A manual For Nyc Cooling Tower Violations: Understanding The Isr And Vdr

In wake of recent court decision, EPA?s watering down of coal ash regulations on weak footing

Recently, Environmental groups filed a petition for review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit challenging an EPA rule designed to gut coal ash disposal regulations that provide environmental safeguards for communities living near toxic coal ash waste dumps.

In March of 2018, the EPA proposed the rollbacks in response to an industry petition to the Trump Administration. The rule was finalized in July, and modifies the Obama-era Coal Ash Rule from 2015. Under the Trump Administration changes, power plant owners have more time to clean up leaking coal ash disposal sites that have been shown to have contaminated groundwater. The new rule also allows state-run coal ash permit programs to include loopholes such as allowing states to waive groundwater monitoring requirements under certain circumstances.

A recent court decision casts serious doubt on the legality of these rollbacks. In August, the D.C. Circuit ruled in favor of environmental groups? lawsuit challenging that the original Obama-era rule was unlawfully weak in several key respects. In particular, the court struck down provisions of the 2015 Coal Ash Rule that exempted impoundments at closed coal plants and allowed coal ash impoundments that are unlined or only underlain by inadequate clay liners to continue to operate. The EPA must now draft rules to address more than 100 ?legacy?? coal ash ponds at retired coal plant sites. The EPA is also now required to address the closure of over 600 unlined or clay-lined coal ash ponds in response to the court?s decision.

?The Trump EPA is a rogue agency, out of step with both its mission and the law,?? said Environmental Integrity Project attorney Abel Russ. ?The courts are telling EPA that the coal ash rule is not strong enough, and meanwhile EPA is trying to weaken the rule. It?s absurd. The American people deserve better.??

?The risk that legacy impoundments and insufficiently lined coal ash ponds pose is too great to let another hurricane season go by without addressing the problem,?? said Thomas Cmar, deputy managing attorney for the coal program at Earthjustice. ?The dam breach at the Sutton Plant that spewed toxic coal ash into the Cape Fear River in the wake of flooding from Hurricane Florence should make it clear that there?s no time to waste.??



?Throughout the country, in the absence of adequate regulation by EPA, coal ash has been irresponsibly disposed of,?? said Larissa Liebmann, staff attorney at Waterkeeper Alliance. ?This leaves communities and waterways vulnerable to long-term contamination, as well as spills like we saw in North Carolina with Hurricane Florence. EPA needs to stop catering to industry and start protecting the public.??

Andrew Rehn, water resources engineer for the Prairie Rivers Network said, ?Illinois needs the US EPA to step up it?s protections on coal ash, not back away from them. Illinois?s only National Scenic River is constantly being polluted by seepage from a coal ash pit at a closed power plant, and it?s not the only waterway in Illinois with coal ash sitting on the riverbank.??

?It?s clear the Trump administration doesn?t value protecting human health, especially if corporate special interests could be slightly inconvenienced,?? said Jennifer Peters, National Water Programs Director for Clean Water Action. ?This outrageous scheme would let coal plants put communities, families, and water at risk with impunity. It?s time for EPA to listen to the courts and the public and strengthen, not weaken coal ash safeguards.??

?It?s clear that former coal lobbyist and current acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler has an open door policy when it comes to the coal industry,?? said Mary Anne Hitt, Senior Director of the Sierra Club?s Beyond Coal Campaign. ?Coal ash is a dangerous, widespread problem, but instead of safeguarding the public from its devastating effects, Wheeler is once again ignoring the issue in order to placate his former clients. Without strong federal coal ash regulations, polluters will continue to dump their toxic coal ash waste in unlined pits that will continue failing, endangering drinking IRO water and public safety. The courts have already agreed the risks posed by coal ash can no longer be ignored, and that?s why we?re fighting this most-recent Wheeler roll back.??

?The efforts of the current administration to roll back environmental safeguards are a direct threat to public health and safety,?? Dr. Scott Williams, Executive Director of HEAL Utah said. ?We can?t sit by idly and allow these rules to be eliminated. If we do, our most vulnerable populations ? our elders and our children ? will suffer needlessly from our lack of action.??

The petition was filed by Earthjustice, The Environmental Integrity Project, and Sierra Club, on behalf of Clean Water Action, Hoosier Environmental Council, Prairie Rivers Network, HEAL Utah, and Waterkeeper Alliance.

Read The Petition For Review

About The Environmental Integrity Project

The Environmental Integrity Project is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that empowers communities and protects public health and the environment by investigating polluters, holding them accountable under the law, and strengthening public policy.

Water Treatment Makes a Tremendous Splash On Linkedin

Dow has announced that it will increase all list prices globally for all grades of VERSENE(TM) chelating agents, effective July 1, 2008, or as otherwise allowed by individual contract terms. Dow will increase prices for these products by US$0.05/lb for liquids and US$0.10/lb for powders.

The chemical industry continues to experience unprecedented escalation in raw material feedstock and energy costs. As recently reported in the press by Dow CEO Andrew Liveris, Dow's first quarter feedstock and IRO water energy bill leapt a staggering 42 percent in year over year and that trajectory has continued with the cost of oil and natural gas climbing ever higher. We can no longer absorb these dramatic cost increases and must implement these significant price increases in order to offset the rising costs to manufacture and transport our products and remain a strong and reliable supplier.

Shrink Films Get A Grip Credit: American Chemical Society

Creating sustainable bioplastics from electricity-eating microbes Microbes can be used to grow bioplastics, a sustainable alternative to traditional plastics. Credit: Shutterstock

Electricity harvested from the sun or wind can be used interchangeably with power from coal or petroleum sources. Or sustainably produced electricity can be turned into something physical and useful. Researchers in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis have figured out how to feed electricity to microbes to grow truly green, biodegradable plastic, as reported in the Journal of Industrial Microbiology and water treatment chemical manufacturers Biotechnology.

"As our planet grapples with rampant, petroleum-based plastic use and plastic waste, finding sustainable ways to make bioplastics is becoming more and more important. We have to find new solutions," said Arpita Bose, assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences.

Renewable energy currently accounts for about 11% of total U.S. energy consumption and about 17% of electricity generation.

One of the main issues with renewable electricity is energy storage: how to collect power generated during the sunny and windy hours, and hold it for when it is dark and still. Bioplastics are a good use for that "extra" power from intermittent sources, Bose suggests?as an alternative to battery storage, and instead of using that energy to make a different type of fuel.

Her laboratory is among the first to use microbial electrosynthesis to wrangle a polymer called polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) from electricity-eating microbes. The plastic they are making is "sustainable, carbon-neutral and low-cost," Bose said.

"One of the major challenges in bioplastic production is the substrate input, which affects cost," said Tahina Ranaivoarisoa, a research technician in the Bose laboratory and first author of the new paper. "A versatile bacterium such as R. palustris TIE-1?which can effectively use just carbon dioxide, light and electrons from electricity or iron for bioplastic production?broadens the substrates that could be used in bioplastic production."

The light areas in this cell are a polymer called polyhydroxybutyrate, which was grown by TIE-1 cells using only light, carbon dioxide and soluble iron. Credit: Bose laboratory

In a related paper in the journal Bioelectrochemistry, Bose's research team illustrated how TIE-1 interacts with various forms of iron while also using electricity as a source of electrons. The researchers were able to improve production rates for PHB by manually coating electrodes that the microbes used with a special kind of rust, which increased their electricity uptake.

Bose believes that microbially derived bioplastics have a future role to play in space, where astronauts could use 3-D printer technology to manufacture their own tools instead of transporting everything ready-made from Earth.

"Our observations open new doors for sustainable bioplastic production not only in resource-limited environments on Earth, but also during space exploration and for in situ resource utilization on other planets," Bose said.

Origami Inspires Highly Efficient Solar Steam Generator

Putting the brakes on lateral root development Lateral roots branch out horizontally like fingers. New research from Arts & Sciences identifies a cellular transporter that links the powerful plant hormones auxin and cytokinin to influence root architecture. Credit: Courtesy of Strader laboratory

There's no organ system in the body that does as much for humans as roots do for plants. Part anchor and part mouth, a plant's root system architecture is critical to its success. But the process of growing new roots is costly to a plant, and there can be diminishing returns.

It's not clear-cut how a plant determines enough is enough and stops making roots. New research from Washington University in St. Louis identifies a cellular transporter that links two of the most powerful hormones in plant development?auxin and cytokinin?and shows how they are involved in putting the brakes on root initiation and progression. The new work by Lucia Strader, associate professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, and her co-authors is published July 18 in the journal Developmental Cell.

"This is exciting because for a long time, we've known that auxin and cytokinin have opposing roles, but the direct links between how one of them might affect the other in lateral root production was not well understood," Strader said.

Lateral roots are the roots that branch out horizontally like fingers stretching out to the side. They make up the majority of root mass.

"Our data suggests that one of the ways that cytokinin can decrease lateral root production is by increasing the levels of this transporter to limit contributions of this particular auxin precursor to active auxin," she said.

Pumping and releasing the brakes

The plant hormone auxin controls almost every aspect of plant growth and development, including stimulating root growth overall. Previous research has shown that another important hormone called cytokinin has a limiting effect?controlling the locations where new lateral roots could possibly sprout, and ensuring sufficient spacing between neighboring roots.

Selected 3D reconstructions of 25-day-old WT (Col-0) and tob1-1 plant, with each datapoint color coded. The tob1 displays more emerged lateral roots than wild type at every examined time point. New research by Lucia Strader at Washington University in St. Louis is published in Developmental Cell, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.devcel.2019.06.010. Credit: Christopher Topp, Developmental Cell

Until now, however, scientists have not identified how these hormones "talk" to each other.

Working with the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, Strader decoded a key to this conversation.

Strader discovered that a cellular transporter she dubbed TOB1 can stash away an auxin precursor by moving it into a vacuole, an organ in the plant cell that acts as a kind of storage space or holding pen. That action prevents the precursor, which is called IBA, from metabolizing into full-fledged auxin?with all of its root-promoting capabilities.

"If TOB1 is the brake, cytokinin is the foot on the brake," Strader said. "It's the thing that's saying how much TOB1 should be around to dampen down on lateral root production."

Plants can increase or relax the hold as needed. Strader and her team used gene modification techniques to eliminate the transporter, and saw dramatic effects in the next generation of plants.

"When you get rid of this transporter, you have about double the number of lateral roots as the wild type, without sacrificing root depth," Strader said.

Strader also repeated certain of her experiments with a yeast and frog oocytes (with the help of Wolf B. Frommer of Heinrich Heine University in D?sseldorf, Germany) instead of a plant, and found TOB1 to be just as effective as a transporter for IBA in these systems.

TOB1 is expressed during all stages of lateral root development. Confocal microscopy images from tob1-1 expressing TOB1:YFP-TOB1, imaging lateral roots (A) at early lateral root initiation, (B) a top-down view of a developing lateral root , (C) a side view of a developing lateral root, (D) after emergence, and (E) the developing lateral root tip. Credit: Courtesy Developmental Cell

Slow but steady may be better for plants

Strader's research shows how she and her collaborators started with an unbiased genetic screen and ended up identifying a critical regulator of an aspect of plant development that often gets ignored?one that's not readily visible, because roots are underground.

And Arabidopsis roots are tiny. At two weeks old, its leaves are much smaller than a dime, and its roots are thread-like and transparent. To bring the process of lateral root production into the daylight, Strader reached out for help from Christopher Topp, a principal investigator at the Danforth Plant Sciences Center. Topp used a non-destructive technique to capture the first ever three-dimensional serial images of developing Arabidopsis plants in medium?a feat that is remarkable, site given how much research has been conducted with this model plant.

What they uncovered is useful because the molecular mechanisms regulating root architecture are critically understudied.

Understanding why and how plants make different types of root architectures can help to develop plants that better cope with distinct soil conditions and environments. In follow-on work, Strader has already begun to look at how TOB1 mutants respond differently in soils with different micronutrients.

"When you get rid of your brakes, you just go crazy," Strader said. "In the beginning, this looks like a good agricultural trait. You want all of your plants in the soil to explore more soil to get more nutrients, to get more roots to the water.

"But, if you don't ever have a brake, you waste your time making more and more of these," she said. "Probably at some stage in the plant's life cycle, this slow but steady approach is better than the all-out, 'let's make lateral roots everywhere,' one."