November 13, 2001

Environmental Watch: Storer joins Adolfson

SEATTLE -- Bob Storer has joined Adolfson Associates Inc. as the firm's Oregon division director.

Storer has over 20 years of professional experience in discharge permitting, stormwater planning, water quality analysis. He also has expertise in Endangered Species Act implementation planning.

Most recently, Storer was water resources coordinator for the city of Gresham, Ore.

Adolfson Associates specializes in natural resources management, planning and environmental evaluation. Currently, the firm is helping a number of jurisdictions comply with the ESA.

BP unveils low-sulfur gas

REDMOND -- BP has introduced a new lower-sulfur gasoline for Puget Sound area Arco gas stations.

The fuel, called Low-Sulfur Premium, will be available at 145 gas stations in the region. BP says the reformulated gasoline will reduce nitrous oxide emissions by four percent -- the equivalent of removing 2,100 cars from the road daily.

BP's low-sulfur fuel contains about 80 percent less sulfur than the national average. The Environmental Protection Agency has mandated a 90 percent reduction in sulfur by 2006.

BP operates 1800 Arco stations in the West and is the largest marketer of fuel in the region.

$6M federal wetlands grants awarded

WASHINGTON -- The U.S .Fish and Wildlife Service has awarded $6.2 million in grants to Washington state and California for coastal wetlands restoration projects.

About $2.8 million of the he grants will go toward 1,200 acres of habitat in Washington.

At Deer Lagoon in Useless Bay, 379 acres of Whidbey Island intertidal wetlands and fresh water marsh will be acquired for preservation. On the Lower Nooksack River near Bellingham Bay, 324 acres of former floodplain and wetland habitat will be acquired to complete a continuous 4.4-mile, 1,700-acre wildlife corridor.

In the Niawiakum River Natural Area Preserve on Willapa Bay, approximately 100 additional acres of wetlands, salt marsh and riparian uplands will be acquired. And at the Qwuloolt "Great Marsh" on the Lower Snohomish River, 390 acres of intertidal wetlands will be acquired to complete land control needed to restore wetlands within a diking district and reestablish a connection with Allen Creek.

In California, grants totaling over $3.3 million were awarded for projects in Mendocino, Del Norte, San Louis Obispo and San Diego counties.

The awards are part of the annual National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant Program competition, which awarded more than $14 million to 20 projects nationwide.

States submit project proposals on competitive basis. Grant money comes from a portion of revenue generated from excise taxes on small engine fuels.

Study: Energy efficiency is good business

WASHINGTON -- A new study suggests energy efficiency policies and development of renewable energy resources could result in 750,000 new jobs nationwide over the next nine years and 1.3 million new jobs by 2020.

Issued by the World Wildlife Fund, "Clean Energy: Jobs for America's Future" says the U.S. gross domestic product would also increase by $23 billion by 2010 and continue to grow under such conditions.

Brooks Yeager, vice president of Global Threats for the World Wildlife Fund, said, "A serious and sustained national effort to improve the energy efficiency of our cars, trucks and buildings will offer us a better future with sustainable economic growth and allow us to conserve irreplaceable wilderness refuges for future generations."

The study concludes that conservation would benefit the economy more than new fossil fuel exploration. The World Wild Life Fund is opposed to the controversial Arctic National Wildlife Refuge oil exploration proposal, advocated by the Bush administration.

The study, conducted by the Tellus Institute, looked at advances in green building, energy-saving appliances, renewable energy and greater automobile and airplane efficiency.

Feds review salmon listings after coho ruling

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) -- Federal biologists will re-evaluate Endangered Species Act protection for 23 groups of Pacific salmon in light of a federal court ruling that they erred in one of them, the Bush administration announced Friday.

Rather that appeal the ruling throwing out the threatened species listing of Oregon coastal coho, the National Marine Fisheries Service will undertake a public review process to reconsider how it treats wild salmon versus those raised in hatcheries.

"This is an opportunity to redirect our efforts more constructively," said Robert Lohn, Northwest regional director of the agency, which has authority over restoring dwindling salmon populations. "The bottom line is it's time to stop fighting and start fixing."

After making a new policy on hatchery fish vs. wild fish next September, the agency will take another 45 days to announce whether 23 of the 25 groups of Pacific salmon listed as threatened or endangered species warrant further protection under the Endangered Species Act.

The process will consider newly filed petitions to take those fish off the endangered species list. In the meantime, protection for the fish still listed as threatened or endangered will continue.

Rather than develop a federal plan for the recovery of dwindling salmon stocks, NMFS will encourage states to redouble their efforts to develop their own programs.

Neighborhood grants offered

SEATTLE -- Seattle Public Utilities and the city's Department of Neighborhoods have formed a partnership to issue neighborhood environmental improvement grants.

The partnership, called Grant Central Station, will provide grants up to $5,000 for community projects that reduce waste, reduce waterborne pollution and remove litter and graffiti.

Individuals, neighborhood groups , youth groups and businesses and nonprofits are eligible. Preference will be given to projects that include in-kind contributions or matching funds. Call (206) 684-0224 for more information.

DOE sees green power demand rising

GOLDEN, Colo. -- More consumer choice in electricity generation could boost solar, wind and other "green power" sources 40 percent by the end of the decade, according to a new study by two U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories.

Achieving such a result, however, would require an orderly transition to competitive power markets and a significant expansion of the green pricing programs currently offered by regulated utilities, said energy analysts who conducted the study at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The findings are based on detailed modeling of green power demand, drawing on the experience of green power markets to date and consumer response to other "green" products.

Green pricing is offered by 85 utilities in 29 states and gives consumers an option to help support additional electrical production from renewable resources, including solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal and biomass resources.

Green power marketing also has seen success in a limited number of states with retail market competition, but the recent suspension of customer choice in California represents a setback to the development of competitive market choices in other states.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory located in Berkeley, California. It conducts unclassified scientific research and is managed by the University of California. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, based in Golden, Colo., is managed by the Midwest Research Institute, Battelle and Bechtel.