Greenversations

For each month in 2009, the Year Of Science, we will pose a question related to science. Please let us know your thoughts as comments. Feel free to respond to earlier comments or post new ideas.

Ponder. Observe and discover. We are all born scientists, naturally curious to figure out more about the world around us: how we affect the environment, and how the environment affects us.
2009 is the Year Of Science.

If you could be any type of scientist, what kind would you be and why?

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

About the author: Tracy Hadden-Loh is completing her Ph.D. at the Department of City and Regional Planning, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is looking forward to a career that will provide communities with more and better tools to plan for the future. Her work is funded by an EPA Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Graduate Research Fellowship.

Many of America’s streams, rivers, and lakes are not clean enough for swimming or fishing. In the past, much of the nation’s water quality problems were caused by industrial and municipal dumping. Thanks to the Clean Water Act, however, many of these sources of pollution have been greatly reduced.

So why are America’s urban rivers still not swimmable and fishable?

The answer is that every time it rains, the streets and rooftops of developed areas are washed clean by the downpour. All that water has to go somewhere. Stormwater runoff carrying loads of various contaminants has been the top water quality problem in the U.S. since 1994.

One strategy for dealing with polluted stormwater runoff has been to keep it from flowing too far—using devices such as rain barrels, retention ponds, green roofs to catch, slow down, and treat it. While these engineering devices help a great deal, they apply to small, distinct points across watersheds that are spread out over large regions.

That’s where my work comes in.

I am building a computer simulation of urban development and hydrology in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina (the home of the city of Charlotte) in order to explore how different regional urban forms of development could impact future water quality.

Rapid urban growth and its environmental consequences are a big concern in many American communities. I hope my work will help local decision-makers understand the tradeoffs involved with different policy directions.

About the author: Mary Wigginton is an Environmental Protection Specialist in EPA’s Office of Research and Development. She recently attended an all-day public meeting of the EPA-Venture Capital Community Summit.

Attending the EPA-Venture Capital Summit last month was a little like watching two people on a first date.  Pleasantries were exchanged and the summit participants on each side of the table - EPA and venture capitalists - explained how they worked. Each side listened politely and then as the day progressed, you could see them becoming more interested and aware of a possible connection that might be worth pursuing.

The venture capitalists illustrated the value of their businesses for the U.S. economy in two charts describing the percentage of gross domestic product and the number of jobs that venture capital contributes.  These charts show that venture capital has contributed approximately 0.02% of total invested dollars, but in 2006 generated $2.3 trillion in revenue and 10.4 million jobs.  While the venture capitalists acknowledged current economic challenges, they continue to look for new opportunities to invest in innovative environmental technologies.

Rob Brenner, from EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, co-hosted the summit.  He started off EPA’s introductions by explaining how technology development has been important for EPA through the years.

“The times when we’ve been able to make progress on environmental protection have been when there’s technology available that we can employ as part of our rulemaking process or as part of our voluntary programs,” he said.  As an example, think back on how regulations and catalytic converters on cars improved our air quality.

Mr. Brenner went on to say that the environmental challenges we’re now facing are as much, or more, technology-dependent than any of the ones we faced in the past.  Because the nation’s infrastructure needs to adapt and change - to climate change, increased energy costs, and continuing pollution issues - we will need many, many new technologies.  But those technologies need to be moved from the development stages to commercialization at a faster rate if they are going to have an impact on these challenges.  The venture capital community could help.

At the end of the summit, both sides had a new appreciation for what the other could do to make a difference in the future.  Though not a real “first date,” the summit was a good start. And perhaps these groups could continue working together with states, other federal agencies, and the international community to implement technology solutions to meet our environmental challenges.

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

About the author: Mary Wigginton is an Environmental Protection Specialist in EPA’s Office of Research and Development. She recently attended an all-day public meeting of the EPA-Venture Capital Community Summit.

Meetings are a staple of work life in a large organization, especially government, but they are not my idea of a productive day. A few weeks ago, I broke from my routine of what I consider “real” work and attended an all-day public meeting of senior managers from EPA and members of the “venture capital community.” After the usual opening pleasantries, Hank Habicht, a former EPA Deputy Administrator turned venture capitalist, said something about “a convergence of factors that I haven’t seen in 25 years,…global environmental issues, … unprecedented financial capital even in this economy,…EPA expertise.” The possibility that a “convergence” was happening got my attention. I completely tuned in.

I learned about “the valley of death,” a melodramatic phrase for what happens to technologies that never make it past the design stage. The “valley of death” is when the seed money runs out and nothing is left for scaling up production, distribution, or marketing. This is the stage where, if the developer is fortunate, the venture capitalist steps in.

According to the National Venture Capital Association, venture capital is a long-term—usually ten to 15 years—investment in an innovative company. Several well-known companies got off the ground with venture capital: Microsoft, Apple, Google, FedEx. In the world of finance, venture capital is approximately 0.02% of total invested dollars, but contributes a significant share of jobs and revenue to the economy. In 2006, it accounted for 10.4 million jobs, $2.3 trillion of U.S. revenue, and 18% of the gross domestic product.

Today, technologies for energy efficiency, pollution control and pollution prevention (“clean tech” to venture capitalists) are seen as the next great opportunities for investment. Venture capitalists want to invest in clean tech, and this is where EPA research and development come in. By tapping into EPA’s science and technology expertise, venture capitalists can gain a better understanding of market forces over the next ten to 15 years and snatch the next great environmental technology ideas from the “valley of death.”

As meetings go, this one turned out to be a good investment of my time. I suspect that we all will be hearing more about EPA and venture capital.

Check back next Wednesday for a follow-up post on this topic, and to find out more and keep tabs on how this “convergence” progresses visit: http://www.epa.gov/ncer/venturecapital/

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

About the Author: Susan Lundquist works in EPA’s Ecosystem Services Research Program. She has been with the Agency for almost seven years.

Like so many consumers out there, I admit I spent time Thanksgiving Day combing through newspaper ads in preparation for the next day. It’s my usual thing, coffee early in the morning when it’s still dark, lending a certain mystic quality to an otherwise silly tradition of planning my shopping attack—solidifying my vision of goodies bought at bargain prices.

I indulged until I ran across an ad for a mini indoor garden for fresh herbs and lettuces grown under a sophisticated lighting system. Great idea, but suddenly I realized I already had an environmental bargain of my own, a raised-bed, outdoor winter garden.

I’m growing a winter garden using simple raised garden beds, a hoop house for each bed, and plastic covering. I’m eating seasonally with fresh cilantro, arugula, thyme, parsley, red and green leaf lettuces, chives, and mesclun.

Seeing the ad for the mini garden made me think about my job. I work in the Ecosystem Services Research Program at EPA. After all, my makeshift outdoor garden is a mini ecosystem in its own right. My indulgence in Black Friday ads made me ponder the significance of the Ecological Research Program recently changing its name to the Ecosystem Services Research Program (ESRP).

We changed the name so it would more accurately reflect how the goods and services we get from nature may be adversely affected or positively enhanced by management actions. On the tiny scale of my garden, an adverse action might be using pesticides that harm the bees and other pollinators that are the basis for my harvest.

The goal of the ESRP is to transform the way we account for the type, quality and magnitude of nature’s good and services, what we call “ecosystem services.” So even though my winter garden is on a small scale, it provides a great example of one of the fundamental ecosystem services: food production.

Isn’t it time we start thinking about ecosystem services on a larger scale and how we can begin to more accurately account for the cost of using these services? It’s certainly food for thought in early morning hours before Black Friday.

Learn more by visiting our website at http://epa.gov/ord/esrp/

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

About the author: Steven Whitfield is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Biological Sciences at Florida International University in Miami. His work is funded by a Greater Research Opportunities (GRO) Fellowship from the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Investigating Patterns and processes implicated in enigmatic declines of amphibians and reptiles at La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica

Here’s a picture of me and a Mexican tree frog, (I’m the one on the left).

Amphibians are the most threatened group of vertebrates, with approximately one-third of their species at risk of extinction.

Rapid declines of amphibian populations, even in apparently pristine, protected reserves, have generated much alarm. The causes associated with these “enigmatic declines” are poorly understood.

Through my dissertation research—supported by a GRO Fellowship from EPA’s National Center for Environmental Research—I am investigating a variety of factors associated with population declines, including chytridiomycosis (Amphibian Chytrid Fungus), habitat modification, and climate change, in amphibians and reptiles in the lowland forests of Central America.

That’s where my work at La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica comes in.

The strawberry poison frog (Oophaga pumilio) is one of the common species at my field site that is slowly becoming less common.

Amphibians are the most threatened group of vertebrates, with approximately one-third of their species at risk of extinction.

La Selva populations of terrestrial amphibians have declined by 75% since 1970, and similar declines have been noted in terrestrial lizards. It is currently unclear what factors have contributed to these declines, but potential stressors include fungal disease, shifting climate, pesticide drift from nearby agricultural areas, and habitat modification surrounding the La Selva Reserve.

I am using extensive field investigations and synthesis of long-term datasets collected at La Selva. I hope my research will provide important information necessary to protect biological diversity of this important group of animals.

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

About the author: Jason Townsend is a Ph.D. student in Conservation Biology at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. His work is funded by an EPA Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Graduate Research Fellowship.

Scientists have known for some time that mercury is accumulating in America’s waterways and the ocean. Emissions from coal-fired power plants contribute significant amounts of mercury to the atmosphere. Mercury-laden precipitation is especially severe in parts of the northeastern U.S. directly in the line of prevailing winds from Midwestern, coal-powered power plants.

Accumulation of this potent neuro-toxin poses a threat to wildlife and people through consumption of contaminated fish.

We do not know, however, the extent to which mercury is accumulating in non-aquatic environments—forested areas of the Northeast, for example. It is possible that mercury-laden precipitation is accumulating in leaves, soils, and leaf-litter on the forest floor. This could lead to contamination of land-bound wildlife with unknown effects on their reproduction.

Accumulation of mercury in forested areas might also contribute to waterways for many years to come because the mercury might slowly run off the land and leach into watersheds.

My study is designed to compare mercury accumulation in several forest types in New York’s Catskill Mountains. The study takes place in the heavily forested Ashokan Reservoir watershed, an area that provides drinking water to approximately nine million people in and around New York City.

I am currently collecting samples of soils, leaves, leaf litter, insects that live in the leaf litter, salamanders that eat the insects of the leaf litter, and blood samples from birds that consume both insects and salamanders. In this way I will be able to identify the amount of “biomagnification” in the forest – the extent to which any mercury that is deposited by rainfall is increasingly concentrated in organisms higher and higher up the food chain. The study takes place at multiple elevations, from the banks of the Ashokan Reservoir at 600’ elevation to the headwater streams at the top of the Catskill’s highest peaks at over 4000 feet.

This information will be critical for identifying “biological hotspots” – areas that exceed the mercury levels deemed safe for human and wildlife populations. It will also provide monitoring information to help regulators determine the magnitude of mercury emissions reductions that will be necessary in the coming decades.

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

About the author: Todd Erdody is a MS student at the University of Washington College of Forest Resources. His work is funded by an EPA Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Graduate Research Fellowship.

Before starting my graduate education in the fall of 2007, I was working as a fire monitor and firefighter in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in California. I was headed for a graduate program in remote sensing and forestry with a college-funded fellowship and no set thesis topic. I spent a good part of that summer thinking about potential research topics as I ignited prescribed fires and fought, monitored, and mapped wildfires.

I realized that I wanted to build on existing research at the University of Washington to find better ways to estimate canopy “fuels”— small-diameter branches and foliage (leaves) that will burn in a wildfire.

Existing fuels maps are made from coarse-resolution vegetation maps and satellite imagery. By using high-resolution, remote sensing data such as LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) and digital imagery, perhaps canopy fuels could be mapped more accurately and efficiently. Through improved fuels mapping, smoke and harmful particulate matter production from wildfires could be more accurately assessed.

Since I was only funded for my first year of graduate school, I was looking for assistance. I was very grateful to receive the EPA STAR fellowship for the 2008/2009 academic year. Aside from helping me in my second year of graduate education and enabling me to focus on my work, it gives me the resources needed to attend a variety of conferences to present my research.

I wanted to focus my research on a fire-prone ecosystem, so I chose to work in the forests dominated by Ponderosa pines in eastern Washington State. I am currently building regression models for canopy fuel metrics and will eventually produce maps of canopy fuel loading. My goal is to be able to use these models in similar forest types throughout the Northwest.

Others have done similar work in the forests of western Washington and, although I am using existing methods, the real difference is that I am creating models in ecosystems that will frequently burn. The applications for this research are far-reaching in terms of both geography and planning. I envision forest managers using high-resolution remote sensing technologies to map fuels more effectively and create maps for use in wildfire and smoke modeling programs.

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

About the author: Alan D. Hecht is the Director for Sustainable Development in EPA’s Office of Research and Development. He has also served as the Associate Director for Sustainable Development, White House Council on Environmental Quality (2002-2003), and the Director of International Environmental Affairs for the National Security Council (2001-2002).

On October 9, 2007—the same day the stock market soared above 14,000 points—New York Times reporter Michael Grynbaum declared that Federal Reserve officials saw a cloudy economic forecast for months ahead. We all know what happened next. Financial warning signs were everywhere, but appropriate actions were not taken.

What does the financial crisis have to do with environmental sustainability? The clearest link is a critical lesson about the consequences of not paying attention to warning signs. Today nearly all ecosystems in the world are under serious stress:

• Approximately 60 percent (15 of 24) of the ecosystem services examined by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment are being degraded or used unsustainably.
• The quantity of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is continuing to rise.
• Signs of water scarcity—rivers running dry, wells going dry, and lakes disappearing—have become commonplace over the last half-century. Reports from WHO, the UN and other sources suggest water scarcity may be the least recognized resource issue facing the world today.

Like the financial world, the environmental world is threatened by collapse. It is time to examine basic principles and take corrective actions, such as making our industrial and energy systems as sustainable as possible. Three things are needed to make sustainability operational: advances in science and technology, implementation of appropriate government regulations and policies, and green business practices.

Regulatory and science agencies like EPA need to follow a broader mandate to undertake core research leading to a better understanding of the interactions among the economy, society, and the environment. EPA core research must expand basic knowledge of the environment, provide practical solutions to problems, and motivate actions. EPA’s Sustainability Research Strategy is a starting point. Its measure of success must be to develop tools, models, and approaches that inform public debate and help businesses make better decisions.

As in all previous financial crises, the stock market will recover. Unfortunately it may be far more difficult to respond as quickly to current and pending environmental crises. The time is clearly at hand to launch corrective actions.

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

About the Author: Erich Hester recently finished his Ph.D. in the Ecology Curriculum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research was funded in part by an EPA Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Graduate Fellowship.

Most Americans live in urban areas or their suburban fringes, and many more live near forests or agricultural lands. As kids, many of us enjoyed splashing in streams in our backyards or in the park down the street. Although we probably did not know it, major changes were occurring in those streams during our lifetimes because of human activities such as urbanization, agriculture, and even climate change.

Streams and rivers are important for humans, and not just for kids. They provide what are known as “ecosystem services,” such as supplying drinking water and rendering nutrients and toxins less harmful. But the capacity of aquatic resources to provide these services is being overwhelmed in many places.

To address these issues, billions of dollars are currently being spent on “stream restoration.” Nevertheless, the science connecting restoration practice to ecological recovery and ecosystem services is often weak, and many restoration projects fail to achieve their stated goals. I’m trying to fill scientific gaps between restoration design and ecological response so restoration projects can have a more positive impact on stream ecosystems, a goal shared by EPA scientists.

Through modeling and field studies, I evaluated how humans impact the exchange of water between streams and groundwater, which is critical to many stream ecosystems. I focused on how certain natural stream features, often used in stream restoration, can help restore surface to groundwater exchange. One key component of this exchange is heat, as temperature is the single most important condition affecting the lives of organisms, and humans can induce heat stress in aquatic organisms by warming the water. I determined how these features can help moderate peak temperatures in streams that are overheating due to deforestation or climate change.

This information will help improve design guidance for stream restoration currently being developed. I’m also participating in the Virginia Stream Alliance, a working group created by the Virginia legislature to foster knowledge transfer among academics, consultants, and government about the fast changing field of stream restoration.

I plan to continue research on this and related themes when I become an assistant professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech in January 2009.