A state-funded pilot program began earlier this month to measure air quality near orchards in Washington’s Yakima Valley to try to find out if dangerous levels of pesticides are drifting near communities and threatening public health.

The air-monitoring program has not received much attention: One or more local growers have agreed to allow the air around their orchards to be sampled, but they have not been publicly identified and the sites are kept secret so no one can tamper with the equipment or compromise the collection of data.

University of Washington scientist Richard Fenske is leading the air monitoring effort for the state Department of Health. Samples also will be taken elsewhere in central Washington. Fenske said the study cannot be done without grower cooperation.

SAN FRANCISCO — Cruise ships and other large vessels would be prohibited from discharging sewage in California’s scenic Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary under a rule announced last week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

NOAA released a proposed final rule Friday to conform with California’s Clean Coast Act and ban most sewage from vessels weighing more than 300 tons. An agency document said the regulation is meant to maintain the sanctuary’s “significant aesthetic and recreational qualities.”

The sanctuary’s waters just off the Southern California coast are part of an oceangoing highway for ships traveling between domestic and international ports, NOAA explained in its rule. The sanctuary is located about 70 miles northwest of the Port of Long Beach, which is the busiest container port in North America.

The National Park Service is moving ahead with plans to encourage visitors to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, but critics say the service should look first at its own backyard.

Later this spring, the Park Service, U.S. EPA and the National Parks Conservation Association will formally launch a Web site, doyourpartparks.org, that asks visitors to eight NPS properties to promise to cut greenhouse gas emissions from their homes and vehicles.

It’s an outgrowth of a broader program, “Climate-Friendly Parks,” that encourages individual national parks, monuments, historic sites and seashores to voluntarily tally and reduce their carbon footprints.

EIF 53 Authors

China’s central government plans to increase spending on energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emission reduction schemes by 78 percent this year as part of a larger effort to meet its 2010 environmental targets

The first e-waste recycling facility established by a foreign company in China has been put into operation

IT industry leaders are increasingly finding that going “green” is good business.

As the federal government prepares to finish work on its latest plan to protect endangered Northwest salmon stocks, a coalition of environmental groups yesterday released its own strategy to protect the endangered cold-water fish from rising river temperatures and other effects of climate change.

The groups — Save Our Wild Salmon, the Sierra Club and the NW Energy Coalition — said they commissioned the report because the government’s efforts to balance power generation needs and salmon protection have largely ignored global warming.

“Global warming is a huge threat to Colorado and Snake river salmon,” said the report’s co-author, Jim Martin, former fisheries chief for the state of Oregon. “Unless we take this factor into account, our recovery strategies are likely to be too little, too late, too short — ineffective and wasteful.”

Two major new solar power projects in Southern California that will produce enough electricity to power more than 300,000 homes are set to be unveiled today.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and Southern California Edison plan to announce today the largest rooftop solar installation project ever proposed by a utility company. Edison expects to put 65 million square feet of photovoltaic cells on commercial building rooftops in the region, which will generate as much as 250 megawatts of electricity.

This comes after yesterday’s announcement that FPL Energy would build a 250-megawatt solar plant in the Mojave Desert.

Spurred by soaring energy costs, food prices at the supermarket checkout have risen nearly 8 percent this year — more than double the usual increase for an entire year, according to a survey released today.

The American Farm Bureau Federation’s quarterly survey of 16 basic grocery items rang up a bill that was $3.42 higher than that in the fourth quarter of 2007. Buying flour, cheese, bread, meat, oil and produce cost $45.03.

Retail food prices usually increase 3 percent per year on average, according to the Agriculture Department. But the cost of food worldwide has been exceeding that pace for the past year.