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11/14/11

A catastrophic landslide 22,500 years ago dammed the upper reaches of northern California's Eel River, forming a 30-mile-long lake, which has since disappeared, and leaving a living legacy found today in the genes of the region's steelhead trout, report scientists at two West Coast universities.

Using remote-sensing technology known as airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and hand-held global-positioning-systems (GPS) units, a three-member research team found evidence for a late Pleistocene, landslide-dammed lake along the river, about 60 miles southeast of Eureka.

The river today is 200 miles long, carved into the ground from high in the California Coast Ranges to its mouth in the Pacific Ocean in Humboldt County.

The evidence for the ancient landslide, which, scientists say, blocked the river with a 400-foot wall of loose rock and debris, is detailed this week in a paper appearing online ahead of print in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The National Science Foundation-funded study provides a rare glimpse into the geological history of this rapidly evolving mountainous region.

It helps to explain emerging evidence from other studies that show a dramatic decrease in the amount of sediment deposited from the river in the ocean just off shore at about the same time period, says lead author Benjamin H. Mackey, who began the research while pursuing a doctorate earned in 2009 from the University of Oregon. He is now a postdoctoral researcher at the California Institute of Technology.

"Perhaps of most interest, the presence of this landslide dam also provides an explanation for the results of previous research on the genetics of steelhead trout in the Eel River," Mackey said, referring to a 1999 study by U.S. Forest Service researchers J.L. Nielson and M.C. Fountain. In their study, published in the journal Ecology of Freshwater Fish, they found a striking relationship in two types of ocean-going steelhead in the river -- a genetic similarity not seen among summer-run and winter-run steelhead in other nearby rivers.

An interbreeding of the two fish, in a process known as genetic introgression, may have occurred among the fish brought together while the river was dammed, Mackey said. "The dam likely would have been impassable to the fish migrating upstream, meaning both ecotypes would have been forced to spawn and inadvertently breed downstream of the dam. This period of gene flow between the two types of steelhead can explain the genetic similarity observed today."

Once the dam burst, the fish would have reoccupied their preferred spawning grounds and resumed different genetic trajectories, he added.

"The damming of the river was a dramatic, punctuated affair that greatly altered the landscape," said co-author Joshua J. Roering, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Oregon. "Although current physical evidence for the landslide dam and paleo-lake is subtle, its effects are recorded in the Pacific Ocean and persist in the genetic make-up of today's Eel River steelhead. It's rare for scientists to be able to connect the dots between such diverse and widely-felt phenomena."

The lake's surface formed by the landslide, researchers theorize, covered about 12 square miles. After the damn was breached, the flow of water would have generated one of North America's largest landslide-dam outburst floods. Landslide activity and erosion have erased much of the evidence for the now-gone lake. Without the acquisition of LiDAR mapping, the lake's existence may have never been discovered, researchers say.

The area affected by the landslide-caused dam accounts for about 58 percent of the modern Eel River watershed. Based on today's general erosion rates, researchers theorize the lake could have been filled in with sediment within about 600 years.

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10/31/11

Attorney General Kamala D. Harris filed a first-of-its-kind “greenwashing” lawsuit Oct. 26 against three companies that allegedly made false and misleading claims by marketing plastic water bottles as 100 percent biodegradable and recyclable.

Under California law, it is illegal to label a plastic food or beverage container as biodegradable. Plastic takes thousands of years to biodegrade and may never do so in a landfill. The lawsuit is the first government action to enforce the state’s landmark environmental marketing law.

“These companies’ actions violate state law and mislead consumers,” Attorney General Harris said. “Californians are committed to recycling and protecting the environment, but these efforts are undermined by the false and misleading claims these companies make when they wrongly advertise their products as biodegradable.”

Balance and AquaMantra sell their products in plastic water bottles marketed by ENSO Plastics LLC. According to the label, ENSO claims that a microbial additive created the first truly biodegradable and recyclable plastic bottle. The bottles’ labeling states that the bottles will break down in less than five years in a typical landfill or compost environment, but that claim is false because the additive does not speed up the centuries-long process required to break down plastic.

The claim of recycling is also deceptive. The microbial additive put into the bottle is considered by the Association of Post Consumer Plastic Recyclers to be a destructive contaminant that can compromise the strength of the products they make.

Consumers may buy these defendants’ bottles and either dispose of them incorrectly, on the assumption that they will biodegrade quickly, when in fact they will simply take up space in landfills, or they will try to recycle them, creating problems and costs for recyclers.

A recent Gallup poll found that 76 percent of Americans buy products specifically because of their perception the product is better for the environment.

In 2008, the California Legislature banned the use of words like “biodegradable,” “degradable,” or “decomposable” in the labeling of plastic food or beverage containers. Senate Bill 567, signed into law by the governor this year, will expand that law to all plastic products beginning in 2013.

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11/4/11

Determining the potential of former landfills, brownfields and Superfund sites around the country to host solar panels and other renewable energy projects is the focus of a new assessment federal researchers announced Friday.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado plan to spend the next year to 18 months assessing 26 sites. The sites range from a massive open-pit copper mine in southwestern New Mexico to a former lead smelter in Montana and landfills in Arizona, Louisiana and New Jersey.

"There's huge potential for this to really make some inroads toward using contaminated lands as opposed to developing green spaces," said Gail Mosey, a senior energy analyst at NREL.

The EPA is spending about $1 million on the assessment. Aside from sparing green space and reducing greenhouse gas emissions through the development of more renewable energy, the goals include re-energizing communities.

Mathy Stanislaus, an assistant EPA administrator, said the studies are the first step toward transforming "these sites from eyesores today to community assets tomorrow."

The so-called RE-Powering America's Land Initiative began about four years ago with the first round of assessments. Since then, Mosey said the idea of reusing contaminated sites for energy development has been gaining momentum.

The latest round of studies will look at the potential development of wind, solar, biomass or geothermal at the 26 sites. The analysis will determine the best renewable energy technology for the site, the potential energy generating capacity, the return on the investment and the economic feasibility of the renewable energy projects.

The EPA said there have already been more than 20 renewable energy projects built on contaminated sites, and more are under construction. The agency pointed to a 6-megawatt solar array that was built last year on the Aerojet General Corp. Superfund site in California's Sacramento County. The array is being used to power the cleanup.

The 10-megawatt Exelon City Solar installation was built last year on a brownfield site in Chicago, and in April, a subsidiary of oil giant Chevron Corp. completed one of the largest concentrating photovoltaic solar power plants in the nation at a tailings site in northern New Mexico.

The feasibility studies, once completed, will help in fast-tracking those sites where developers are interested in moving forward with renewable projects. Some of the considerations when choosing the sites involved their proximity to transmission lines, community and utility support, electric rates and government incentives.

10/31/11

A federal judge today upheld new rules designed to protect West Coast salmon and steelhead from three widely used farm pesticides.

Pesticide manufacturers sought to overturn a 2008 decision by the National Marine Fisheries Service that limited where three organophosphate pesticides -- chlorpyrifos, diazinon, and malathion -- could be sprayed in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and California.

Among other restrictions, NMFS' opinion requires the Environmental Protection Agency to prohibit ground application of chemicals within 500 feet of salmon habitat and aerial application within 1,000 feet.

The manufacturers, including Dow AgroSciences, said the buffers are too large and inflexible, and questioned the scientific basis for concluding that the pesticides' harm to fish.

The Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides and other environmental groups said it's clear the pesticides damage juvenile fish, including 27 species of West Coast salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act.

These pesticides kill fish directly, the groups said, harm their food supply and habitat, and hinder their ability to navigate back to spawning streams.

Maryland U.S. District Court Judge Alexander Williams Jr. ruled against the manufacturers today. NMFS adequately considered the manufacturers' arguments, Williams wrote, noting that record backing the agency's decision runs to nearly 20,000 pages.

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