MEC&F Expert Engineers : 04/19/15

Sunday, April 19, 2015

A "HOLISTIC" CONSERVATION APPROACH TO CURBING FERTILIZER RUNOFF POLLUTING IOWA AND U.S. STREAMS WILL WORK QUICKER THAN LITIGATION, AS LAWSUIT WILL NOT SPEED WATER-POLLUTION CLEANUP




DES MOINES, IOWA

A "holistic" conservation approach to curbing fertilizer runoff polluting Iowa and U.S. streams will work quicker than litigation, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told The Des Moines Register's editorial board Monday.

Vilsack fielded questions about Des Moines Water Works' decision this month to notify three rural counties that it plans to sue them. The utility charges that drainage districts in northwest Iowa are contributing to high levels of nitrates in Raccoon River, one of the metro area's sources for drinking water.

The Des Moines utility has said it expects to file a lawsuit within 60 days, unless an agreement is reached. Experts say the Water Works lawsuit could have broad ramifications for farmers, who use drainage tiles to help raise corn, soybeans and other crops.

Vilsack said a faster and better solution to reducing nutrient loss in U.S. waterways is a "holistic approach" that he predicted will have "a profound impact" on water quality, although he cautioned that it could take five to 10 years to see measurable improvements.

Still, he said those efforts will move the issue farther than the "three, five, seven, nine, 10 years" it will for Water Works' lawsuit to be litigated.

Vilsack said Iowa and U.S. farmers are adopting conservation practices that help reduce the nitrogen and phosphorous runoff blamed for polluting Iowa waterways, as well as contributing to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico that each summer is unable to support aquatic life.

Iowa has adopted a plan to reduce by 45 percent the nitrogen and phosphorous entering state waterways. But the strategy has been criticized by environmentalists because it's voluntary and has no deadline to hit its goals.

Vilsack said he sees Iowa farmers building conservation practices, with more than 20,000 farmers and landowners putting four million acres in federal conservation programs. Since 2009, he said, the agency has invested $1.7 billion in Iowa conservation.

Vilsack said the federal agency is funding research that provides more insight "about the biology and biochemistry of nutrient application, runoff and water quality." It will help farmers and officials to "better measure what's happening in the soil" and craft better responses.

"It's all extraordinarily complex," he said.

Among the technology being developed is "time-released" nutrients, so they're available longer for corn and soybean plants to use.

"The fact that one-half to one-third of what we do apply on land is not ultimately used by plants ... strongly suggests we need to figure out ways in which we can create more efficient fertilizers," Vilsack said.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF DECADES OF UNCONTROLLED FERTILIZER USAGE: CLEAN WATER AND FARMER WARS, AS FERTILIZER CONTAMINATION TAKES HOLD IN IOWA WATERSHEDS




APRIL 18, 2015 

MANSON, IOWA

The flat, endless acres of black dirt here in northern Iowa will soon be filled with corn and soybean seeds. But as farmers tuned up their tractors and waited for the perfect moment to plant, another topic weighed on their minds: a lawsuit filed in federal court by the state’s largest water utility.

After years of mounting frustration, the utility, Des Moines Water Works, sued the leaders of three rural Iowa counties last month. Too little has been done, the lawsuit says, to prevent nitrates from flowing out of farm fields into the Raccoon River and, eventually, into the drinking water supply for roughly 500,000 Iowans. The suit seeks to make farmers comply with federal clean-water standards for nitrates that apply to factories and commercial users, and requests unspecified damages.

“It’s very clear to me that traditional, industrial agriculture has no real interest in taking the steps that are necessary to radically change their operations in a way that will protect our drinking water,” said Bill Stowe, the chief executive of Des Moines Water Works. High nitrate runoff, which can result from nitrogen-rich soil and applied fertilizer, places Des Moines’s drinking water in danger of violating federal quality standards, Mr. Stowe said, and increases costs and poses health risks for customers.

Des Moines Water Works, the state’s largest utility said nitrate levels had put drinking water in danger of violating federal standards

The lawsuit raises not only the legal question of whether the government should regulate the water that drains off farmers’ land, but also the existential issue of whether rural and urban Iowans can collaborate to solve vexing problems. In a state where agriculture drives the economy, grain silos are featured on license plates and people pride themselves on a certain brand of “Iowa nice,” farmers like Brent Johnson have criticized the litigation as an antagonistic overreach that comes at the expense of cooperation and neighborliness.

“It’s a confrontational approach,” said Mr. Johnson, who farms corn and soybeans here in Calhoun County, one of three counties whose boards of supervisors were named as defendants in the lawsuit. “I think there’s been a lot of progress made. I don’t know any farmer who wants to increase nitrates in the river.”

The nitrate issue is, in many ways, an unfortunate side effect of one of Iowa’s great assets: the nutrient-rich dirt that makes for some of the world’s most productive cropland. Though that nitrogen-filled soil helps Mr. Johnson and others grow prodigious amounts of corn and soybeans, a significant rainstorm can wash many of those nutrients, along with nitrates applied as fertilizer, into tributaries of the Raccoon River. The Raccoon is one of two rivers that provide drinking water for Des Moines, the state’s capital and urban center.

Notably, most everyone involved agrees that the nitrates in the water supply are a problem, and that farmers can play a role in solving it. But while Mr. Stowe and the utility want to hold farmers to strict federal water quality standards, Mr. Johnson and the state’s powerful agricultural groups favor a voluntary system.

Last year, months before the lawsuit was filed, the state associations for corn, soybean and pork producers formed the Iowa Agriculture Water Alliance, which bills itself as a farmer-led effort to improve water quality. The group’s executive director, Sean McMahon, said that many farmers were eager to employ conservation practices, but that education and time were needed to see more results. Money, he said, would be better spent on outreach and cost-sharing programs than on lawyers for the lawsuit.

Leaders of other agricultural associations expressed similar sentiments, while saying they still appreciated the urgency of the problem.

“We need to scale it up,” said Roger Wolf, director of environmental programs and services for the Iowa Soybean Association. “We know that.”

Mr. Johnson, whose family has worked these fields for more than 100 years, says he and his neighbors care deeply about the land and understand the concerns raised in the lawsuit. On his property, Mr. Johnson uses a limited-tilling method, and he has planted rows of switch grass on the edge of one field and has filled wetlands with native grasses. Experts say those tactics can help keep nutrients in the field and out of the water system.

Mr. Johnson, who serves on the county soil and water conservation commission, made those changes on his own. He said he feared that the lawsuit, if successful, would add a regulatory burden just as many farmers were making voluntary changes. “That’s not healthy for agriculture, I don’t think, to take the voluntary out,” he said.

In Des Moines, Mr. Stowe said years of encouraging changes through voluntary programs had simply not brought about significant results. Nitrate levels in the Raccoon River remain stubbornly high, which required the utility to run its nitrate removal facilities for three months last winter, a rarity. In 2013, he said, Des Moines was barely able to remove nitrates quickly enough to keep up with demand, and nearly violated federal regulations. Just last Thursday, the utility turned its nitrate removal tanks back on, citing high levels of runoff upstream.

The Des Moines Water Works utility wants to hold farmers to federal standards to limit nitrates, but agricultural groups favor a voluntary system. 

However the issue is addressed, there are costs. Mr. Johnson’s conservation practices required taking land out of production, potentially reducing profits at harvest time. For Des Moines Water Works, operating the tanks that remove nitrates is expensive.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court for the Northern District of Iowa, names the boards of supervisors in Buena Vista and Sac Counties, along with the board in Calhoun County, as defendants, saying they are responsible for overseeing drainage districts that have allowed nitrate-heavy water to make its way into rivers.

Water with excessive nitrates can cause serious health problems, especially in infants, and some environmental groups, including the Iowa Environmental Council and the Sierra Club’s Iowa chapter, have expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of voluntary reductions.

Individual farmers’ efforts and anecdotal reports of success, Mr. Stowe said, have not been enough to counter others’ reluctance to make major changes. At this point, he said, collaboration with agricultural groups would have to come in addition to regulation, not instead of it.


“Talking the game and walking the game were two very different issues,” Mr. Stowe said. “This is not ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ This is Iowa. Our water’s getting worse, and we’re going to fight forward to protect it.”

That fight, however, has drawn the ire of many politicians. State Senator Randy Feenstra, a Republican, wrote in a recent blog post that the lawsuit was proof of an “arrogant mentality against rural Iowa.” He called for rural Iowans to start an economic boycott of Des Moines.

Iowa’s elected agriculture secretary, Bill Northey, has also criticized the lawsuit, though with less pointed language. Mr. Northey, a Republican who farms corn and soybeans, said the effects of the lawsuit could resound far beyond the three counties named as defendants if the water utility succeeded. The state has recently invested in programs to limit nitrate runoff, he said, and more time should be allowed for those programs to work.

Several farmers agreed, and many said they had seen significant progress in just the past few years. On his farm in Greene County, in central Iowa, David Ausberger planted cover crops last fall, which can help keep dirt in place between the harvest and planting seasons. In Ida and Sac Counties, Jolene Riessen said her family was reducing tilling and using other methods to limit runoff.

“Farmers want to do the right thing,” said Ms. Riessen, a farmer and seed dealer. “But sometimes, it’s learning what is the right thing, or the combination of right things, and having the finances to do it.”

In the meantime, as planting season begins, farmers say they are discussing the lawsuit, figuring out what it could mean for them and bracing for a contentious court battle that could last years.

“Some guys are mad; some guys are sad,” Mr. Johnson said. “Everybody’s concerned.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com

DOT: Friday's emergency safety measures “are a result of lessons learned from recent accidents” and promised further action.








WASHINGTON (AP) — An emergency order requiring trains hauling crude oil and other flammable liquids to slow down as they pass through urban areas and a series of other steps to improve the safety were announced Friday by the Department of Transportation.

The Obama administration has been under intense pressure from members of Congress as well as state and local officials to ensure the safety of oil trains that traverse the country after leaving the Bakken region of North Dakota. To get to refineries on the East and West coasts and the Gulf of Mexico, oil shipments travel through more than 400 counties, including major metropolitan areas such as Philadelphia, Seattle, Chicago, Newark and dozens of other cities.

There have been a series of fiery oil train explosions in the U.S. and Canada in recent years, including one just across the border in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people.

Major freight railroads have already limited oil trains to no more 40 mph in “high threat” urban areas under a voluntary agreement reached last year with Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. But Friday’s order makes the speed limitation a requirement and extends it to trains carrying other flammable liquids like ethanol.

However, investigators have said the trains in most of the recent accidents were traveling at less than 40 mph but still derailed. 

The voluntary agreement also applied only to trains that used older tank cars that are easily ruptured in crashes. The new order includes tank cars constructed since 2011 that were designed to replace the older cars, but which have also repeatedly ruptured in crashes, spilling their contents. So far this year there have been four oil train derailments resulting in huge fireballs — two in the U.S. and two in Canada. All involved the newer tank cars known as 1232 cars.

The department has also issued an advisory to railroads to strengthen its procedures for checking for flaws in train wheels that can cause a crash. A broken train wheel is suspected of causing the March 5 derailment near Galena, Illinois, of a train hauling 103 cars of Bakken crude.

The department also wants inspectors with the highest qualifications to conduct brake and mechanical inspections before trains carrying oil and other hazardous liquids depart. Railroads were also asked to put a system in place to quickly provide investigators with key information on trains and their contents in the event of an accident. Railroads were also notified that the department is working on regulations requiring them to provide more detailed information on the trains and their contents than currently required, including any testing and analysis of the crude oil before the tank cars were filled.

Tests results of crude from the Bakken region show it is often far more volatile and likely to ignite than other types of crude oil. However, the American Petroleum Institute says Bakken crude is similar to other light, sweet crudes.
The new directives “build on the many practices and protocols the industry has applied for years for safely moving and handling hazardous materials by rail, including flammable liquids,” Edward Hamberger, president of the Association of American Railroads, said in a statement.

Foxx said the safety measures “are a result of lessons learned from recent accidents” and promised further action.

Besides the steps announced Friday, the department has a proposed a more comprehensive series of regulations to address oil train safety, including a stronger tank car design and better train braking systems. The proposal is under review at the White House and final regulations are expected to be released in the next few weeks.

14 MILLION BEES THAT HAD COME FROM APPLE ORCHARD POLLINATION WERE FOAMED TO DEATH AFTER RECKLESS SEMI-TRUCK WRECK ON I-5 IN LYNWOOD, WASHINGTON








APRIL 17, 2015

LYNNWOOD, WASHINGTON

A semi-truck carrying a load a honey bees overturned on northbound Interstate 5 Friday, scattering boxes containing nearly 14 million live bees across the highway.  Most of the bees were exterminated by spraying them with foam.  What a sad day for the environment, as if sudden colony collapse is not enough, we now have to see them die like that.  Truly unbearable to watch.

Quick Facts:

Semi crashed on NB I-5 at I-405 in Lynnwood area Friday
Truckload contains millions of bees
Numerous boxes, each containing about 5,000 bees, crushed
Beekeepers using smoke to calm bees and get them reloaded 
Fire department used foam to kill bees as they became agitated

The HOV and left lane remain blocked at milepost 182 in the Lynnwood area near Alderwood Mall Friday afternoon after the 3:30 a.m. crash.

The Washington State Patrol said the semi was getting onto northbound I-5 from northbound Interstate 405 when it tipped over. The driver told troopers a blown tire caused the crash.But according to WSP, speed, fatigue and being overloaded are also possible factors. The driver was not hurt.

KIRO 7 News video showed dozens of boxes of live bees scattered across the road. Beekeepers from the company who owns the bees, Belleville Bees in Burlingon, responded and used smoke to calm the bees and them get them back into boxes and loaded onto trucks.

Numerous boxes of bees were crushed in the crash. Each box contained about 5,000 bees. The Washington State Patrol said the load contained a total of about 13.7 million bees.

Crews raced to get as many bees as possible contained by daybreak, when temperatures warm and the bees become more active and agitated. At first, the bees were largely staying in their boxes because they were producing honey and protecting the queen, but members of the KIRO 7 News crew were later stung numerous times.  See reporter Jeff Dubois' battle of the bees here.

Many boxes of bees remained on the road after sunrise, and the agitated bees began to swarm. At 6 a.m., at the request of Belleville Bees, the fire department began putting a thick layer of fire suppression foam on the boxes of bees, killing them. The company came up with the idea because it was the quickest option to handle the difficult situation.

The spill was a huge loss for Belleville Bees, which trucks the bees around to pollinate crops.

"They were coming off the apple orchards after pollinating up there," said beekeeper  Christian Englund.

Construction equipment was brought in to scoop up the remaining boxes of dead bees. It's a loss of as much as $90,000.

"It's a setback for the farmers, too," said Englund. "They've got to get these bees on their crops so that pollination happens."

Belleville says people in the immediate area near Alderwood Mall,may notice a high number of bees for the next few days.
Source: www.kirotv.com

FERRY WORKER INJURED WHEN PINNED BETWEEN TRUCK AND SUV




SATURDAY, APRIL 18, 2015

ORCAS ISLAND, WASH. (AP)

A ferry worker was hospitalized after he was crushed between two cars.

KOMO TV reports (http://bit.ly/1yETHqu ) that the unidentified worker was crushed Friday evening.

The accident happened as the M/V Elwha was loading and unloading cars at the Orcas Island ferry dock around 5:30 p.m.

Bob Connor witnessed the incident and told KOMO News the ferry worker somehow became pinned between a truck and an SUV.

Ferries spokeswoman Susan Harris says the worker was flown by helicopter to Harborview Medical Center. His condition is not known.

Officials have not clarified how the worker became pinned.

The accident delayed service on the Anacortes-San Juan Islands route while the worker was aided by emergency crews. Service has resumed to normal.
Source: http://www.komonews.com