The University of Bridgeport (UB) has paid a $12,900 fine and will complete a supplemental environmental project (SEP) worth at least $56,000 to settle violations of federal law for improper storage and handling of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

According to EPA, PCBs were improperly disposed when PCB transformer oil from two transformers on UB’s campus spilled/leaked onto the transformer cabinets, the concrete pads that the transformers stood on, and the nearby ground.

UB then failed to properly store both transformers, mark the storage areas with the proper labeling, and failed to mark each transformer with the date it was removed from service. These are pretty patently outrageous violations of law in this day and age, especially from an institution of higher education.

UB has since sent the two PCB transformers to a disposal facility authorized for PCB waste and has addressed a PCB cleanup for the concrete pads and the surrounding affected areas.

In addition to paying a penalty, UB will perform a SEP that involves taking an inventory of all transformers on its campus, determining the PCB content of each transformer, and either retrofilling or disposing of all transformers with PCB content equal to or greater than 50 ppm.

UB has also agreed to fulfill all of the terms and conditions of its current, EPA-approved PCB cleanup plan, submit a remedial action plan (RAP) to the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (CT DEP) to close three former underground storage tanks on its site, and then carry out that plan once it is approved by CT DEP.

No word of the impact of this settlement on tuition for next year.

On February 1, 2010, the United States District Court, Eastern District of Kentucky at Covington issued an opinion declaring a City of Covington ordinance regulating items placed in the public right-of-way to be constitutional.  Bench Billboard Company of Cincinnati filed the lawsuit against the city in 2006.
 
The challenged ordinance prohibits placement of most items in the City’s public sidewalks and streets, including advertising benches and vending machines.  Items that are allowed in the public right-of-way, such as news racks, are regulated and must meet certain size and aesthetic standards.

Hats off to City Solicitor, Frank Warnock, and T. Alex Mattingly, assistant city solicitor.

Latonia is about to be put under the microscope as planners, residents, and business owners seek to develop a plan to revitalize it. The Covington City Commission recently engaged NKAPC to pursue a small area study of the Latonia neighborhood. The resulting plan will likely be submitted for inclusion in the Kenton County Comprehensive Plan.

Long-range planning staff is in the initial stages of the study, working with a task force to gather information and analyze the community’s current assets and liabilities. Planners have developed an online survey to gain community opinions on issues of importance. The survey and additional study information is available at nkapc.org/LatoniaStudy.html.

Staff is pursuing the project with the guidance of a 20-member, city-appointed task force of interested parties that includes business owners and residents of the study area along with city officials.

The task force held its first meeting on January 28. Members plan to have the existing conditions report completed by March. They also expect by then to have the results of a market study analysis that was completed for the area.

The task force is currently focusing on issues related to transportation and traffic flow, housing conditions, and commercial redevelopment opportunities.

NKAPC staff expects the online survey will provide more insight on these topics. Current and former residents of Latonia as well as people who work or shop in and/or send their children to school in Latonia are encouraged to participate in the survey.

The group plans to hold its first open forum public in the spring.

Canadia’s newest National Park is the 2.65 million acre (10,700 square kilometer) Mealy Mountains National Park in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The new National Park will help preserve the Canadian boreal forest, the world’s largest, most intact old-growth forest. 

In addition, the government of Newfoundland and Labrador announced the designation of an adjacent 700,000 acres (3,000 square kilometers) for inclusion in a new provincial park, for a total protected area of 3.3 million acres (nearly 14,000 square kilometers).

God bless the nation of Canada for saving these natural wonders for the benefit of all of us.

The American Chestnut Foundation (TACF®) is offering a limited number of its most advanced and potentially blight-resistant seeds to both new and existing sponsor members for planting and testing.

This is the very first time any of these seeds have been made widely available to members and it comes on the heels of over 26 years of intense evaluation by scientists throughout the natural range of the chestnut. Members can test these seeds for blight-resistance and American growth characteristics.

When the chestnut blight came through the eastern US in the first half of the 20th century and killed nearly four billion American chestnut trees, all seemed to be lost for this once mighty species. Since 1983, TACF has remained focused on a seemingly impossible goal: to restore the American chestnut to the eastern United States. With this seed distribution program, TACF is one step closer to the restoration of this crucial species but there is much more to be done.

 In spring 2008, TACF, in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service and University of Tennessee-Knoxville, planted five hundred potentially blight-resistant chestnuts on three national forests in the southeast. After one year, the seedlings are thriving in a forest setting. 

The availability of these very same seeds to both long-time TACF members as well as new sponsor members is another step in a $16 million program that includes more than 60,000 trees and encompasses six generations of breeding.

For information on becoming part of this exciting new venture, please contact TACF at (828) 281-0047 for membership particulars and benefits.

If you visited Google.com yesterday, you saw a special Google doodle, aka logo, by Norman Rockwell of a boy and a girl sitting on a bench together. The painting was one of Norman Rockwell’s most famous, which was on the front cover of the Saturday Evening Post on April 24, 1926. It was known as the “Little Spooners.” 

The doodle was in celebration of Norman Rockwell’s 116th birthday on February 3, 1894.

EPA just released CYA plans developed by 22 electric utility facilities with coal ash impoundments, describing the measures the facilities are taking to make their impoundments safer. The action plans are a response to EPA’s assessment reports on the structural integrity of these impoundments that EPA published in September 2009.

Coal ash was brought prominently to national attention in 2008 when a huge hooking impoundment holding millions of tons disposed ash waste generated by the Tennessee Valley Authority broke open, creating a massive spill in Kingston, TN. 

TVA’s negligence caused a massive engineering failure, and many regard the catastrophic collapse as one of the worst environmental disasters of its kind in history. Shortly afterwards, EPA began overseeing the billion $$ dollar cleanup, as well as investigating the structural integrity of impoundments where ash waste is stored.
 
Never one to hesitate to “close the gate long after the cow has left the farm,” EPA has been conducting on-site assessments of coal ash impoundments and ponds at electric utilities since May 2009. EPA provides copies of the structural integrity assessment reports to each facility, and requests the facilities implement the reports’ recommendations and provide their plans for taking action.

EPA’s CYA recommended action plans addresses 43 impoundments at 22 coal fired utility plants. Apparently believing that a billion dollar cleanup would be catastrophic to the corporate stock prices, many of these facilities have already begun implementing EPA’s recommendations.

In addition to the CYA recommended action plans, EPA is also releasing assessment reports on the structural integrity of an additional 40 coal ash impoundments at 16 facilities across the country. Most of the 40 impoundments have a rating of “high” or “significant” hazard potential, indicating the potential for harm in the event of impoundment failure.

A high hazard potential rating means if an impoundment fails, it can cause loss of human life. A significant hazard potential rating means impoundment failure can cause economic loss, environmental damage, or damage to infrastructure.

The assessment reports have been completed by firms, under contract to EPA, who are experts in the field of dam integrity, and reflect the best professional judgment of those engineering firms. A draft of these reports has been reviewed by the facilities and the states for factual accuracy.

The comments on the draft reports are also posted on EPA’s Web site. EPA is continuing to review the reports and technical recommendations, and is working with the facilities to ensure that the recommendations are implemented in a timely manner.

Should facilities fail to take sufficient measures, EPA will take additional action, if the circumstances warrant. EPA will continue to provide additional information to the public on the impoundments and facilities as it becomes available.

For more information: http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/nonhaz/industrial/special/fossil/surveys2/index.htm

The Kentucky Department for Natural Resources (“KDNR”) released a final version of Reclamation Advisory Memorandum (“RAM”) #145 setting forth Fill Placement Optimization Process (FPOP), a design protocol to minimize the impact on streams from mining operations while maintaining Approximate Original Contour (AOC). 

FPOP was jointly developed by KDNR, the Army Corps of Engineers, the mining industry, a citizen’s group, and the federal Office of Surface Mining (OSM). This diverse group of engineers were given the difficult task of developing an engineering spoil handling protocol that meets the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, AOC requirements and the alternatives analysis for minimizing stream impact required by the Clean Water Act. 

A copy of RAM #145 may be obtained by going to:  http://www.minepermits.ky.gov/NR/rdonlyres/BA26E372-35CB-4124-A38E-AF5AB7388BA4/0/RAM145FINAL.pdf .  

A Reclamation Advisory Memorandum (RAM) is an open correspondence from the commissioner of the Department for Natural Resources (DNR) to operators and other interested persons, who provide information related to DNR’s surface mining regulatory program.

 These documents discuss many of the issues that have arisen as Kentucky’s regulatory program has evolved in response to the federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA).

The Obama Administration proposed a budget of $10,000,000,000 for U.S. EPA.  This whopping $10,000,000,000 budget is supposed to support seven priority target areas.  The Budget Highlights are:

1.            Cleaning up contaminated communities: This budget includes $1.3 billion to address Superfund sites that may be releasing harmful or toxic substances into the surrounding residential community.  According to EPA, cleaning up these sites improves communities’ health and allows for these properties to be used for economic development.

In addition, $215,000,000 is provided to clean up abandoned or underused industrial and commercial sites that are available for alternative uses but where redevelopment may be complicated by the presence of environmental contaminants.   EPA will focus its efforts on area-wide planning and cleanups, especially in under-served and economically disadvantaged communities.

This budget also offers $27,000,000 for EPA’s new Healthy Communities Initiative.  This initiative will address community water priorities; promote clean, green, and healthy schools; improve air toxics monitoring in at-risk communities; and encourage sustainability by helping to ensure that policies and spending at the national level do not adversely affect the environment and public health or disproportionally harm disadvantaged communities.

2.            Improving Air Quality: In addition to the funding provided through the Healthy Communities Initiative, this budget includes $60,000,000 to support state efforts to implement updated National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). EPA proposed stricter air quality standards for smog and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and will work with states to help them meet those standards in the years ahead.

3.            Building Strong State and Tribal Partnerships: This budget includes $1.3 billion for state and tribal grants. State and local governments are working diligently to implement new and expanded requirements under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.  New and expanded requirements include implementation of updated NAAQS and addressing emerging water quality issues such as nutrient pollution. 

 In addition to the $25,000,000 for greenhouse gas permitting and $60,000,000 to support state efforts to implement updated NAAQS, the $1,300,000,000 for state and tribal grants includes $45,000,000 for states to enhance their water enforcement and permitting programs. 

4.            Taking Action on Climate Change: This budget contains more than $43,000,000 for additional efforts to address climate change and work toward a clean energy future. EPA will implement the greenhouse gas reporting rule; provide technical assistance to ensure that any permitting under the Clean Air Act will be manageable; perform regulatory work for the largest stationary sources of greenhouse gas emissions; develop standards for mobile sources such as cars and trucks; and continue research of carbon capture and sequestration technologies. 

 5.            Protecting America’s Waters:  This budget broadens efforts to clean up America’s great waterbodies.  It provides $63,000,000 for efforts to protect and restore the Chesapeake Bay and $17,000,000 for the Mississippi River Basin to respond to non-point source control recommendations of the Nutrients Innovation Task Group and implement recommendations outlined in the Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Action Plan.

 This budget also invests $3,300,000,000 to maintain and improve outdated water infrastructure and keep our wastewater and drinking water clean and safe. This is in addition to $6,000,000,000 in funding provided to states through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). In total, an astronomical $9,300,000,000 is targeted for building and maintaining drinking water and wastewater treatment plants.

 6.            Assuring the Safety of Chemicals: This budget calls for $56,000,000 for chemical assessment and risk review to ensure that no unreasonable risks are posed by new or existing chemicals. This budget also invests $29 million (including $15 million in grants funding) in the continuing effort to eliminate childhood lead poisoning, and $6 million to support national efforts to mitigate exposure to high-risk legacy chemicals, such as mercury and asbestos.

 7.            Expanding the Conversation on Environmentalism and Working for Environmental Justice:  This budget contains a paltry $8,000,000 for environmental justice programs. It targets increased brownfields investments to under-served and economically disadvantaged neighborhoods, and proposes just $9,000,000 for community water priorities in the Healthy Communities Initiative, funds that will help under-served communities restore urban waterways and address water quality challenges.

 More information: http://www.epa.gov/budget.

Big Ass Fans has been named one of the Best Places to Work in Kentucky for 2010. This prestigious award recognizes Big Ass Fans and their commitment to an excellent work environment. The awards program was created in 2005 and is a project of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, Kentucky SHRM Council and Best Companies Group.

This statewide survey and awards program was designed to identify, recognize and honor the best places of employment in Kentucky, benefiting the state’s economy, its workforce and businesses. Big Ass Fans’ final ranking will be announced on April 21, 2010.  Big Ass Fans are designed and manufactured in Lexington, Ky. and sold worldwide.

For more information about the company and the complete line of Big Ass Fans, call 877-BIG-FANS (877-244-3267) or visit www.bigassfans.com.