Asian Carp update

Good news from the Great Lakes: looks like maybe the electric barriers are working, since a search for Asian carp in the Lakes has come up empty. With a $7 billion Great Lakes fishing industry on the line, that's pretty good to hear!

Bag tax gets 'er done!

The DC tax on disposable bags once routinely distributed at supermarkets has cut use by "more than half" since it took effect at the start of the year. Bag use is dropping at a higher rate than expected. I wonder how fast they expected demand to drop: did they perceive a huge demand for single use bags?

My favorite critique of the bag tax is that it will disproportionately hurt the poor. It seems to me that the poor are likely to learn very quickly that they need to bring reusable bags or at least the bags they paid for last time. A little tax works wonders!

Fracking and the EPA

Last week the EPA announced they were going to begin investigating the environmental consequences of "fracking," which is hydraulic fracturing of shale to extract natural gas. I think this is great: I hope that they can identify the externalities associated with extraction and encourage responsible harvesting. Natural gas is a great asset and the new methods for harvesting look to increase US reserves considerably, which should cut this country's dependence on petroleum and drop our emissions of greenhouse gases. Hopefully the EPA will be able to identify some steps that will enable the extraction process to go as smoothly and as harmlessly as possible.

Fighting over chicken poop

The controversy we've been talking about in class has finally blown up: some students at a law clinic at the U of M have deployed a serious weapon in the form of a lawsuit against a large Eastern Shore farm. The farm, defended as a "family farm" that's been in business for "over 100 years" is home to 80,000 chickens and I'll wager it produces a prodigious amount of poop. The response by Perdue, the voice of the industry that produces about 600 million chickens annually in Maryland alone, is two fold. First, they are defending the farm as a poor, defenseless entity that the law students at the clinic are unjustifiably attacking. Second, they are calling their legislators and asking them to pull the plug on the law clinic, which is vulnerable as part of the USM (University System of Maryland). While the one "poor" farm may not have huge resources, they clearly already have the deep pockets of the industry on their side, though the farmer says, "Perdue is not paying our legal costs." There's no way they will get zero help from the industry, who is already mustering help in the legislature, though I'm sure they will help in such a way that this kind of claim can be made. Idealistic law students tilting at a huge industry to defend the bay: sounds like a Hollywood script!

Biocontrol to be tried against invasive plant

[This should've been posted back before break! Sorry!]

Biocontrol will be tested in EU for the first time ever, in efforts to manage an invasive Japanese knotweed populating the UK. Originally introduced as an ornamental by the Victorians, this vigorous plant grows quickly; growing more than one meter (about 3 feet) in a month’s time. Japanese knotweed has a detrimental tendency to outcompete the UK’s native vegetation. In the past century, this invasive plant has gradually grown into untamed numbers and spread across the UK countries. With the plant’s overwhelming numbers, it has incurred an estimated £150 million (or $200 million) cost per year to control and clear the invasive plant populations. This does not include the costs from repairing the damages on roads, buildings, and pavement as a result of this resilient plant.

The Aphalara itadori insect was nominated as the most effective, safest biocontrol agent, showing most selectivity for the Japanese knotweed. The A. itadori species feeds of the sap from the Japanese knotweed. In enough numbers, the insect can overwhelm an individual plant, sucking the “life” out of the plant. The UK government has recently approved the proposed plan to test the biocontrol method, releasing the insect at several select and isolated sites. Integration of some closely related, UK native knotweed species will be included at these tested sites to observe the selectivity of the released biocontrol. Should the insect begin to demonstrate indiscriminate feeding between the native and invasive plants, insecticidal/herbicidal applications are on stand-by. This biocontrol method is projected over a span of 5-10 years and hopes to significantly reduce the costs imposed by the invasive plant’s unwarranted growth.
--Malinda Ross

Chevron & Solar tech

The New York Times article, “Chevron Testing Solar Technologies”, by Todd Woody, discusses how the oil company Chevron is recycling the grounds of an old oil refinery in Bakersfield, CA into a testing ground for new solar technologies. The company narrowed a list of 180 solar companies down to 7 finalists and is currently installing a total of 7,700 photovoltaic solar cells from these finalists onto the 18 acres of testing ground. Over a three year time frame these cells will be used to generate electricity to run the nearby oil operations and any generated electricity in excess of the needed 740 kilowatts will be routed into the grid. Chevron has stated that they are not just testing the efficiency of each technology, but also the start to finish costs in terms of time and money to install each technology and the operation and maintenance costs of each. Once the testing is completed at least one of these technologies will be used at Chevron facilities around the world.

This article is of interest because it is an example of one of the larger oil companies making a conscious effort to help lead the nation into a cleaner energy future. They are not cutting the use of oil but they are reusing some of the land that was devoted to the oil industry in a very beneficial manner that will also benefit the economy. Four of the seven technologies that are being tested are from domestic companies and a few of those are start-up companies that are getting their first commercial contract. Even if those domestic companies are not chosen for use by Chevron the results of the testing will likely be released and this test could lead to increased contracts for these domestic solar companies. Therefore through this project Chevron is cleaning up aspects of its oil operation, while also presenting an opportunity for 7 solar technology companies to demonstrate their capabilities, and potentially inflate the U.S. economy should some of these domestic start-up companies receive increased business as a result of the testing.

--Josh Johnson

Watermen under the gun

Oyster laws are getting stricter, the government is setting up sanctuaries and limiting the kinds of equipment watermen can use. The Natural Resources Police are out at night enforcing them, and caught in the pincers are watermen who are just trying to make a living.

If Omega Protein wasn't sucking up all the menhaden, there would be less hypoxia, and more fish and shellfish might grow. If developers can find cheaper ways to get storm water to soak into the land instead of sending it out into the Bay, the water will be cleaner and conditions better for fish and oysters. If septic tanks on the Eastern Shore can be linked into a sewer system that will get their effluent treated, more fish will thrive. If the chicken waste produced over there can be converted to energy, biochar, or fertilizer instead of turning into eutrophic runoff, conditions will improve. But all that costs money! In the meantime, watermen struggle to pay their bills and we all pay more for our seafood, which isn't even local anymore. Is this the solution we want? Is it efficient? It's sure a complicated situation!