaries to standardize water monitoring methods and capabilities on a huge aquatic ecosystem, feeding real-time monitoring data—collected, processed, quality-assured, and visually displayed—to a vast range of eager eyes. This cooperation is helping them tackle complex watershed problems in times of lean budgets and staff shortages.

Human Sensors
Everyone on board used their own human ‘sensors’ to appreciate the river and the importance of healthy aquatic ecosystems. The gathering also provided an opportunity to share data by one of the easiest ways I know: swapping stories.

When the team demonstrating how to use the mini-sub realized they needed to adjust the buoyancy to match the Potomac’s lower salinity, scientist Dr. Walter Boynton shared the story of a colleague who could test salinity by tasting a drop of water. His tongue was sometimes more accurate than the sensors.

Another story involved the sunken WW II submarine Black Panther. It was “misplaced” for decades until a team of divers searching for it suspected the coordinates for its location had been transposed. They switched the numbers and sure enough, they “rediscovered” the Black Panther submarine in 1989!

A great day on the Potomac reinforced lessons I think we need to remember as we work to solve the enormously complex problem of managing water quality throughout the huge Chesapeake Bay watershed: all the new technologies and databases still need humans to make the connections and keep it all calibrated.

About the Author: Ed Washburn has covered “multimedia” topics in the Office of Research and Development since joining EPA in 1998.

This month is the 40th anniversary of the Cuyahoga River catching on fire. I was born and grew up in Cleveland on the east side. The 1969 river fire occurred between my junior and senior years of high school. I remember being embarrassed that this could happen in my home town. I remember the beaches near the city being closed and traveling all the way out to Mentor to go swimming. While in college, during the early 1970’s I worked on an ore boat that occasionally docked on the river and in the Republic Steel mill. The river was a place to work.

After working in Chicago briefly, I returned to Cleveland in 1976. I moved to the west side of Cleveland , which for an eastsider was another world. The Cuyahoga River and the Flats became a meeting area for me, as I traveled between the west side and my east side roots. In the later 1970’s and early 1980’s I remember the Flats became the entertainment hotspot. Outdoor concerts were held on Fridays after work and it seemed as though everyone was there. I meet my wife at Fagans, the old east side bar, when it still had that shot and a beer feel. The river still looked dirty but oil slicks were rare and it didn’t catch fire anymore.

This milk carton boat was built and raced by some of the EPA staff here in the Cleveland office during the Krazy Kraft Race which was part of the Flats Fest in July 1991.

In the 1980’s and 1990’s I was busy working and raising a family. Although I had settled in Bay Village , my family and I continued to come to the river. Shooters, the Powerhouse, Goodtime cruises, river festivals with milk carton boat races and concerts brought my family and I back to the river. Upstream the Cuyahoga Valley National Park became a biking destination. Now the bike trails go from Akron to the lake.

I’ve noticed the river has begun to look scenic. When did it become a place to take people visiting from out of town instead of a punch line for a Cleveland joke? I don’t know, but I’m happy it did.

If you have photos or memories of the Cuyahoga River either today or way back when, please share them with the rest of us along with your stories either by commenting directly on our blog, or posting your photos to our Flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/groups/epa-cuyahoga40th/

Mark Moloney works in EPA’s Cleveland Office and is an environmental engineer who has been with the agency since 1974. He does multimedia investigations and other projects for the Enforcement Compliance Assurance Team and in the early 90s became the EPA’s to the Cuyahoga River RAP Organization.