news20100214lat1

[Today's Newspaper] from [Los Angeles Times]

[Environment]
By Todd Woody
February 14, 2010
NextEra, California City call truce in water war over solar power plant

The developer's proposal to cut down hundreds of thirsty tamarisk trees may provide a blueprint for resolving similar environmental disputes over solar farms in the desert.

A developer who proposes to cut down hundreds of trees to make way for a massive project could expect to provoke a fair amount of environmental outrage.

Not in California City. Officials in this sprawling desert community east of Bakersfield are thrilled at NextEra Energy's move to break out the chain saws.

The firm, a subsidiary of utility giant FPL Group, is seeking to build a solar power plant in the area that would consume a large amount of water. The trees are tamarisks, a water-hungry invasive species, and removing them could help recharge the aquifer in this arid region.

"The water that normally would go into the tamarisk will go down into the basin -- it's a big environmental win," said Michael Bevins, California City's public works director.

The tree deal is just one way that what threatened to become another intractable fight over the environmental effect of desert solar power plants is turning into a blueprint for the resolution of similar disputes.

Proposals to build dozens of solar farms on hundreds of thousands of acres in the desert Southwest have split the environmental movement and divided local communities. For solar developers and some green groups, the projects are desperately needed in the fight against climate change; others see them as a threat to unique and fragile ecosystems.

Water has become a particular flash point. Solar thermal power plants use mirrors to heat liquids to create steam that drives an electricity-generating turbine. The steam must be condensed and the hot water cooled for reuse. The cheapest and most efficient way to do that is wet cooling, which lets the heat evaporate but requires the constant replacement of water.

By last fall, NextEra's 250-megawatt Beacon Solar Energy Project was mired in a war over water. The company wanted to tap more than half a billion gallons a year from freshwater wells to cool the solar farm to be built on former farmland.

State policy prohibits the use of drinking water for power plant cooling, and local residents lined up at public hearings to express concern that the solar farm would drain their aquifer.

"Everybody else in the state of California is trying to conserve water and here all at once, boom, you guys are using it all up on us," said Ace Miller, an area resident, at one hearing.

With energy commission staffers and NextEra at loggerheads, executives warned last year that they might have to abandon the $1-billion project -- and the hundreds of construction jobs it would create -- because they claimed that Beacon wouldn't be sufficiently profitable unless they could use well water.

Energy commission staffers weren't about to budge.

"We clearly felt that this was a significant issue, not just in the context of this isolated project but also in the context that we are going to see a large number of solar power plants in the desert," said Terry O'Brien, a deputy director at the California Energy Commission, which licenses large-scale solar thermal power plants. "If we use water more efficiently, we can generate more megawatts."

But NextEra is now talking with two local municipalities, California City and Rosamond, about buying reclaimed water to cool the power plant. That would allow the company to sidestep a fight over water use while giving the cities a market for their treated wastewater.

Energy commission staffers filed documents two weeks ago that would let the Beacon project proceed as long as it used reclaimed water for cooling.

"We debated the reclaimed water issue for the last year or so, and we've come to a conclusion that unless we want to go round and round on this matter for months, if not years more, it was time to compromise," said Michael O'Sullivan, a senior vice president at NextEra.

The compromise offers other environmental benefits as well. Treated wastewater contains salt and nitrates, and by piping it to Beacon rather than returning it to the aquifer, the cities can improve the basin's water quality.

Since the solar farm will still draw freshwater until enough reclaimed water can be provided, NextEra proposed to remove thirsty tamarisk trees to help recharge the aquifer. A native of the Mediterranean, the tamarisk was brought to the American West in the 19th century for use as a windbreak. The developer of California City planted hundreds of the trees in the area, Bevins said.

An acre of tamarisks can consume 1 million gallons of water annually, said Tim Carlson, research and policy director for the Tamarisk Coalition, a Grand Junction, Colo., nonprofit group working to eradicate the trees.

Regulators welcomed NextEra's proposal to remove tamarisks, which have taken over 1 million acres in the West.

"If we could eliminate tamarisk from large areas of the West, it would have a benefit to wildlife, native vegetation and would reduce water usage," O'Brien said.

The proposal is still in the planning stages, and it's unclear how many trees would be removed and just how much water would be saved.

Carlson, who has discussed NextEra's plan with the company's consultants, said tamarisks must be replaced with low-water-use native plants. "It's not a simple calculation," he said. "You just can't say that if I do so many acres I'll save so many acre-feet of water."

For O'Brien, ending the Beacon water war could help persuade other solar companies to adopt water-efficient technology and approaches. "It sends a signal to other developers that clearly that NextEra believes that their project is still viable," he said.

news20100214lat2

[Today's Newspaper] from [Los Angeles Times]

[Environment]
By Nicole Santa Cruz
February 14, 2010
Hometown U.S.A.: Albuquerque
Taxidermist can't escape the wildlife

Five years ago, Tom Kettles was set to retire from the stuffing and shaping and painting he'd been doing since the 1980s. But his loyal customers wouldn't have it.

Tom Kettles tried to retire from taxidermy, but his clients became unglued.

In 2005, he slid a "Closed" sign in the window of his log-cabin-style "wildlife studio."

He meant to shutter his shop, Quality Taxidermy, but the sign sent people pounding on his door, pleading with him to immortalize their latest piece of prized game.

"Tom, you've been doing my stuff for years," one said.

"You know how I like my animals," said another.

Hunters are dedicated to their taxidermist -- it's akin to having a favorite barber. And who can blame them? Taxidermy is a skill that involves a combination of painting, sculpting, a little bit of zoology and a heap of patience. Some pieces can take a year to finish.

For hunters, a mount serves as a memento of an exhilarating trip, or a trophy that speaks to high gaming skill.

"It's dedication to the animal," Kettles said. "You're trying to honor the animal as much as you can."

As the soft-spoken man with a leathery complexion stood in his sunny work space, which could be mistaken for a ceramics studio, he recalled his attempt to retire.

"They just kept coming," said the 56-year-old, chuckling.

So now, he's stuck packing the inner nostrils of an oryx with clay so they flare, painting black lines around a deer's eyes to make them stand out, or patting mousse and gel over the coarse hair of a pronghorn antelope so it stands on end, just like it does in the northeastern plains of New Mexico.

Many of Kettles' animals come from the mountain ranges of New Mexico or from the state's steep mesas and desert canyons. It helps explain why some of the best taxidermists in the nation are in New Mexico, said Joel Edwards, president of the National Taxidermy Assn.

"Out here we got everything. We got antelope, we got moose, we got bison, we got mountain lion, we got bobcat, we got coyote," said Edwards, a New Mexican who lives outside Hurley.

Rachel Poliquin, a taxidermy expert based in Vancouver, Canada, said that despite a negative public perception of the practice, hunters are animal lovers.

"They just express their love and enjoyment of the animal world in a way that doesn't necessarily jibe with contemporary society much of the time," said Poliquin, who is writing a book on the cultural history of the craft titled "Taxidermy and Longing."

Kettles, like his customers, is an animal lover.

As a child, he raised pigeons and quails. When he was 10, he mounted his first bird, a sparrow hawk.

The mounting of the hawk was a solution: When birds died, he had trouble parting with them.

"I loved them so much, I couldn't bring myself to dig a hole and throw them away," he said.

After that first mount, Kettles took mail-order taxidermy courses. He opened his shop in the late 1980s.

Kettles takes pride in his artistic ability to recreate animal expressions, and he carefully studies books on how to draw and paint them.

For him, the key is precision.

So it's no surprise that Kettles -- who doesn't hunt -- is offended by joke mounts, such as dancing frogs, and considers it disrespectful when people hang baseball hats on the horns of an antelope.

With each animal, each hunter brings a tale.

"It reminds me of a kid coming home from school all excited," Kettles said.

As a result, he has four freezers jam-packed with vacuum-sealed hides of bobcats, deer, antelope, elk, buffalo and pheasants. The chilly space, which is in the back of his main shop, is littered with cobwebs, and in the corner there's bottle after bottle of every imaginable paint color.

He also has a friend, a blue and yellow macaw named Harley, so he doesn't get lonely.

"I grew up with these, and these creatures are the ones I like," said the burqueño -- as natives of Albuquerque are called -- standing in his showroom with a grizzly bear and two foxes.

Across the room, three javelinas, or wild pig-like creatures, look ready to eat anything that comes their way. Their mouths are wide open, exposing sets of sharp teeth.

Kettles said that this hunting season -- which started around August and ended last month -- had been particularly busy. He has more animals to mount this year than in each of the last 10 years.

So much for retirement.

news20100214gdn

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Climate change scepticism]
Climate scientists admit fresh error over data on rising sea levels

Latest embarrassment comes as key sceptic Benny Peiser backs down in row over fabricated quote
Robin McKie, science editor
The Observer, Sunday 14 February 2010 Article history

Climate experts have been forced to admit another embarrassing error in their most recent report on the threat of climate change.

In a background note – released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) last night – the UN group said its 2007 report wrongly stated that 55% of the Netherlands lies below sea level. In fact, only 26% of the country does. The figure used by the IPCC included all areas in the country that are prone to flooding, including land along rivers above sea level. This accounts for 29% of the Dutch countryside.

"The sea-level statistic was used for background information only, and the updated information remains consistent with the overall conclusions," the IPCC note states. Nevertheless, the admission is likely to intensify claims by sceptics that the IPCC work is riddled with sloppiness.

The disclosure will intensify divisions between scientists and sceptics over the interpretation of statistics and the use of sources for writing climate change reports, disagreements that have led to apologies being made by both sides of the debate. Last week a key climate-change sceptic apologised for alleging that one of the world's leading meteorologists had deliberately exaggerated the dangers of global warming.

In an email debate in the Observer, Benny Peiser, head of the UK Global Warming Policy Foundation, quoted Sir John Houghton, the UK scientist who played a key role in establishing the IPCC, as saying that "unless we announce disasters, no one will listen".

But in a letter to the Observer, Houghton said: "The quote from me is without foundation. I have never said it or written it. Although it has spread on the internet like wild fire, I do not know its origin. In fact, I have frequently argued the opposite, namely that those who make such statements are not only wrong but counterproductive."

Houghton said he was incensed because he believed the quote attributed to him, and to the IPCC, an attitude of hype and exaggeration and demanded an apology from Peiser.

For his part, Peiser told the Observer that he welcomed the clarification. "For many years, the Houghton 'quote' has been published in numerous books and articles. I took Sir John's failure to challenge it hitherto as a tacit admission that the 'quote' was accurate and reflected his view on climate policy. Now that he has publicly disowned the statement, I will certainly refrain from using it."

Houghton's "quote" has become one of the most emblematic remarks supposed to have been made by a mainstream scientist about global warming, and appears on almost two million web pages concerned with climate change. The fact that it now turns out to be fabricated has delighted scientists.

"We do not over-egg the pudding when it comes to the evidence about global warming – and I hope people will now appreciate this point," said Alan Thorpe, head of the Natural Environment Research Council.


[Environment > Endangered specied]
Push to ban trade in endangered bluefin tuna

Scientists, politicians and wildlife groups are pressing to restrict the sale of bluefin tuna; a move likely to be opposed by Japan, the world's main purchaser of the fish
Robin McKie, science editor
The Observer, Sunday 14 February 2010 Article history

It was one of the most expensive fish ever sold. A few weeks ago, a giant bluefin tuna achieved a price of 16.3m yen – about £111,000 – at auction in Tokyo. The rich, buttery taste of the tuna's flesh made the 513lb fish irresistible for one group of restaurateurs. The bluefin's fillets ended up on hundreds of sushi platters across Tokyo within hours of the sale.

But deals such as these may soon become a thing of the past. Scientists, politicians and wildlife groups are pressing for trade in the bluefin tuna to be restricted at the forthcoming meeting of Cites, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, in Doha, Qatar.

In particular, they want the Atlantic bluefin, the species that is suffering most from overfishing, to be given appendix-1 status by Cites when it convenes next month. The proposal, put forward by Monaco, would end trade in the tuna between European fishing fleets and Japan, the world's main purchaser of the fish. Not surprisingly, Japan is expected to oppose the ban, the bluefin being a prime ingredient for sushi.

"Stocks of bluefin tuna in the western Atlantic have dropped by 82% since 1978, while those in the eastern Atlantic have dropped by 80%," said Heather Sohl, of the WWF. "We are looking at a species that is going to be fished into extinction unless we take urgent measures to save it."

The bluefin tuna can grow up to 14ft in length, weigh more than 1,000lb (450kg) and live for more than 30 years. It can swim at up to 40mph (65km/h), can dive to depths of half a mile and is one of the oceans' great travellers, swimming from the tropics to the Arctic. However, it has become an increasingly popular target for trawler fleets from France, Spain and Italy, who have found a lucrative market in Japan.

"Moving the bluefin to appendix 1 of the convention would not ban the catching of them, but it would prevent European fishing fleets selling them to Japan," said Sohl. "That would be hugely effective."

Experts also warn that the banning of trade would not end the sale of tuna in restaurants and stores. Of the other species of tuna, including yellowfin, skipjack, bigeye and albacore, the skipjack is the only one not suffering from serious population decline linked to overfishing. The problem, add scientists, is that a ban on trade in the bluefin could lead to increased fishing of the other species.

In addition, campaigners say the overfishing of tuna poses other risks. The collapse of bluefin numbers in the Mediterranean threatens to trigger disruptions throughout the food chain. Squid numbers could rise in the absence of their tuna predators, which could adversely affect the sardine population.

It is estimated that about one million bluefins were caught last year, while the total population is thought to be about 3.75m. "That greatly exceeds the power of the species to replace its numbers," said Sohl.

news20100214cnn

[Top stories] from [CNN.com]

[Winter Olympics]
By Steve Almasy, CNN
February 14, 2010 -- Updated 0317 GMT (1117 HKT)
Officials: Don't sweat the warm weather

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
> Weather has been in mid- to upper-40's (7-9 degrees Celsius), delaying some events
> Officials say courses will be ready, time built into outdoor schedule to allow for delays
> Ticket-holders cautioned to check Olympics' official Web site for event info

Vancouver, British Columbia (CNN) -- Some people joke the Winter Olympics should be moved to Washington, D.C. You know, somewhere where there is plenty of snow.

It is unseasonably warm in the Northwest, and several events on the Olympics schedule have already been postponed or canceled. To the west a line of several storms is lining up in the Pacific. Athletes and fans hope they bring snow.

Officials say that no matter what, when it comes down to time for competition, the courses will be ready and talk of the weather is overblown. After all, they prepared for the possibility of poor conditions.

"When we designed the schedule, we put the events that had the greatest degree of weather risk at the beginning," said Vancouver Organizing Committee spokeswoman Renee Smith-Valade. "So you'll see that by postponing these events that we have been asked to so far, that we have room to reschedule them."

She said that for the outdoor events there are two to three extra days built into the schedule in case there are delays.

As there was Saturday when the men's downhill race in Whistler was postponed due to weather and training for the snowboard cross races, to take place just north of Vancouver on Cypress Mountain, was canceled. The downhill was rescheduled for Monday morning.

The weather in Vancouver has been in the mid- to upper-40's (7-9 degrees Celsius) with rain more often that not. The forecast for the coming week calls for highs in Vancouver to reach 50 (10 degrees Celsius) several times. Readings in Whistler are also supposed to be well above freezing, but at least some snow is expected to fall.

Smith-Valade cautioned fans with tickets to check the official Web site of the games (www.vancouver2010.com) before they put on their coats and head out to an outdoor event. She said there would be no refunds for events that were rescheduled because of weather.

Some of the warmth can be attributed to El Niño, a weather pattern characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration .

David Jones, a meteorologist at Environment Canada, told David Epstein of Sports Illustrated that this was more than the effects of El Niño.

"There's something else that we don't completely understand," he told SI.

At Whistler athletes are ready to race, after enduring postponement after postponement.

"We did everything we could. Now we can't do anything, we have to wait," said Gunter Hujara, the men's alpine skiing chief race director of the International Ski Federation.

"We had 200 people on the slope working 24 hours through," he said. "Now we [will] bring them off the courses, wait until snow has fallen, because we have one basic [principle] -- you can push the snow when it is on the ground, and we should not do it before. ... We [must be] patient and we want to do the right thing."


[Winter Olympics]
By Steve Almasy, CNN
February 14, 2010 -- Updated 0022 GMT (0822 HKT)
Olympic opening ceremony clouded by luger's death

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
> Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky among Canadian sports legends lighting Olympic cauldron
> Georgian Olympians, others wear black armbands in memory of luger
> 60,000 spectators attend otherwise upbeat ceremony

Vancouver, British Columbia (CNN) -- The opening ceremony for the 2010 Winter Olympics began on a somber note Friday night as members of the delegation from Georgia mourned the loss of one of their teammates just hours earlier.

The seven-athlete delegation, wearing black armbands in tribute to luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, entered BC Place to a standing ovation from the more than 60,000 spectators in attendance. A black ribbon was tied atop the Georgian flag.

Kumaritashvili was killed after crashing on a training run at the Whistler Sliding Center. He was set to compete in Saturday's men's singles luge event.

Officials with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and British Columbia coroner's office are leading an investigation into his death. The luge course is closed until the inquiry is complete.

Blog: Opening ceremony flawed but perfect

"The whole Olympic family is struck by this tragedy, which clearly casts a shadow over these Games," International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge said in a written statement earlier Friday.

Some athletes from other countries also donned black armbands during the otherwise upbeat ceremonies that featured lively performances from Canada's indigenous people, who danced throughout the lengthy introductions of the delegations from the 82 competing nations.

Luge death happens on track that caused concern, Georgian says

A high-flying snowboarder opened the ceremonies by jumping through a giant set of Olympic rings, prompting roars from the crowd inside the domed stadium -- a first for a Winter Games. Many of the fans were dressed in red, the prominent color on the Canadian flag.

The crowd erupted when Canadian speed skater Clara Hughes, carrying the Canadian flag, led her team into the arena. The Canadians hope to top the medal tally at these games, and count on winning gold in both men's and women's hockey, the country's favorite sport.

After a tribute to the athletes, sung by Canadians Bryan Adams and Nelly Furtado, the ceremony turned into a technological spectacle celebrating the country's diversity and natural beauty. More than 100 screens around the stadium projected video and images to turn the venue into a re-creation of Canada's constellations, oceans, rivers and forests.

Singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan, a British Columbia resident, sang as members of the Alberta Ballet danced among holographic images of the huge trees of an old growth forest.

John Furlong, the chief executive of the Vancouver Organizing Committee, told the athletes that they were role models.

"You are our beacon of hope in a world so much in need of peace, healing, unity, generosity and inspiration," he said. "Youth the world over aspire to be just like you."

There was a mechanical glitch when four Canadian sports legends tried to light the Olympic cauldron. Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, speed skating hero Catriona LeMay Doan, NBA star Steve Nash and alpine ski star Nancy Greene each were supposed to light one beam of the structure and then watch the flames rise to meet in the cauldron. But one beam failed to emerge from the floor of BC Place, the first indoor arena to host the opening ceremony.

A second cauldron, near Coal Harbour, was lit by Gretzky.

Olympic officials said that because the caldron was too hot for an indoor arena, a second cauldron, near Coal Harbour, would be lit by Gretzky.

Speculation had focused on who would light the Olympic cauldron. Many campaigned for Betty Fox, the mother of the late Terry Fox, a national hero.

While battling osteosarcoma in 1980, Terry Fox set out to cross Canada, running about the equivalent of a marathon each day to raise money for cancer research. But Fox, who had a prosthetic right leg, had to quit after 143 days as his cancer spread. He died less than a year later.

The idea of a hologram of Fox carrying the torch the final steps also has been floated.

news20100214reut

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Lidia Kelly
MOSCOW
Sat Feb 13, 2010 9:50am EST
Protesters, supporters rally as Baikal mill to reopen

MOSCOW (Reuters) - More than 2,000 people protested on Saturday at the decision to reopen a paper mill that was mothballed in 2008 over concerns it was polluting Lake Baikal.

An equal number, including some bussed in by the authorities, rallied alongside them in the Siberian city of Irkutsk to hail the government's decision last month to restart Baikalsk Pulp & Paper Mill, restoring 2,000 jobs.

The loss-making plant, which is the main employer for the 17,000 inhabitants of nearby town of Baikalsk, was shut in October 2008 after the government ordered it to install a system for drainage away from the world's largest freshwater lake.

Environmentalists say the waste from the plant, situated on the shoreline, contains harmful substances that destroy the lake's wildlife -- 1,500 species of animals and plants, including a unique type of freshwater seal.

"We came here to show that people are against," Marina Rikhanova, head of Baikal Ecological Wave, which organized the protest, told Reuters by telephone.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signaled in August his willingness to lift the restrictions that prevented the plant from dumping waste into the lake after diving to the bed of the lake and consulting with scientists..

The decision to reopen the Soviet-era mill is seen as a part of the government's broader support for Russia's single industry towns, often in remote from the larger cities.

"People gathered today to cheer the government's program," a spokeswoman for the mill told Reuters. "Without government support, mono-towns cannot exist."

The government owns 49 percent of the mill. Tycoon Oleg Deripaska owns a minority stake.

A spokeswoman said the plant was expected to reopen by the end of February.

Lake Baikal holds a fifth of the world's total surface fresh water and remains sacred for some Siberian tribes.

(Editing by Alison Williams)


[Green Business]
OSLO
Sat Feb 13, 2010 12:09pm EST
U.N. climate panel admits Dutch sea level flaw

OSLO (Reuters) - The U.N. panel of climate experts overstated how much of the Netherlands is below sea level, according to a preliminary report on Saturday, admitting yet another flaw after a row last month over Himalayan glacier melt.

A background note by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said a 2007 report wrongly stated that 55 percent of the country was below sea level since the figure included areas above sea level, prone to flooding along rivers.

The United Nations has said errors in the 2007 report of about 3,000 pages do not affect the core conclusions that human activities, led by burning fossil fuels, are warming the globe.

"The sea level statistic was used for background information only, and the updated information remains consistent with the overall conclusions," the IPCC note dated February 12 said.

Skeptics say errors have exposed sloppiness and over-reliance on "grey literature" outside leading scientific journals. The panel's reports are a main guide for governments seeking to work out costly policies to combat global warming.

The 2007 report included the sentence: "The Netherlands is an example of a country highly susceptible to both sea level rise and river flooding because 55 percent of its territory is below sea level."

"A preliminary analysis suggests that the sentence discussed should end with: 'because 55 percent of the Netherlands is at risk of flooding'," the IPCC note said.

The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, the original source of the incorrect data, said on February 5 that just 26 percent of the country is below sea level and 29 percent susceptible to river flooding.

The IPCC said the error was widespread -- it quoted a report from the Dutch Ministry of Transport saying "about 60 percent" of the country is below sea level, and a European Commission study saying "about half."

The panel expressed regret last month after admitting that the 2007 report exaggerated the pace of melt of the Himalayan glaciers, which feed rivers from China to India in dry seasons, in a sentence that said they could all vanish by 2035.

The 2035 figure did not come from a scientific journal.

(Editing by Louise Ireland)