By Kenneth Barbalace

An acquaintance of mine set me a link to a webpage berating a plan in Santa Monica, California to build the nation's first sustainable parking garage. The project includes photovoltaic roof panels, a storm drain water treatment system, recycled construction materials, and energy efficient mechanical systems. It will also feature ground floor retail shops.

So what was the writer's complaint? Their complaint was that "motoring" is not a sustainable activity and that the parking garage was ugly. They also claimed that the automobile age was going to be over in 17 years. Southern California giving up the automobile within 17 years would be like residents of northern Siberia giving up parkas; it is not going to happen. While better mass transit may be a noble objective, the reality is that new parking garages are still going to have to be built in cities like Santa Monica. Building parking garages to be as sustainable as possible and to make the best possible use of the space (e.g. retail space on the ground floor and roof top solar collectors) is a laudable effort.

We have seen a similar disconnect with some "environmentalists" (obstructionists would be a better term) up here in New England. In our case it deals with various wind farm proposals. Wind farms would seem to be the very picture of environmental sustainability, yet several recent wind farm proposals were blocked on "environmental" grounds. One proposal that has been fought using every method possible was a plan to put wind turbines on platforms out to sea off the coast of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. The plan was to put them far enough out to sea that they would appear very small or would be obscured by the curvature of the Earth, yet residents fought against this plan primarily because it would spoil the scenic ocean views of their multimillion dollar waterfront homes. Wind farm proposals here in Maine have run up against the same "environmental" claim of spoiling the scenic view because they would be placed on mountain tops.

Another claim often used to obstruct wind farm proposals is the claim that they will result in high bird mortality rates, which just is not true. In fact, one recent study by the National Academy of Sciences on the environmental impact of wind turbines I was reading and had planned to blog on but didn't, found that the bird mortality rate of modern slow revolving wind mills was lower than with other man made structures like tall buildings, power lines, etc. In fact, feral cats are much more devastating to bird populations than anything else and there is an up cry every time there is any effort to exterminate or otherwise remove feral house cats from the wild. Even the National Audubon Society supports wind farms and collaborates with wind farm developers "to best determine how to maximize the benefits of wind power while reducing the potential for harm to birds, wildlife and the environment."

Would the "environmentalists" fighting against wind farms and/or sustainable parking garages prefer that we build more coal fired power plants that spew mercury and greenhouse gases or build new nuclear reactors instead of wind turbines? The reality is that everything human civilization does has an impact on the environment. Cities like Santa Monica, California will continue to grow in population and thus will need more parking garages, and all of society will continue to need more energy. Not everyone can use mass transit from their home, but they could drive to well situated parking garages to pick up mass transit to complete their trip. Building sustainable parking garages that make use of the wasted space on top of the structure by adding solar panels and constructing them out of recycled materials is the right thing to do. So is building mountain top wind projects here in Maine or sea based wind projects off the coast of Cape Cod.

Yes, the true environmental impact of renewable energy projects like wind farms needs to be evaluated and minimized, however, it must also be recognized that all energy sources have environmental impacts, and we can not do without energy. The question we must ask when evaluating the environmental impact of renewable energies like wind farms is what are their net environmental impact compared to the traditional alternatives?

The simple fact of the matter is that many people try to wrap their arguments and obstructionism against projects like the sustainable parking garage in Santa Monica, California and wind farms in environmental terms when the real reason for their opposition is NIMBY (not in my back yard). They simply don't want their aesthetic sensibilities offended by the infrastructure required to sustain our civilization. This NIMBY attitude wrapped in a cloak of environmental concern is giving environmentalism a bad reputation and is wrong headed. From a big picture perspective, being environmentally responsible requires occasionally offending our aesthetic sensibilities. Personally, I would be thrilled if the next parking garage project here in Portland, Maine followed the sustainable parking garage model and would love to see some local mountain tops dotted with wind mills. For me, these things would mean we were taking local responsibility for the environmental impact of our energy needs.

Related Articles on EnvironmentalChemistry.com

• Environmental Justice and the NIMBY principle
  Not in my backyard! In whose backyard does our hazardous waste end up?
• Increased Mercury Levels Attributed to Industrial Activities
  Outdated coal fired power plants are contributing to increased mercury levels in lakes and streams.

Further Reading Elsewhere on the Web

• Audubon Society "Strongly Supports Wind Power", TreeHugger.com, 12/26/2006
• Cats More Lethal Than Wind Turbines, TreeHugger.com, 5/23/2007
• Putting Wind Power's Impact on Birds in Perspective, American Wind Energy Association, 2003

By Roberta

Last spring a rumor circulating on the Internet claimed that cell phone towers were responsible for the sudden disappearance of the worker bees and total collapse of 25% of the nations 2.4 million bee colonies (New York Times April 23, 2007). I have never traced the rumor directly but it appears to be related to a dubious report from a scientist in Germany who linked the death of bees to the use of cell phones, more precisely the cell phone towers. Much like what would happen in a game of “Gossip,” the report passed from email to blog to email, and before long people were talking about ditching their cell phones to save the bees.

To be sure, Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is real, but it is not caused by cell phone towers, neither is it caused by Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), parasitic varroa mites, and unusual weather patterns (Chemical and Engineering News; Why are the Bees Dying June 18, 2007). We can also rule out the honey bee “rapture” as a foreshadowing of things to come and secret plots by Russia or Osama Bin Laden to destroy American agriculture.

Presently, we still are not sure what is happening to the bees, but we do know that when CCD strikes, it does so very rapidly. A seemingly healthy hive can be abandoned by worker bees in two weeks or sometimes in two days. The queen and immature pupae are left alone with only a handful of young bees to care for them. Soon they die. The honey is not disturbed, and few, if any, dead worker bees are found around the hive.

While CCD was first reported along the East Coast of USA, it appears to trace its roots to California where nearly half the hives in the USA are shipped annually to pollinate the almond crop. From there the hives may be shipped to other parts of California to pollinate other crops, to the state Washington to apple and cherry orchards, back to the Dakotas for honey production, etc. So, approximately 50% of all domestic honey bees in the country make their way by truck to the almond groves of California. What a perfect setup for a pathogen to spread across the USA and on to the rest of the world. CCD has been reported in much of Europe and Taiwan.

The attention has turned to four potential culprits or some combination thereof:

• Pathogens
• Poor nutrition
• Exposure to toxins such as pesticides
• Stress

One hypothesis suggests that the bee immune systems might be compromised as a result of being shipped long distances to different climates, poor nutrition (from sugar water supplements provided in the spring to hasten their return to pollination and feeding upon a single pollen source (almond trees) for extended periods) and pesticides. A relatively new chloro-nicotinyl insecticide, called Imidacloprid, has been suggested as a possible culprit. It kills other insects by causing disorientation and immune system collapse. The list of possible pathogens that might take advantage of such a situation has been narrowed down from an original pool of 50 possible viruses, bacteria and fungi, to four or five that might work synergistically with one of the afore mentioned stressors to bring down the hive.

While the jury is still out, it is hoped that the cause or causes of CCD can be identified in the near future. On the other hand, Mary R. Berenbaum of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has suggested the outside possibility that the CCD episode will just pass and nobody will ever figure out exactly what happened (Chemical and Engineering News; Why are the Bees Dying June 18, 2007).

By Kenneth Barbalace

This Independence Day the United States has another reason to celebrate. The population of American Bald Eagles, the majestic symbol of this great nation, has made such a recovery that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) announced last week that it will be removed from both the Endangered Species list and Threatened Species List.

According to the USFWS in 1963 there were barely 400 nesting pairs of bald eagles left in the lower 48 states. Since then their numbers have increased 25 fold and some 10,000 pairs of Bald Eagles now call the lower 48 states home. While they will no longer be a listed species, they will still be protected by the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which prohibit taking, killing, selling or otherwise harming of eagles, their nests or eggs.

It should be emphasized, that the bald eagle was only on the Endangered Species List in the lower 48 states and that they were not endangered in Alaska. In fact, when I lived in the island fishing community of Sitka Alaska (population 8,500) some twelve to fifteen years ago, I worked at one of the two chain fast food restaurants there. The restaurant was on waterfront property and if one went in to open the restaurant in the early morning and the tide was out, quite frequently there would be dozens of bald eagles on the shoreline fishing. During the summer months it was routine to have up to almost a dozen bald eagles sitting it the top of a partially dead tree at the edge of the parking lot. They would spend their day watching the activity around our drive-thru and watching the swarms of ravens and seagulls fighting over French fries the customers would toss to the smaller birds. The eagles sitting in rows in the tree watching the activities almost reminded one of an audience in a theater watching a play.

In a park where I frequently played disc golf with a friend, it was common for eagles to be sitting in the top of trees watching the activities below them. They really seemed to be a curious bird that enjoyed simply watching the activities of the day from high up in their perches. It was in this park that I had one of my strangest encounters with a bald eagle. We were playing disc golf, when suddenly we heard the sound of crashing branches. We looked up just in time to see an eagle tumbling through the forest and crash into the forest floor in the most inglorious way. We were very dumbfounded and simply stared at the eagle in disbelief. The giant bird repeatedly tried to gain flight to get out of the forest, but its wingspan was too long and it kept crashing into branches, which would again bring it to the ground. The routine of it hoping along the ground for a few yards, trying to gain flight and then crashing back to the earth because of tree branches continued for a few minutes until finally, the eagle made it to a clearing big enough to gain flight unimpeded by trees. For such a majestic bird, this was a very inglorious event.

With all the environmental battles and news of doom and gloom, sometimes it is really nice to be able to write on an environmental success story like bald eagles being removed from the Endangered and Threatened Species List. You can read all about this delisting on the USFWS bald eagle website.

Oh and this Wednesday, if like me you will be celebrating our nation's independence, say a thank you to the so often maligned Endangered Species Act for helping to bring about the return of our national symbol. While we are celebrating this success, we should not forget the other less charismatic but no less deserving animals on the Endangered Species List like snail darters, delta smelt, etc.