***image1***Check your eco-creds just in time for Earth Day.
Santa Fe is one of those cities in which your eco-status matters almost as much as-no, actually more than-your shoes. We have no shortage of earth-friendly experts and innovators working their hardest to preserve the planet, starting right here in northern New Mexico. It makes one wonder if the density of enviros in the city allows the rest of the regular SUV-driving (but recycling!) citizens to soak up eco-knowledge by osmosis. See if it's working by taking this year's environmental IQ quiz just in time for Earth Day on April 22.
1) True or False: The US Fish and Wildlife Service recently announced that it will consider Gunnison's prairie dog, a species whose habitat has declined by more than 90 percent over the last century, for protection under the Endangered Species Act.
2) This winter, Gov. Bill Richardson signed a solar tax credit bill that would allow residents and businesses to deduct part of the cost of buying and installing photovoltaic and solar thermal systems. The bill allows for:
a. A one-time credit of $1000
b. 10 percent of the total cost, up to $1,000
c. 30 percent of the total cost, up to $9,000
d. I didn't know there was going to be math on this test!
3) If there is grass growing on your roof, you just might be:
a. Laura Ingalls
b. Living in ancient Mesopotamia
c. Working in Chicago's City Hall
d. Fighting an urban heat island
4) What happens to old computers when they die?
a. Why, they go to computer heaven, of course!
b. They go to your garage where they seem to reproduce.
c. They go to landfills in China where they release toxic components
that can contaminate groundwater.
d. They get safely recycled.
5) As a result of changes to state laws regarding trash burning, Los Alamos National Laboratory recently lost permits that had allowed it to burn depleted uranium, diesel fuel, explosives and other kinds of hazardous waste. With which of the following reactions do you most agree?
a. Holy #*$@! They were burning depleted uranium in open barrels?
b. Hey, a little depleted uranium never hurt anyone, right?
c. That's nothing. I heard they also burn
alien spacecraft fuel
.
d. Great, one LANL environmental danger curbed. Only 834,092 left to
go.
6) What are the Aplomado falcons?
a. A totally fierce Mexican garage rock band
b. Southeastern New Mexico's junior high baseball champs
c. A rare delicacy for the crested caracara
d. They've got one hell of a bite, as old Tommy "Two Fingers" Garcia
will tell you.
7) How many PCBs is it safe to ingest?
a. Dude! Don't take more than one or you're liable to jump off a roof
yelling, "I am a golden god!"
b. According to the FDA, the recommended daily dose is 500
milligrams.
c. What is that, like MSG or something?
d. None
8) What is biomass?
a. OK! I get it! I'm fat! Why do you have to be so mean?
b. A fancy word for compost heap
c. A line of Boston city busses that run on biodiesel
d. A meat substitute somewhere in between tempeh and seitan
9) True or False: Washing dishes by hand uses half as much water as an automatic dishwasher.
10) Who is Stewart Udall?
a. New Mexico's District 3 congressional representative
b. The former drummer for The Police
c. Santa Fe's newly appointed Chief of Police
d. Secretary of the Interior under Kennedy and Johnson
ANSWERS
1) Answer: False.
Although Forest Guardians and 73 other groups petitioned Fish and Wildlife for protection, the government rejected their appeals, even though the other four species of prairie dog have all been listed under the Endangered Species Act or petitioned for listing. Environmental groups argued that habitat loss, urban and suburban development, oil and gas drilling, disease (think: plague), poisoning by the
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government and ranchers and recreational shooting had all contributed to the dangerous decline in population. Although Fish and Wildlife generally agrees with the importance of prairie dogs, it disagreed with the petition for Endangered Species protection, saying it needed more information to prove the dogs need protection.
Both sides agree that Gunnison's prairie dog is a keystone species of the sagebrush ecosystem, meaning it is essential to the ecosystem's harmony; prairie dogs' extinction would likely lead directly to the extinction of other members of the ecosystem. For example, plump 'n' tasty prairie dogs make up 90 percent of the diet of the black-footed ferret, once thought to be extinct. Without prairie dogs, the black-footed ferret is unable to survive in the wild. Golden and bald eagles, coyotes and hawks all eat prairie dogs.
But they're not just 32-ounce snacks for big predators. Prairie dogs' elaborate burrows provide homes for lots of smaller creatures like small rodents, rabbits, snakes, lizards and insects. Burrowing owls, weasels and foxes also take up residence in their abandoned tunnels. In
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addition, the dogs' soil-churning habits make them natural Roto-tillers who contribute greatly to soil health. Their aeration and fertilization makes the soil better able to absorb the region's scant rainfall.
Forest Guardians and the other groups say they will continue to pursue protection for Gunnison's and Fish and Wildlife says it's likely to reconsider the petition next year. "There's no question scientifically that the Gunnison's prairie dog should be protected," says Dr. Nicole Rosmarino of Forest Guardians, who says that their petition's rejection is par for the course for the Bush administration. "Not one species has been listed on the initiative of the government since Bush took office," she says. "Every single species has been listed as the result of litigation. The Bush administration has listed-because of lawsuits-eight species per year, in contrast with 65 per year under Clinton and 59 per year under George HW Bush."
2) Answer: c.
Thirty percent of the total cost, up to $9,000. The Solar Market Development Act provides one of the fattest credits in the country. Up to $5 million in credits will be available each year for the next 10 years. Combined with a 30 percent credit available on the federal level (for the next two years only) and incentives for photovoltaic producers from PNM, solar systems have the potential to pay for themselves much faster. According to Amy Welch of the Coalition for
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Clean Affordable Energy, tax incentives can now bring payback time for a solar system down to five to seven years, competitive with conventional systems. PNM's renewable energy buyback can cut in half the buyback time for a photovoltaic system.
It may seem strange that the state with the second highest potential for tapping solar energy (the first is our larger neighbor, Arizona) would be tapping so little of the sun's rays, but the relatively high price of solar systems has kept them out of reach for the past few decades. "In the late '70s and early '80s we had a substantial tax credit that had some failings and because of abuse it left a bad taste in people's mouths," Welch says. "Since then we've had a huge, gaping hole in terms of incentives and motivations to build solar in the state, and we've turned that around now." By creating a bigger market for solar systems, supporters hope that credits like this will increase production of the systems, bring more jobs to the state and bring consumer costs down. Next year, the Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy hopes to persuade the Legislature to provide credits for larger, community-based projects.
3). Answer: Any of the above.
Laura Ingalls and her family lived in a sod house when homesteading on the Great Plains; at the time it was the cheapest, safest and most comfortable accommodation available. Ancient Mesopotamians are credited with inventing the concept of green roofing (Hello, Hanging Gardens of Babylon? They were rooftop gardens). And
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Chicago's City Hall does indeed have a grassy lid. Green roofing has been booming lately, especially in cities, where it is praised for absorbing rainfall and reducing the heat-island effect. Not surprisingly, it's an idea that is catching on in Santa Fe.
Next month, greenroofing expert Sergio Galindo is teaching an Ecoversity class on greenroofing (Saturday, May 20). The class will be held at one of the homes involved in a self-guided greenbuilt tour, and students will install a 216-square-foot green roof on top of a newly built shed. Arina Pittman, executive director at Ecoversity, says green roofs are beneficial to both the microclimate inside a building and the larger ecosystem. "Some roofs reflect and light absorb heat and that creates, in urban areas like Santa Fe, a heat island that slightly changes the climate in the city," Pittman says. Green roofs allow for urban dwellings to keep the ecosystem in place, Pittman argues, "You just move it higher up."
4). Answer: Hopefully d.
Most likely, old electronic equipment, like computers, VCRs and televisions (called e-waste), will collect dust in a garage for a while before being thrown in the trash. In fact, e-waste is now the fastest growing component of the world's trash heap. By some estimates, there are 315 to 600 million desktop computers heading for obsolescence right now. What will become of the 1.2 billion
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pounds of lead they contain? Only 10 percent of those computers are likely to be recycled, and much of that 10 percent will be shipped to unregulated scrap operations in Asia or Africa where some usable components and toxic heavy metals will be reused or recycled, often by methods unsafe for workers or their environment. Unfortunately, most of it is destined to end up as a contaminated heap of toxins.
Justin Stockdale, the recycling coordinator for Santa Fe's Solid Waste Management Agency, has done considerable research into responsible e-waste recycling. Our e-waste is mostly sent to Natural Evolution, a small, family-owned business in Tulsa, Okla. There, usable sound cards and hard drives are extracted before the rest is recycled. Computer monitors are sent to Monitech in Texas, where they're sent on to an environmentally sound company in Thailand. There, they are reconditioned and repackaged as television sets, to be sold back to big-box stores like Target and Wal-Mart. Unusable monitors are crushed and the glass is recycled.
E-waste is accepted every day (except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's) at the Buckman Road Recycling and Transfer Station at 1686 Paseo de Vista. On Sunday, April 23 from 9 am until 4 pm, the station will also accept household hazardous waste like paint, mercury-containing thermometers, batteries and anything else labeled acid, caustic, flammable, toxic, caution or danger. Stockman says it's this kind of waste we should really be worried about. "In relative terms, household hazardous waste, pesticides, household cleaners are far more dangerous than e-waste," he says, "because there are more of them and the hazard is more significant. People lose sight of that. Miracle-Gro represents a greater threat to our environment than e-waste ever will."
5). Answer: Take your pick.
Scott Kovac of Nuclear Watch New Mexico says, "Right now, I'm concerned with the fiscal year 2007 Congressional budget in which the cleanup funds for Los Alamos have been cut by $70 million-that's slashed by two-thirds. At the same time, the weapons budget for Los Alamos has been increased." Of particular concern is the amount of contamination still in the ground at LANL. "Chromium hit the
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aquifer last December," Kovac says, "and I worry that it's just the beginning. Chromium is more soluble, so it travels faster, and it has now exceeded EPA standards. Other contaminants can't be far behind."
Joni Arends, executive director of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, is also worried about Chromium 6, which she describes as "the contaminant that was portrayed in
Erin Brokovich
." But right now Arends is focused on the issue of transferring remote-handled waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in southern New Mexico. Remote-handled waste is dangerous nuclear detritus that has to be shielded with lead while it's being transported and throughout the disposal process. The Department of Energy hopes to start sending remote-handled waste to WIPP by Oct. 1. Between now and then there will be a series of negotiations, hearings and reports. The permit hearing will begin May 31 in Carlsbad. In Santa Fe, there will be opportunity for public comment June 7 and 8 at Santa Fe Community College.
6) Answer: c.
The endangered Aplomado falcon, when young, is preyed upon by crested caracaras. But that's just trivia. More important is the Aplomado falcon's role in the fight over oil and gas drilling on Otero Mesa. The Peregrine Fund, an organization begun by falconry fans (that's hunting with birds), has been fighting to reintroduce the Aplomado falcon to southern New Mexico, where it is rare but occasionally
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spotted. They have the support of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which is working on a finalized version of a reintroduction proposal.
At issue is the proposed "experimental nonessential" status that the birds would carry within the "experimental area." Right now, the Aplomado falcon is listed as an endangered species and enjoys the protections of that status. But environmental groups like Forest Guardians argue that experimental nonessential status in an experimental area that covers the entire state would actually reduce protections for the falcons. "If they do reintroduce the falcons," argues Rosmarino of Forest Guardians, "they should do it in a way that does not compromise endangered species protection for the existing Aplomado falcons. This proposal would complete the removal of endangered species habitat protection through their historic range."
She's also worried that the proposed rule would eliminate endangered species claims on Otero Mesa. Her organization is one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit that aims to prevent drilling on Otero Mesa based on concerns about endangered species. "We think there's robust evidence to show the falcons need the Mesa," Rosmarino says. The final version of the reintroduction proposal is expected to be released any day now.
7) Answer: d.
PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are chemicals that were formerly used as coolants and lubricants in the manufacturing of transformers, capacitors and other electrical equipment. They get released into the air from improper handling of industrial wastes, especially the burning of industrial waste (see question Number 5). PCBs were banned in 1977 because they were shown to be dangerous to the
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health of humans and other animals. They don't break down in the environment and can travel long distances from their origination. The chemicals are carried by rainfall into lakes and rivers where they are ingested by fish, especially bottom-feeders like catfish. We ingest PCBs by ingesting bottom-feeders like catfish from contaminated lakes and rivers.
In February, NMED, the Department of Health, the Department of Game and Fish and New Mexico State Parks issued Do Not Eat advisories for channel catfish caught in Abiquiu and Cochiti reservoirs and parts of the Rio Grande between Bandelier National Monument and Pojoaque Creek. Data collected by NMED from the reservoirs and by LANL from the Rio Grande showed that levels of PCBs in the catfish were so high as to be potentially harmful. Fortunately, because PCBs
concentrate in fishes' flesh but not in the water itself, it is less dangerous to swim in and drink contaminated water.
According to Brian Shields of Amigos Bravos, an organization devoted to protecting the Rio Grande and
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its tributaries, "Here in New Mexico, we don't have that much water, but the water we do have is really important." Shields says it's hard to know exactly what the source of the PCBs is, but that high concentrations of the chemicals immediately downstream from the labs indicate LANL might be the source. Unfortunately, there's no good way to get rid of the PCBs that are already in our water. "The first thing we have to figure out is where it's coming from and stop it at its source," he explains. "The problem is that there are going to be all sorts of arguments about where it's coming from. Everyone's afraid of getting sued and it's a very hard thing to prove."
8) Answer: b, sort of
Technically, the term biomass is used to refer to any kind of plant or animal material that can be burned or digested to produce energy. This can be as simple as burning cow chips in your campfire. But a cow chip campfire is a pretty inefficient method of harnessing biomass. Logs burned in a woodstove are much more efficient, and a modern biomass heater with a secondary combustion chamber is even better.
Although the concept of
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biomass in ancient, the term biomass is only a few decades old and high-tech biomass heating systems are still relatively new. Last winter, Santa Fe Community College installed a biomass heater at their Early Childhood Development Center. Scrap wood is fed by hand into the combustion chamber; as it burns, smoke, creosote and small particulates (that would all normally escape through an exhaust pipe) are burned again in a secondary combustion chamber, making for a big gain in efficiency. Hot gasses released in this process move through a long series of pipes submerged in a water tank. The water is superheated and passed along through more pipes to heat the building. This small system is a model for the much larger one-megawatt system that is now under construction at the college.
The community college's big-time biomass heater will be fueled by locally produced renewable biomass resources such as woodchips and sawdust from wood products manufacturers, timber from forest thinning projects and yard waste. It is expected to provide up to 90 percent of the college's heat. Students at the college this semester are learning how the system operates in a class taught by Mark Sardella of Local Energy, the biomass guru who brought the system to the school. Sardella is also studying the feasibility of other biomass projects in Santa Fe.
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9) Answer: False.
Hand washing is generally much more water wasteful than using a machine, especially a new machine. A study by the University of Bonn, Germany recently revealed that running your dishes through the dishwasher uses half the energy and one-sixth of the water used by hand washing. That's based on running a full load in a
new-ish (like, less than 10 years old), energy-efficient dishwasher and not rinsing the dishes before loading them into the machine. To be as earth-friendly as possible, be sure you only run the dishwasher when it's full and skip the wasteful rinse-hold or pre-rinse cycles. You can also save
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energy by turning off the heat-dry function-New Mexico is warm and dry enough to dry dishes just by propping the machine's door open.
If you don't dirty a lot of dishes, if you have an older machine or no machine at all, it's OK to wash by hand as long as you use the right technique. First, don't rinse food from the dishes; scrape it off into the trashcan. Then, don't soak the dishes; just use one sink of hot, soapy water for washing, and another sink full of cool water for rinsing.
10) Answer: d.
It's OK if you were slightly confused by this question because there are several prominent Udalls. Stewart Udall was a congressman from Arizona in the 1950s and served as secretary of the interior throughout the 1960s. In his mid-80s now and living in Santa Fe, this Udall is best remembered for expanding the
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National Park System to include more than 100 new national parks and monuments, seashores and lakeshores, recreation areas, historic sites and wildlife refuges.
Stewart Udall's son
Tom is the fourth-term representative from Santa Fe. Following in his father's footsteps, he has a strong record of supporting the environment, earning a 94 percent approval rating from the League of Conservations voters. (That's compared to Pete Domenici's meager 5 percent, Jeff
Bingaman's 70 percent, Heather Wilson's 22 percent and Steve Pearce's sad 0 percent.)
The Valles Caldera was still known as the Baca Ranch in 2000, before Tom Udall led efforts for the federal government to spend $97 million to buy the property and preserve the nearly 90,000 acres.
Tom's uncle Mo Udall served in Congress for 30 years and Mo's son, Mark Udall, is a representative from Colorado.
SCORE YOURSELF
10 points for each correct answer.
0-20:
Are you the person who left your old sofa in the arroyo last weekend? For shame! Your eco-creds are low-and your karma ain't so great either. Redeem yourself by participating in one of the many Earth Day activities mentioned in this week's story.
30-50:
Recycled bag for grocery shopping? Check. Weekly stop for biofuels? Check. Sierra Club calendar on the wall? Check. Nice going. Your heart-and mind-are in the right place. Take it to the next level by joining up with one of the many groups working on key environmental issues in the city. They could use your help.
60-100:
You were the first to own a Prius, the first to remodel your home with solar panels and the first to volunteer to feed the prairie dogs when they began to lose their habitat. Congrats-your Eco-IQ is top notch. Have you thought of running for office?
