January 6, 2004

Environmental Watch: Herrera Environmental adds staff

SEATTLE -- Herrera Environmental Consultants hired Robin Kirschbaum and Tracy Phelps to its Seattle water resources and river science and geomorphology groups.

Kirschbaum is a water resources engineer with experience in stormwater management, low-impact development, stream restoration, basin planning, flood studies, sediment transport, and advanced hydrologic, hydraulic and sediment stability modeling and analysis.

Phelps is a geomorpohologist with experience in geomorphology, land-use hydrology, and three-dimensional fluid flow. She specializes in hydraulic analyses including investigations of the spatial distribution of velocity and turbulence using statistical and vertical techniques.

Former PSRC director wins award

SEATTLE -- The Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations awarded a Larry Dahms Lifetime Achievement Award to former Puget Sound Regional Council executive director Mary McCumber, who retired from the position last month.

McCumber became executive director of PSRC in 1992 and helped develop Vision 2020, a growth, economic and transportation strategy for the region. PSRC's new executive director is Bob Drewel.

Before joining PSRC, McCumber helped develop growth management legislation as executive director of the Governor's Growth Strategies Commission and as a local government planning director in central Puget Sound. She also served on Seattle historic preservation boards and was the first president of 1000 Friends of Washington.

50 acres near Frederickson protected

TACOMA -- The Cascade Land Conservancy and Pierce County Water Programs signed a conservation easement preserving more than 50 acres of natural floodplain and upland habitat in the Frederickson area of Clover Creek Basin.

The property at Military Road and 38th Avenue East includes the Naches Trail Preserve, which has 27 acres of riparian corridor and wetlands. Native Americans used the trail to cross the Cascade Mountains. Isaac Stevens, first governor of the Washington Territory, used it as a military and pioneer road, according to Pierce County.

The property contains floodplain, prairie land with oak trees and uplands with mixed evergreen and deciduous trees. Pierce County will own it, and the Cascade Land Conservancy -- a nonprofit land trust in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties -- gets conservation rights to protect and restore the property.

Mount Rainier fleet to try clean diesel

SEATTLE -- The Environmental Protection Agency awarded more than $500,000 in clean-diesel retrofit grants for projects in California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio and Washington.

A $100,000 EPA grant to Mount Rainier National Park will subsidize a two-year supply of ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel for a 37-vehicle fleet and/or diesel particulate filter retrofits for up to 19 high-use vehicles, such as construction equipment, plow trucks, snow blowers, tractors and dump trucks.

Mountaineers offers enviro course

SEATTLE -- The Mountaineers will hold a 2004 Northwest Environmental Issues Course from Feb. 2 to April 12 at the Mountaineer's Club House at 300 Third Ave. W.

Lectures and field instruction will cover forests, water, wildlife, growth management, global warming and transportation. Courses will be Monday evenings from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m., and the cost is $45 for Mountaineer members and $50 for nonmembers.

Wind to power two Oregon ski lifts

MT. HOOD, Ore. -- Mt. Hood Meadows Ski Resort will use wind energy to run a major chairlift at Meadows and the only chairlift at Cooper Spur Mountain Resort.

The resort is buying 334 Portland General Electric "Clean Wind Green Tags" to help generate 334,000 kilowatt hours of wind energy for the Shooting Star Express chairlift, according to the resort.

The Bonneville Environmental Foundation supplies green tags, or renewable energy certificates, to PGE. Green tags represent wind farms, photovoltaic solar arrays and geothermal generating stations. For details, visit http://www.skihood.com or the Renewable Northwest Project at www.rnp.org.

Nesting seabirds delay bridge project

BREMERTON -- The state Department of Transportation may soon start painting the Port Washington Narrows Bridge after delaying the project to accommodate a flock of nesting seabirds.

Environmental engineers recently looked under the bridge and found about 264 nesting pairs of pelagic cormorants and their offspring, according to WSDOT.

The black birds live along cliffs from Alaska to Baja California, building nests out of sticks, seaweed, moss and grass. The birds are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. This month crews will place noise and strobe deterrents under the bridge to prevent nesting until after painting is complete, according to WSDOT.

New air quality standards for homes

ATLANTA -- The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers released an indoor air-quality standard for residences.

ASRAE developed Ventilation and Acceptable Indoor Air Quality in Low-Rise Residential Buildings partly in response to Environmental Protection Agency studies showing indoor air pollution may be two to five times worse than outdoor pollution.

Builders already follow most of the guidelines, and putting them into practice may cost homebuilders $150 to $250 per house, according to ASHRAE. The standard applies to new or existing houses. It's prepared for engineers who design HVAC systems, but homeowners can apply some of the guidelines as well. For details visit www.ashrae.org.

Offroaders in a battle over sand dunes

GLAMIS, Calif. (AP) -- A plant found only in the dunes of California's Imperial Valley has turned this vast, desolate landscape into one of the nation's unlikeliest environmental battlegrounds.

Those trying to protect the fragile habitat of the Pierson's milkvetch are fighting off-roaders who head to the Algodones Dunes. The small, broom-like plant, which is protected by the Endangered Species Act, is keeping dune riders out of an area 3.5 times the size of Manhattan.

Off-roaders say the milkvetch locks up huge areas of public land with "bad science." Environmentalists say the protection accorded the milkvetch is keeping life in the nation's biggest and most popular dunes from being ground beneath dune buggies and all-terrain vehicles.

No one is sure how many Pierson's milkvetch there are. The Bureau of Land Management estimates it will spend $850,000 in 2004 to send employees out into the desert to count milkvetch.

Off-roaders petitioned for a federal review of the science that led to the Pierson's milkvetch ESA listing five years ago. An answer is expected in May.