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North Carolina to establish birding trail

Byoliveridley

This is good news, maybe just the ticket to reawaken my long dormant birdwatching predelictions. The money this brings in will doubtless fund the continued existence of wetlands and other endangered habitats.

newsobserver.com | Beauty, bucks sought in bird trail

SWANSBORO – With hundreds of colorful birds already visiting and calling Eastern North Carolina home, the state is encouraging bird lovers to bring their binoculars and billfolds to watch them. The N.C. Birding Trail unveiled this week links dozens of sites long known to birders as packed with rare, popular or threatened species, such as the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker.

But state officials are promoting the trail as nature-themed tourism and hope it will give the financially stressed region an economic boost.Forget the notion of birdwatching as a sedate, nerdy activity. Now hunting and fishing guides are running bird charters and bird-related tourism is worth millions.

“We have people coming here from all over the country,” said John Ennis of Brunswick County, eastern vice president of the Carolina Bird Club. “It’s a great resource.”

When completed, the North Carolina trail will include dozens of places across the state that visitors can reach by car and look for more than 440 species of birds.

The first section, which highlights the coastal region, includes 102 birding sites in 16 groupings east of Interstate 95. A Piedmont trail that will bundle sites between Interstate 95 and Interstate 77 is scheduled to be completed next year with a mountain trail slated after that.

At least 100 sites have already been approved for the Piedmont section with three dozen in the Triangle. Birders will be directed to state and local lands such as Hemlock Bluffs Nature Preserve in Cary, Raleigh’s Lake Johnson Park, Eno River State Park in Orange County and Duke Forest in Durham County.

Salinda Daley, N.C. Birding Trail Coordinator, said that describing the program as a trail causes some misunderstanding because it is not just lines on a map. She said promotional material links spectacular bird watching sites and birders with communities and businesses.

hey, who’re you calling a nerd!!

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    How NAFTA infringes on local environmental regulations

    Byoliveridley

    Dow AgroSciences is considering using the controversial investor-protection provisions of the North American free-trade agreement to seek compensation from the federal government over Quebec's ban on the cosmetic use of pesticides.

    The company, a maker of the weed-killer 2,4-D, filed a notice of intent to submit a claim to arbitration under NAFTA in late August. The 27-page legal action was posted yesterday on the Foreign Affairs website, where it is listed as a dispute to which Canada is a party.

    via globeandmail.com: Ban on pesticides may face NAFTA test

    Here is Sierra Club’s assessment of 2,4-D. It is not as bad as, say, DDT, but not something an average householder would ever need to use. Limiting use and exposure is in everyone’s best interest except Dow’s, which is why they have filed this lawsuit.

    I would say it infringes on a province’s right to set strict health and safety standards for its people, but if we accept that corporations have more rights than people, we would expect this kind of lawsuit to happen with more frequency.

    Note that a much more egregious actor, lindane, which was deregistered by even the Bush EPA is subject of a similar challenge in Canada, and Bisphenol A is probably next.

    Can’t blame the companies for exploiting loopholes (that they no doubt inserted, of course), but it seems that countries should always have the right to enforce stricter standards if they so desire.

  • Toxic Release Inventory Excitement!

    Byoliveridley

    Environmental Protection Agency – EPA Press Release: EPA Report Shows Decrease in Toxic Chemicals Released

    (Washington, D.C. – April 12, 2006) The amount of toxic chemicals released into the environment decreased four percent from 2003 to 2004 according to the Environmental Protections Agency’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) released today.

    “Today’s report demonstrates that economic growth and effective environmental protection can go hand-in-hand,” said Linda Travers, acting assistant administrator for the Office of Environmental Information. “We are encouraged to see a continued reduction in the overall amount of toxic chemicals being released into the environment.”

    Significant decreases were seen in some of the most toxic chemicals from 2003-2004.

    · Dioxin and dioxin compounds, which decreased by 58 percent,
    · mercury and mercury compounds, which were cut by 16 percent and
    · polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) went down 92 percent.

    Why, that is positively great news, especially on the dioxin and PCB front. Since pictures are nicer and data from the last 5 years provides a little more context, why don’t we use the Toxics Release Inventory Explorer to pull some information together…

    pic.png

    No drastic decreases, dioxin releases during 2004 are close to those during 2000. Wow, seems like 2003 was an especially bad year, the PCB release is off the charts. One landfill facility was responsible for more than 80% of the release. Kinda useless to point to trends caused by single data points, but I guess that’s what press releases are for, pick on some fortuitous piece of data and hope that the media is lazy enough to not spend a little time looking into the story.

    The grist picks (up) on this release as well.

    Meanwhile, the EPA is considering a loosening of regulation in this regard, read this Seattle Post-Intelligencer article for more details.

    The EPA inventory “keeps that pressure on to keep those emissions down,” Hansen said. That’s the purpose of this kind of public information or “right-to-know” program.

    The EPA has not made a final decision on the changes it has proposed — namely, requiring emissions reports every two years instead of annually and raising the volume of chemicals that have to be released before a report is required.

    “The jury is still out,” said Brook Madrone, TRI program manager for the regional EPA office.

    Information is power (always end on a cliche!)

  • Pesticides

    Byoliveridley

    farmerA friend pointed me in the direction of this letter by EPA union leaders about the upcoming re-registration of some very commonly used organophosphate and carbamate pesticides. This ens-newswire article provides an excellent summary.

    In the absence of “a robust body of data” the union leaders remind Johnson that the Food Quality Protection Act requires the EPA to use “an additional 10-fold safety factor in its risk assessments when setting pesticide tolerances.

    This is the key point, and the reason that Pesticide industry and the EPA came up with the infamous “CHEERS” study (talk about Kafkaesque naming!) to study children’s exposure knowing fully well that they would not be able to accurately assess health effects on children with an observational study. The hope was that using a short term “study” that assessed acute toxicity, they would be able to “prove” no significant harm to children and get rid of the safety factor. A factor of 10 is big, and the pesticide manufacturers hate it because the tolerances become low enough that people will be over-exposed.

    Isn’t that the whole point of a safety factor? We are still figuring out what happens at low levels of exposure to certain pesticides. This is truly an Environmental Justice issue. It is not the children of EPA administrators eating non-organic fruits and veggies that are going to be exposed. The gains from eating organic food vs. non-organic are dwarfed by the incidental exposure of the families of farmworkers and other people applying pesticides. Yes, you guessed it, they do not tend to be particularly rich or influential, but they are most in need of protection from government to ensure that their children do not get exposed to levels that may be harmful. This is not about shopping at Whole Foods, which is where most of elite America hears about pesticides, this is about the people being exposed to much higher doses. The safety factor is a must to keep them safe.

  • Double for Nothing: Leaving the left lane empty

    Byoliveridley

    Car Space

    Apparently. my fine province is poised to bear down heavily on those most dastardly of villains, people who dare drive their motor vehicle in the left lane…

    “There will be a number of measures that we will be implementing to do a better job in getting people out of the left lane,” Stone told Kamloops’ CHNL radio last week. “You know, it already is the law, today, not to be in the left lane unless they’re passing. … [There are] a number of initiatives that we’ll be announcing soon that we hope will make a difference to get those left-lane hogs out of the way.” – See more at: http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/jack-knox-b-c-poised-to-make-a-move-on-left-lane-hogs-1.1158661#sthash.MYd8WAan.dpuf
    “There will be a number of measures that we will be implementing to do a better job in getting people out of the left lane,” Stone told Kamloops’ CHNL radio last week. “You know, it already is the law, today, not to be in the left lane unless they’re passing. … [There are] a number of initiatives that we’ll be announcing soon that we hope will make a difference to get those left-lane hogs out of the way.” – See more at: http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/jack-knox-b-c-poised-to-make-a-move-on-left-lane-hogs-1.1158661#sthash.MYd8WAan.dpuf

    “There will be a number of measures that we will be implementing to do a better job in getting people out of the left lane,” Stone told Kamloops’ CHNL radio last week. “You know, it already is the law, today, not to be in the left lane unless they’re passing. … [There are] a number of initiatives that we’ll be announcing soon that we hope will make a difference to get those left-lane hogs out of the way.

    Jack Knox: B.C. poised to make a move on left-lane hogs – Local – Times Colonist.

    I get it, people who drive slowly in the left lane are annoying and are a potential safety hazard. But, given that a car already needs so much more space than a bicycle, a bus full of people or pedestrians, does having a rule saying you’re only supposed to use half the road for the majority of your driving make any sense? Think about an alternative reality in which bike lanes are built for double the capacity just in case you want to pass a slower cyclist, would never happen, right?

    A minor point, but some of the aspects of our personal auto culture are egregiously wasteful, yet attract little attention because “it’s always been that way.”