Weekly Update Feb. 5, 2010

Welcome to Weekly Update, a publication of Western United Environmental Services (WUES). Our goal is to provide you with the latest information about the WDR’s from the Water Board and how our organization can help you with your environmental challenges. All previous publications of the Weekly Update can be found in the News section on our website at www.wuenvironmental.com.

The USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service has a new national policy regarding Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plans (CNMPs). Under the previous policy, producers that applied for a few select types of projects through NRCS had to complete a CNMP as part of the project. Producers could also apply for a CNMP directly. Under the new policy, any project that addresses manure storage, transfer, treatment, land application or nutrient management would be required to do a CNMP as part of the project if funding was obtained through NRCS. A CNMP is a tool that looks at the dairy facility comprehensively to determine where resources are best directed to protect the environment, enhance nutrient efficiencies, and maintain compliance with regulatory requirements. In this respect it is very useful, especially in light of improvements that are being planned. CNMPs will begin using more of the work completed as part of WDR compliance where it can be used to replace parts of the CNMP. This will allow CNMP development to be more streamlined as much of the information required for both agencies is similar. Due to the reduction in duplication and use of existing documents, the pay rate for CNMPs will be reduced to account for the amount of existing data used in its preparation. WUES currently has a Technical Service Provider certified to complete CNMPs and has already completed several CNMPs and has several more under development. It is expected that this policy change will significantly increase the demand for CNMPs.

California plans to install a network of computerized monitors to measure methane emissions from regions that are home to dairy ranches, farms, landfills, and other sources. It will be the first network of its kind in the United States and will help the state take another step toward reducing emissions of the gases related to global warming. By May, seven devices about the size of a personal computer will be placed in regions of the state where methane emissions are believed to be the highest. Those include the farm fields of the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys and landfills in the Los Angeles basin.

“What we’ll be able to do is to find the identity, the location and the strength of methane emissions within the state,” said Jorn Herner, the scientist managing the program at the California Air Resources Board. “This is new and pioneering work.” Data from the air board’s seven monitors will be combined with measurements taken from other monitors along California’s coast run by NASA, NOAA, and the Lawrence Livermore National Lab to provide a more complete picture of methane emissions throughout the state. The electronic monitors are designed to verify how much methane is in California’s air. Providing a more accurate accounting of emissions should build confidence in carbon-trading markets, said Michael Woelk, chief executive of Picarro Inc., the Sunnyvale-based company that makes the devices. “Inventories can be widely wrong. These devices will tell real time, minute to minute, what your emissions are,” Woelk said. “The free market has to know whether this stuff is working in real time, or the credibility is pulled out from under it.”

A proposed initiative to suspend California’s landmark legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions was cleared by the secretary of state’s office late Wednesday to begin collecting signatures. A creator of the initiative, Assemblyman Dan Logue (R-Linda) said he has commitments of $600,000 from business interests for a campaign to qualify the measure for the ballot. The initiative would suspend implementation of Assembly Bill 32, which called for reducing California’s greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Logue and other opponents have argued that AB32 would be extremely costly to businesses and take a heavy toll on the state’s economy. The proposed initiative would suspend the state’s greenhouse-gas reduction requirements until California’s unemployment rate, currently above 12 percent, falls to 5.5 percent or less for four consecutive quarters. To qualify for the November ballot, backers of the initiative must collect 433,971 voter signatures by June 24. To qualify for a 2011 special election or a 2012 statewide election, the deadline is July 5, the secretary of state’s office said.

A trio of House lawmakers this week introduced a bill to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases in the absence of authorizing legislation, marking the latest in a string of bipartisan attacks against forthcoming climate rules. The measure from Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minnesota) and Missouri representatives Ike Skelton (D) and Jo Ann Emerson (R) would amend the Clean Air Act to prohibit EPA from regulating greenhouse gases based on their effects on global climate change.“I’m proud to help sponsor this bill because if Congress doesn’t do something soon, the EPA is going to cram these regulations through all on their own,” Peterson said in a statement. In addition to blocking climate regulations, the new bill seeks to block EPA from considering the effect on greenhouse gas emissions created by international “indirect” land-use changes—changes occurring in other countries—when implementing the renewable fuel standard, or RFS.The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in its 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA decision that EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The bill is the latest congressional effort to stall EPA climate rules. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is planning to seek a vote next month on a disapproval resolution that would effectively veto EPA’s earlier determination that greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare, and are therefore subject to regulation. In the House, Representative Earl Pomeroy (D-North Dakota) has introduced a separate bill to strip EPA of its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions unless it receives explicit authority to do so by Congress.

CALENDAR OF MONTHLY MONITORING ACTIVITIES

January

1^st of the month	Photograph Free Board in Ponds
Weekly	Visual inspection (production and waste storage areas; ponds)
Manure Exports	Measure volume/density OR weight/moisture (require lab analysis)
Harvest	Yield, lab analysis

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