December 11, 2001

Environmental Watch: SCS wins Army Corps contract

BELLEVUE -- SCS Engineers has won a five-year contract to provide longterm operations maintenance and monitoring services at hazardous waste sites managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Currently SCS has been authorized to proceed with groundwater monitoring projects at the Umatilla Chemical Depot in Umatilla, Ore. and at the Eagle Harbor/Wyckoff site on Bainbridge Island.

Both are classified as Superfund sites by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. At both SCS is working with the corps to minimize environmental damage and facilitate site closure.

SCS, founded in 1970, has 27 offices in the U.S. and overseas staff in Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and the Middle East.

Renton firm's heat system catching on

RENTON -- Harnessing the latent heat of water vapor in heating exhaust systems, a new process developed by Direct Contact Inc. is helping companies reduce costs and emissions.

To date the process has been installed by Seattle Steam Co., Daishowa America, James Hardie Gypsum, Ponderay Newsprint and Phelps-Dodge among others.

At Seattle Steam, boiler efficiency was improved by six percent, saving about $2,000 per day. Over nine million gallons of water will be recovered annually through the process, and carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced by 9,000 tons per year.

Direct Contact, based in Renton, is an outgrowth of Carson Engineering, a design and consulting firm in the chemical process industry.

Treasures without trash

SEATTLE -- As part of an effort to reduce holiday waste, the King County Department of Natural Resources is once again sponsoring "Waste-Free Holidays," a program that encourages people to give experiences -- like concerts or meals -- rather than packaged and wrapped presents.

According to King County, the average household produces an extra 85 pounds of waste during the holiday season.

To try and reduce waste, the county has teamed with area cultural venues, sports teams and restaurants to offer discounts on museum visits, concerts, plays and sporting events. A complete list of participants is available on the King County Web site at www.metrokc.gov.

Lawn company will pay for pollution

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A national leader in lawn and garden products has agreed to pay a $250,000 fine and clean up polluted landfills, lagoons and creeks at its central Ohio manufacturing complex, state officials said Monday.

Columbus-based Scotts Company agreed to the terms in a consent order filed in Union County Common Pleas Court by the Ohio attorney general.

The order was the result of years of negotiations between Scotts, and the attorney general and Environmental Protection Agency.

The state claimed that DDT and other chemicals buried in landfills on the 173-acre complex, about 30 miles northwest of Columbus, had leaked into a creek that feeds into the Scioto River, a source of drinking water for Columbus. The state said it found no evidence of contamination in Columbus' water supply.

After a 30-day public comment period, the court will be asked to file the order. Scotts then will have 30 days to pay the fine.

Scotts has cleaned up some of the chemicals and under the consent order will be required to continue clean up polluted areas of its property, Ohio EPA spokesman Jim Leach said. A message left at Scotts headquarters was not returned.

Smog will play role at Olympics

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Every once in a while the clear mountain air around this city is replaced by a brown, soupy inversion that looks more like the sky over Los Angeles than the Rocky Mountains.

Organizers of the upcoming Winter Olympics can plan for traffic, security breaches and even a lack of snow, but there's little to be done about the pesky inversions that settle over the Olympic host city.

It's not just a question of ruining Olympic photo opportunities. The inversions also cause health problems for those with respiratory illnesses as well as the elderly and infants.

Like Denver's infamous "brown cloud," Salt Lake's inversion is a down side to being surrounded by mountains. When a high-pressure weather system slides over the area, it acts like a lid over the valley, trapping all the dust, vehicle exhaust and smokestack emissions close to the ground.

Brigham Young University economics professor Arden Pope, who has been researching the effects of pollution since the early 1980s, said the inversions also are directly linked to sick days and a higher death rate among people with heart disease and respiratory illnesses.

It's not the inversion that causes the trouble but the smog that's trapped in it.

Rick Sprott, director of air quality for the state, has heard all the ideas on how to rid the valley of the brown blanket, including the half-baked suggestion to build a large fan to blow the muck out of the valley.

But the only way to lessen the effects of an inversion is to decrease automobile traffic, have fewer people using wood stoves and to clean up smokestacks.

Sprott predicted the familiar haze will make a guest appearance at the Olympics.

If that happens, it could prove to be a mixed bag. The ski slopes will be having clear, warm weather while all the dirty, cooler air will be stuffed into the valleys, Pope said.

No inversion means a nice view from the valley, but the potential for worse weather in the higher elevations.

"It's not clear which we want. But the truth is we don't have any control of it either way, so we'll take what we can get I guess," he said.

Britain to urge cuts in traffic, industrial air pollution

LONDON (AP) -- Britain is urging the European Union to push for international initiatives that will cut air pollution caused by traffic and industry.

Environment Minister Michael Meacher said Monday he will ask European Union ministers this week to find ways to persuade countries to reduce pollution.

Meacher said Britain's freshwater lakes and streams are recovering after a 50 percent cut in the past 12 years in sulphur oxide emissions, which cause acid rain that kills fish and corrodes buildings.

But Meacher said nitrogen oxides from traffic and ammonia from farm animal waste are also causing major pollution problems.

"The bad news is that Chinese emissions of greenhouse gases, including nitrous oxides, will exceed those of America in about 15 years," he told a news conference.

"But the good news is that we are steadily moving towards a fuel cell and ultimately hydrogen car, probably within about 15 years. And getting developing countries to drive those kinds of cars will be a very important part of achieving better international figures for air quality."

Meacher said a good place to start is the Kyoto Protocol curbing greenhouse gases and the Montreal Protocol banning the production of substances that deplete the ozone layer that protects the earth from the sun's rays around the earth.

"But if we are going to get the benefits across the Northern Hemisphere we do need to get agreement of all the countries that are contributing and we can't do this in Europe alone. I do think we have to develop this into an international negotiation," he added.