Containment

California's two main river basins and the aquifers beneath its agricultural heartland have lost nearly enough water since 2003 to fill Lake Mead, America's largest reservoir, new satellite data has shown. California's 500-mile-long Central Valley is home to one-sixth of all irrigated U.S. cropland. Central Valley farms have increasingly tapped into aquifers during the past few years. Learn more here.;

Even as a deepening recession and credit freeze have curtailed real estate development, green building construction starts increased fivefold between 2005 and 2008, McGraw-Hill Construction reports. McGraw-Hill expects the domestic green building market to triple by 2013, reaching up to $140 billion in construction spending. Growing public awareness, government regulations, and bottom-line advantages are helping fuel green building's surging popularity, the company said. Learn more here.;

The Wall Street Journal reports on how China has shown growing awareness of and adeptness to the integration of greener technologies into its infrastructure and business culture. For example, China already has a 30% share of the global market for photovoltaic solar panels used to generate electricity. Learn more here.;

According to the Environment Agency, the United Kingdom's current landfill waste sites will reach capacity in about seven years. This statistic, however, belies the situation in particular areas of the country. In some parts of Wales, for example, landfill sites have as little as three years left to run before they will fill to bursting. That means that authorities must either build yet more capacity, setting aside land that could be used for other things, or try to change the existing practices of businesses and consumers. Learn more here.;

Geo-Frontiers 2011 brings together the North American Geosynthetics Society (NAGS), the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Geo-Institute (GI) and the Industrial Fabrics Association International (IFAI). It will be held 13-16 March 2011 in Dallas, Texas. The Call for Abstracts has been issued. Current tracks include Soil/Rock Mechanics and Modeling; Geotechnical Testing and Site Characterization; Foundations and Ground Improvement; Slopes, Embankments, and Earth Retaining Structures; Geosynthetics; Geoenvironmental Engineering; Geo-Hazards (Earthquakes, Landslides, Erosions, Others); Transportation Materials and Pavements; and Other Geotechnical Related Issues. Abstracts of 200-300 words are due 8 March 2011. Learn more. Learn more here.;

NAUE GmbH and Co. KG, manufacturers of the Secugrid geogrids (among many other successful, global geosynthetic products), has developed a free game for the holidays: BallGrid! Players throw snowballs into a Secugrid matrix with points awarded based upon where in the grid the snowball lands. Watch the wind! And, one hint: special points are awarded for the snowman's hat. Play it online today. Learn more here.;

After a four-year legal battle, a mining company has paid the government a record $1.79 billion to settle claims for hazardous waste pollution across 19 states, federal agencies announced Thursday. Officials said the payment on behalf of the company, the American Smelting and Refining Company, or Asarco, was the nation’s largest environmental bankruptcy settlement. Learn more here.;

To build a $140-million cobalt mine in a national forest in Idaho, tiny Vancouver junior miner Formation Metals Inc. turned to the state's chief rainmaker, Cecil Andrus. Mr. Andrus was Idaho's longest-serving governor, a Democrat who was elected four times. The company wanted to unearth a metal used in turbines for jet engines and batteries, where demand could spike as electric cars become more common. It would be the only cobalt-focused mine in the United States. More than $600 million in cobalt is used in the United States each year. The top cobalt producting countries are the Democratic Republic of Congo and Canada. Learn more here.;

At least seven Superfund sites in EPA Region 7, including five in Missouri and one each in Kansas and Nebraska, will receive a total of $282 million, plus interest, to fund environmental cleanup and restoration work as a result of a legal settlement in the largest environmental bankruptcy case in U.S. history. The seven sites in Region 7 are among more than 80 Superfund sites in 19 states receiving portions of a $1.79 billion settlement from the reorganization of the American Smelting and Refining Company LLC (ASARCO). The funds will be used to pay for past and future costs incurred by federal and state agencies to address environmental contamination caused by ASARCO's operations around the country.

While the world focuses on the Copenhagen Summit, the state government of Kolkata, India issued on 9 December a new set of rules for construction site pollution management. Among the many rule changes, the environment department has asked builders to wrap construction sites with geotextile fabric to block the dust which spreads into the atmosphere. Contractors and realtors have been told to sprinkle water on the sites to prevent air pollution. The soil has to be maintained in a "visible damp form", the rules state. Perhaps this sort of rule change will lead to silt fence, BMPs and other items such as used in the United States.

No new landfills have been started from scratch in Southern California in 30 years. Gregory Canyon is a 1,770-acre site located approximately three miles east of Interstate 15 and two miles southwest of the Pala Indian Reservation. The project was initiated in 1989 by lead developer Richard Chase. In 1994 and 2004, voters overwhelmingly approved the construction of Gregory landfill. But the debate over the landfill continued despite the support. Is now the time for the site to finally be put into use? Learn more here.;

Finger Lakes Railway is applying for a Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grant from the federal Department of Transportation. The railroad wants to improve segments of its tracks, and carry garbage into the Seneca Meadows landfill. Pending regulations meant to reduce garbage trucks traveling through the region, unstable fuel prices and an initiative to make New York City more green have created a perfect storm that may push trash onto trains rather than tractor-trailers. Learn more here.;

Jan Chaplin is out as president and chief executive officer of Canadian General-Tower. Her departure was announced on Thursday, December 10. Her father, Jim Chaplin, has taken over immediately as interim president and CEO, a company memo said. Among its many products, CGT produces pond liners and roofing membranes. Learn more here.;

Five Superfund sites in Missouri will receive nearly $70 million for environmental cleanup and restoration. The money comes from a $1.79 billion settlement with Arizona-based mining company Asarco LLC for cleaning up 80 polluted sites in 19 states. The U.S. Justice Department announced the settlement Thursday. More than $37 million will go toward cleanup of three sites in southeast Missouri: Big River Mine Tailings/St. Joe Minerals Corp.; Federal Mine Tailings; and Madison County Mines. Two sites in southwest Missouri will get $32.8 million. Those sites are Jasper County/Oronogo-Duenweg Mining Belt, and Newton County Mine Tailings. Learn more here.;

The American Society of State Dam Safety Officials (ASDSO) invites students to submit papers on topics related to dam and levee safety, including engineering, geology, hydrology, hydraulics, environmental and agricultural sciences, design, construction, risk, hazard mitigation, emergency management, floods, floodplain management, case studies, security, policy issues and more. Winners will present their papers at Dam Safety 2010, ASDSO's Annual National Conference, to be held in Seattle, 19-23 September 2010. Learn more.

Due to popular demand, and after three sell-out sessions in 2009, Applied Market Information Ltd. (AMI) has added two new European dates in 2010 for the Middle East Plastics Industry Strategy Seminar: 27 January 2010 in Brussels, Belgium and 16 March 2010 in Cologne, Germany. Read more about this event in Jon Nash's letter.

A group of researchers under prof. Ehud Gazit at the Tel Aviv University were looking for a cure for Alzheimer's Disease when they discovered a new way to get peptides to self-assemble at high-temperatures in a vacuum. The resulting structure, a "peptide forest," has some interesting physical properties that could make it useful for solar energy. This "peptide forest" is useful in that it repels both water and dust. If solar panels were coated with it, they would be self-cleaning and could produce more clean energy. Learn more here.;

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a complaint to the Puerto Rico Air National Guard, part of the U.S. Air Force, for improperly managing underground tanks used to store diesel fuel and gasoline at its facility in Toa Baja. Leaking underground storage tanks pose significant threats to soil, surface water and ground water. About 625,000 underground storage tank systems exist nationwide, and more than 375,000 leaking tanks have been cleaned up over the last decade.

Technology to mitigate odor and air quality concerns on livestock farms can also be used for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while providing potential income for farmers looking to trade carbon credits. Manure storage covers, originally designed to control odors on dairy, swine and other livestock facilities, can also capture greenhouse gases such as methane, which is more harmful to the environment in terms of global warming effects than carbon dioxide. The collected methane can be traded for carbon credits at carbon trading markets, where the amount of gas measured is converted to its carbon equivalent. The amount the carbon is worth is then paid back to the farmer. Learn more here.;

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management was put on the hot seat several times Wednesday by critics who questioned how the agency has managed wastes that have accumulated at the Arcelor Mittal steel plant in Burns Harbor for decades. Learn more here.;

As part of an annual £100 million program spent each year by the agency British Waterways to maintain the United Kingdom's network of waterways, £60 is being allocated to a host of projects right now. The projects are funded through a combination of government grants and the income British Waterways generates from things such as property and boat licenses. Inspection and repair works this winter range from iconic aqueducts and lock flights to humble canal bridges. The agency is the third largest owner of listed buildings in the UK, maintaining, among many things, 54 tunnel, 3,115 bridges, 417 aqueducts and 91 reservoirs.

After failing to agree on sale of the Mecham Road landfill, Sonoma County (California) supervisors now are shopping for a company to reopen and operate the shuttered dumpsite. The facility, closed to trash since 2005, is the subject of renewed debate because supervisors voted Tuesday to seek bids from waste processors interested in temporarily reopening it and securing new state permits for expanding it. Regulators ordered the landfill to begin closure proceedings following discovery of a damaged section of liner. Learn more here.;

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO), a worldwide authority institution for standards, is featured in the latest issue of FITA's "Really Useful Websites" newsletter. FITA is an international federation of trade associations. The newsletter regularly includes import and export tips, international business networking opportunities, trade websites, and country profiles. The current profile: Nigeria. Learn more here.;

Andrew Aho, Executive Director of the Geosynthetic Materials Association (GMA), writes: "Geotextile manufacturers are keen to update the specifying community regarding specifications that are outdated and no longer acceptable in the industry. Two tests retired by industry approval standards continue to creep into the occasional specification: the Mullen Burst Test and the Puncture Strength Test. The Mullen test was devised in 1887 by J.W. Mullen as a measure for the puncture strength of paper. Eventually it was adopted by the textile industry along with the Puncture Strength Text. In the 1970s these tests were available to the geotextile industry." Read more, including an open letter to specifiers of geosynthetics.

The disastrous coal ash spill that occurred a year ago at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston power plant in eastern Tennessee dumped a whopping 2.66 million pounds of 10 toxic pollutants into the nearby Emory and Clinch rivers -- more than all the surface-water discharges from all U.S. power plants in 2007. Learn more here.;