“Tortoises or land turtles are land-dwelling reptiles of the family of Testudinidae, order Testudines. Like their marine cousins, the sea turtles, tortoises are shielded from predators by a shell. The top part of the shell is the carapace, the underside is the plastron, and the two are connected by the bridge. The tortoise has both an endoskeleton and an exoskeleton. Tortoises can vary in size from a few centimeters to two meters. Tortoises tend to be diurnal animals with tendencies to be crepuscular depending on the ambient temperatures. They are generally reclusive animals. The biggest operational difference between tortoises and turtles is that tortoises are unable to swim; indeed, they cannot float, whereas turtles can” (www.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080409144910AAbkGR8&show=7, retrieved 4/19/2008).
“The Galápagos tortoise (or Galápagos giant tortoise), is the largest living tortoise, endemic to nine islands of the Galápagos archipelago. Adults of large subspecies can weigh over 300 kilograms (660lb) and measure 1.2 meters (4 ft) long. Although the maximum life expectancy of a wild tortoise is unknown, the average life expectancy is estimated to be 150-200 years. The Galápagos tortoises have very large shells (carapace) made of bone which is an integral part of the skeleton. The bony plates of the shell are fused with the ribs and other bones to form a rigid protective structure. When a tortoise feels threatened it can withdraw its head, neck and forelimbs into its shell for protection, presenting a thick shield to a would-be predator. The legs have hard scales that provide an effective armor when withdrawn” (www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal%C3%A1pagos_tortoise, retrieved 4/19/2008).
“In the 19th century, Charles Darwin, a biologist from England, set off on the ship HMS Beagle to investigate species of the Galapagos Islands. After spending time on the islands, he soon developed a theory that would contradict the creation of man and imply that all species derived from common ancestors through a process called natural selection. Natural selection is considered to be the biggest factor resulting in the diversity of species and their genomes. One of the prime motives for all species is to reproduce and survive, passing on the genetic information of the species from generation to generation. When species do this they tend to produce more offspring than the environment can support. The lack of resources to nourish these individuals places pressure on the size of the species population, and the lack of resources means increased competition and as a consequence, some organisms will not survive. The organisms that die as a consequence of this competition are not totally randomly. Darwin found that those organisms more suited to their environment were more likely to survive. This resulted in the well known phrase ‘survival of the fittest’, where the organisms most suited to their environment had more chance of survival if the species falls upon hard times. Those organisms who are better suited to their environment exhibit desirable characteristics, which is a consequence of their genome being more suitable to begin with. This 'weeding out' of less suited organisms and the reward of survival to those better suited led Darwin to deduce that organisms had evolved over time, where the most desirable characteristics of a species are favored and those organisms who exhibit them survive to pass their genes on. As a consequence of this, a changing environment would mean different characteristics would be favorable in a changing environment. Darwin believed that organisms had 'evolved' to suit their environments, and occupy an ecological niche where they would be best suited to their environment and therefore have the best chance of survival. As the above indicates, those alleles of a species that are favored in the environment will become more frequent in the genomes of the species, due to the organisms higher likeliness of surviving as part of the species at large” (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8727984/-storyContinued, retrieved 4/20/2008).
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Mini-Project 5
Tarpon Springs, Pinellas County, FL
Site Background:
The Tarpon Springs plant produced elemental phosphorous using phosphate ore mined from deposits in Florida. The plant was originally constructed and operated by Victor Chemical Company, which began production in 1947. The Stauffer Chemical Company obtained the plant from Victor Chemical in 1960 and continued to manufacture elemental phosphorous until the plant closed in 1981. The 160-Acre site (130 acres dry) is situated along the Anclote River approximately two miles upstream of the Gulf of Mexico. The site is approximately 1 mile north of the City of Tarpon Springs. Surrounding land use includes light industrial, commercial, recreational, and residential.
The Remedial Investigation was started in 1993 and completed in 1996; the site was listed on the National Priorities List. The contaminants of concern include heavy metals, radionuclides, Polynuclear Aromatic Hydrocarbons, and elemental phosphorous. Media contaminated include on-site soils, on-site waste ponds, and ground water.
Cleanup Progress: Threat Mitigated by Physical Clean-up Work
Under a removal action, the Stauffer Management Company removed approximately 33,000 gallons of elemental phosphorous contained in on-site above-ground tanks in 1997-1998.
The EPA signed a Record of Decision in July 1998 calling for in-situ solidification/stabilization of pond material above the water table; consolidation and on-site capping of contaminated soils and other materials; and institutional controls to prevent future residential land use at the site.
The EPA and Stauffer Management Company initially signed a Consent Decree in 1999 to implement the selected remedy. In response to public comments, the initial Consent Decree was withdrawn and additional geophysical studies were performed at the Site. The additional studies were conducted during 2000-2004 to evaluate the suitability of the remedy. The geophysical studies concluded that the remedy can be safely implemented at the Site. Stauffer Management Company and EPA signed another Consent Decree for the design and cleanup at the Site in April 2005.
The Consent Decree was lodged with the district court in June 2005.
The long term cleanup plan is in the remedial design phase. The design may be completed by early-2008.
EPA recently decided to change the in-situ solidification component of the remedy (see Summary of Explanation of Significant Differences dated June 2007). EPA plans to substitute a groundwater “cut off” wall for the use of in-situ solidification (ISS) to reduce the potential for contaminant migration from the former waste ponds. EPA plans to make this change because of implementation issues identified during the pilot testing of the ISS technology. During this testing, a reaction occurred between elemental phosphorus and the cement slurry which contributed to a fire in the test area. In addition, there is debris in portions of the old ponds which makes solidification impracticable. Some of the debris likely contains residual elemental phosphorus.
The use of a cut off wall will reduce the movement of groundwater contamination. The wall would be installed below ground around the perimeter of the former waste ponds. Modifying this component of the remedy will avoid the problems associated with implementing ISS at full scale.
Other components of the remedy, including capping and restrictions regarding future on-site groundwater use and land use, remain unchanged. The capping called for in the ROD will cover contaminated soil including the area inside the subsurface cut off wall and will form a protective barrier designed to prevent contact with contaminated materials.
Community Involvement: The community has been very involved in the Superfund process. The EPA awarded a Technical Assistance Grant (TAG) to Pi-Pa-TAG, Inc. in May of 1996. The EPA assisted the community in forming the Anclote Community Advisory Group (ACAG) in the June 2000.
www.epa.gov/region4/waste/npl/nplfln/statusfl.htm Retrieved 4/10/2008
The Superfund program was created by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), amended by the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA). The acts established authority for the government to respond to the release/threat of release of hazardous wastes, including cleanup and enforcement actions. Long term cleanups at National Priority List (NPL) sites last more than a year while short term /emergency cleanups are usually completed in less than a year. Our Federal Facilities Program monitors and provides assistance to federal facilities in Region 4 to ensure compliance with environmental regulations and policies under CERCLA. The Office of Superfund Remediation and Technology Innovation, under the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response provides the policy, guidance and direction for our knowledge managment programs.
The Superfund and Federal Facilities Restoration programs are helping state and local governments all over the Southeast region realize significant real estate and development opportunities by assisting in cleaning up Superfund sites for reuse through our land revitalization effort. We are collaborating with our state and local partners to help restore land and watersheds that have been contaminated, deforested and eroded by mining in the past.
Hot Topic Cleanup Site Information
(Adobe PDF Reader Required)
* Jax Ash Cleanup, Jacksonville, Florida
EPA Region 4 successfully negotiated a complex Consent Decree with the City of Jacksonville for the cleanup of the Jacksonville Ash/Brown’s Dump Superfund Sites in 2007. This settlement entails approximately $100 million in Remedial Design/Remedial Action, one of the largest settlements in the history of Region 4, and will address more than 1.6 million cubic yards of contaminated soil located in four neighborhoods in downtown Jacksonville, Florida. The remedy will provide for the removal or isolation of contaminated soil and address concerns about both public health and property values for thousands of residents in low-income environmental justice neighborhoods.
Point of Contact: Joe Alfano
Cast Attorney: Caroline Philson
Enforcement Project Manager: Janice Thomas
Civil Investigator: Annette Fields
www.epa.gov/region4/waste/sf/index.htm Retrieved 4/10/2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Mini Project 3
Endangered Species in Norway:
1. The Blue Whale
The blue whale is the largest animal that has ever lived on earth. It can weigh up to 136,400 kg (300,000 lb) and grow as long as 34 m (110'). It has a slim outline, especially in the winter, although it fattens in the summer. The tiny dorsal fin is set well to the rear of the body. 55 - 68 flexible throat grooves run along half the body length. Its coloration is mainly pale blue-gray.
The Blue Whale is found in all major oceans of the world. Its populations have been severely depleted throughout its range due to commercial whaling, which ceased in 1964. There have been reports of increased sightings in some areas, but in other areas the number of Blue Whales remains low.
There are several other types of whales in Norway under the same category. They are unfortunantly also endangered species.
2. The Polar Bear
The polar bear has an elongated neck and a stocky body. It can be up to 285 cm (9.3') long, stand 160 cm (5.2') high at the shoulder, and weigh up to 800 kg (1800 lb). A polar bear is completely furred except for the tip of its nose and its foot pads. Polar bear fur appears white when it is clean and in normal daytime sunlight. However, because the fur actually has no pigment, a bear may take on the yellow-orange hues of the setting and rising sun. In spring and late winter, many polar bears are "off-white" or yellowish because of oils from their prey and other impurities that have attached to their fur.
The polar bear occurs throughout the Arctic. It is still found in most of its original range. Significant depletion of polar bear populations, due to over-hunting, occurred in the early and middle 1900's. As a result, an international agreement was reached in which the five nations with polar bears (Canada, Norway, USA, the former USSR and Denmark/Greenland) agreed to prohibit unregulated hunting and to outlaw the hunting of the bears from aircraft and icebreakers. This agreement and the resulting actions by the signatory nations were responsible for a significant recovery of the polar bear by the 1980's.
3. The Wolf
The wolf (Canis lupus) became a protected species in Norway in 1973 and is cited on their red list of endangered species as 'critically endangered'. The Norwegian Ministry of the Environment is ultimately responsible for ensuring that there are viable populations of all red-listed species. Only last May, the Norwegian Parliament decided on a national goal of sustaining at least three family packs. The current hunt will reduce the number of packs to two, a clear breach of a parliamentary directive. In 2001, there were an estimated 50–80 wolves in the southern part of Norway and Sweden, consisting of several families. In that year, the Norwegian government approved the culling of 8 out of its 25 wolves. Today, there are reported to be only 20 left in Norway.
4. Arctic Fox
The fox is endangered on the mainland, but there is a stable population on Svalbard. Even though the Arctic fox has been totally protected in Norway since 1930, the situation for the mainland population is now critical. The species is classed as endangered in Norway's Red List. Arctic foxes are totally protected on Jan Mayen and Bjørnøya, but may still be trapped in the rest of Svalbard, except in protected areas. The population density in Svalbard is relatively high when compared to the alpine regions of Scandinavia. The Arctic fox was eradicated on Jan Mayen in the 1930s as a result of trapping.
5. Wolverine
1. The Blue Whale
The blue whale is the largest animal that has ever lived on earth. It can weigh up to 136,400 kg (300,000 lb) and grow as long as 34 m (110'). It has a slim outline, especially in the winter, although it fattens in the summer. The tiny dorsal fin is set well to the rear of the body. 55 - 68 flexible throat grooves run along half the body length. Its coloration is mainly pale blue-gray.
The Blue Whale is found in all major oceans of the world. Its populations have been severely depleted throughout its range due to commercial whaling, which ceased in 1964. There have been reports of increased sightings in some areas, but in other areas the number of Blue Whales remains low.
There are several other types of whales in Norway under the same category. They are unfortunantly also endangered species.
2. The Polar Bear
The polar bear has an elongated neck and a stocky body. It can be up to 285 cm (9.3') long, stand 160 cm (5.2') high at the shoulder, and weigh up to 800 kg (1800 lb). A polar bear is completely furred except for the tip of its nose and its foot pads. Polar bear fur appears white when it is clean and in normal daytime sunlight. However, because the fur actually has no pigment, a bear may take on the yellow-orange hues of the setting and rising sun. In spring and late winter, many polar bears are "off-white" or yellowish because of oils from their prey and other impurities that have attached to their fur.
The polar bear occurs throughout the Arctic. It is still found in most of its original range. Significant depletion of polar bear populations, due to over-hunting, occurred in the early and middle 1900's. As a result, an international agreement was reached in which the five nations with polar bears (Canada, Norway, USA, the former USSR and Denmark/Greenland) agreed to prohibit unregulated hunting and to outlaw the hunting of the bears from aircraft and icebreakers. This agreement and the resulting actions by the signatory nations were responsible for a significant recovery of the polar bear by the 1980's.
3. The Wolf
The wolf (Canis lupus) became a protected species in Norway in 1973 and is cited on their red list of endangered species as 'critically endangered'. The Norwegian Ministry of the Environment is ultimately responsible for ensuring that there are viable populations of all red-listed species. Only last May, the Norwegian Parliament decided on a national goal of sustaining at least three family packs. The current hunt will reduce the number of packs to two, a clear breach of a parliamentary directive. In 2001, there were an estimated 50–80 wolves in the southern part of Norway and Sweden, consisting of several families. In that year, the Norwegian government approved the culling of 8 out of its 25 wolves. Today, there are reported to be only 20 left in Norway.
4. Arctic Fox
The fox is endangered on the mainland, but there is a stable population on Svalbard. Even though the Arctic fox has been totally protected in Norway since 1930, the situation for the mainland population is now critical. The species is classed as endangered in Norway's Red List. Arctic foxes are totally protected on Jan Mayen and Bjørnøya, but may still be trapped in the rest of Svalbard, except in protected areas. The population density in Svalbard is relatively high when compared to the alpine regions of Scandinavia. The Arctic fox was eradicated on Jan Mayen in the 1930s as a result of trapping.
5. Wolverine
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Global Warming
"In my view, climate change is the most severe problem that we are facing today -- more serious even than the threat of terrorism."
"With this warning to an international science meeting in February 2004, David A. King, Chief Scientific Advisor to the British Government, brought the issue of global warming into sharp focus.
The World View of Global Warming project is documenting this change through science photography from the Arctic to Antarctica, from glaciers to the oceans, across all climate zones. Rapid climate change and its effects is fast becoming one of the prime events of the 21st century. It is real and it is accelerating across the globe. As the effects of this change combine with overpopulation and weather crises, climate disruptions will affect more people than does war.
The 2005 average global temperature equaled (within several hundredths of a degree) the record warm year of 1998, according to meteorologists. 2002-4 were nearly as warm, and the 11 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1990. In response, our planet has been changing with warming winds and rising seas. At the poles and in mountains, ice is under fire and glaciers are receding. Down into the temperate zone, change is rearranging the boundaries of life. The plants and animals with whom we share the planet are adapting and moving -- some even going extinct -- because they have no choice.
We six billion humans are being affected, too. Coastal towns are suffering from rising sea level, storms are getting stronger and 35,000 people died in European heat waves in 2003. However, we have choices to make to help correct and ameliorate global warming. This is a story of frightening scale and and great urgency that is just beginning to be told. Please go to Actions to see what you can do now.
I began photographing climate change in 1999, about when scientists started to realize how great a change in temperatures is taking place in our time. Past earth temperatures left their mark in tree rings, glaciers and ancient lake and ocean sediments, and the record shows slowly decreasing temperatures over the last 2000 years. In that time there have been warm and cool periods, but nothing like the rise in temperatures in the past 150 years -- and no increase even close to the past 30. This research has created what has become the single most powerful icon of climate change, the so-called "hockey-stick" graph of temperatures. In 2005-6 it was subjected to intense re-analysis. Evidence of previous cool and warm periods has increased, but the rapid and sustained heat gain especially since the 1970s remains unparalleled in recent earth history.
In general global temperatures have risen since the 19th century industrial revolution. There is little scientific question the reason is a steep increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide -- CO2 -- from human use of fossil fuels. Methane, ozone, other gases and dusts have also increased greatly. The mechanism of our atmosphere is that gases like CO2 and methane trap some of the sun's radiation and hold it in the lower atmosphere, heating it. The natural greenhouse effect made the earth warm enough for life, but the effect is much higher now. Ice core records show that whenever CO2 has increased in the earth's past, so has temperature. The recent increase in atmospheric CO2 is 200 times as great as any previous change seen in the ice cores. The current level is 380 parts per million, the highest in more than 650,000 years. It shows no signs of decreasing.
This increase caused earth's average atmospheric temperature to go up about 1. degree F in the 20th century. Now, according to NOAA, the global warming rate in the last 25 years has risen to 3.6 degrees F per century. This tends to confirm the predictions of temperature increases made by international panels of climate scientists (IPCC). The ocean has actually absorbed most of the added CO2 and heat -- becoming warmer and very slightly more acidic. These increases, seemingly small, have a giant effect on weather, climate zones, plants and animals, sea life, glaciers and river flow -- and thus human life. My project and this Web site seek to document these changes. For more on past climate and today's weather, see especially the Paleoclimate and Weather sections".
www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org
Retrieved 3/25/2008
Mini Project 1
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is the leading independent campaigning organization that uses peaceful direct action and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and to promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future”. (www.greenpeace.com, retrieved
They have an air/energy program, a health program, an international program, a land program, a nuclear program, an urban program, and a water/oceans program”. (www.nrdc.org, retrieved
If I were to join one of these organizations, I would join Greenpeace. Out of the three, that is the only one I’ve heard of, and after reading about the three different organizations I discovered that it is also the one with the most members. Greenpeace have 250.000 members in the
Fox Hunting
300,000 at Boxing Day Fox Hunts in Britain
  |
LONDON, Dec. 26 (AP) — "More than 300,000 people thronged the British countryside on Tuesday for the annual Boxing Day fox hunts, organizers said, two years after Parliament passed a law banning traditional fox hunting in which dogs chase and kill the prey.
Under the Hunting Act, which took effect in February 2005, dogs can be used to locate a fox and drive it into open ground, but not to harm the animal, which is shot instead.
Many hunts have since been reformed into trail or drag hunting, in which dogs track an animal scent that has been artificially laid out through the woods.
Fox hunting, which dates back centuries in Britain, once involved groups of riders following a pack of hounds trained to track down and kill foxes. The new law followed a bitter fight in Parliament and raucous street demonstrations.
The Countryside Alliance, a group that represents hunting enthusiasts, said more than 300 legal hunts took place on Tuesday, the day of the traditional post-Christmas hunt.
An antihunting group, the League Against Cruel Sports, said it had no objection to the hunts if they were kept within the limits of the law".
www.nytimes.com/2006/12/27/world/europe/27britain.html
Retrieved 3/25/2008
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