http://www.eriewire.org Grassroots Reporting Wed, 09 Jan 2013 04:50:33 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5 Get On The Wire The Erie Wire "On The Wire" broadcasts the latest audio recordings from issues surrounding the Firelands Watersheds. Tune in to gather your experience on a range of topics, and hear the latest on what's happening with "sustainability" around Ohio. The Erie Wire no Get On The Wire the,erie,wire,podcasts,sandusky,sandusky,podcasts,sandusky,firelands,watershed,firelands,podcast,sandusky,podcast,erie,county,ohio,city,of,sandusky,sustainability,erie,wire,erie,fresh,erie,county,coalition,for,local,resources,news,issues,aeriewire@gmail.comThe Erie Wirethe,erie,wire,podcasts,sandusky,sandusky,podcasts,sandusky,firelands,watershed,firelands,podcast,sandusky,podcast,erie,county,ohio,city,of,sandusky,sustainability,erie,wire,erie,fresh,erie,county,coalition,for,local,resources,news,issues,a41.42646-82.710834http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/http://eriewire.wordpress.com/http://eriewire.wordpress.com/TheErieWirehttp://feedburner.google.com http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheErieWire/~3/QUuLxO1K2rA/ http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12791/section/wire/#comments Tue, 30 Aug 2011 22:13:29 +0000 eriewire@gmail.com (The Erie Wire) http://www.eriewire.org/?p=12791 As part of the suit, the groups asked the Department of Pesticide Regulation to release documents explaining how the agency decided to approve the chemical. The plaintiffs wanted to know how the agency had settled on exposure levels more than 100 times higher than what scientists within the agency believed were safe. <div class="crp_related"><h3><i>Related Posts:</i></h3><ul><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/9422/section/wire/" class="crp_title">Toxic Chemical Approved for Pesticide Use on California&hellip;</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/9947/blog/thelandethic/" class="crp_title">EPA Banning Pesticide Used on Food Products</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/11673/section/wire/" class="crp_title">Freedom of Information Filed to USDA by Environmental&hellip;</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/7218/section/wire/" class="crp_title">Industry Funds EPA&#8217;s Recent Safety Study for&hellip;</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/9718/section/wire/" class="crp_title">New Study Indicates Hexavalent Chromium Is Contaminating&hellip;</a></li></ul></div><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=QUuLxO1K2rA:9_4HzRXh5HA:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=QUuLxO1K2rA:9_4HzRXh5HA:YwkR-u9nhCs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=YwkR-u9nhCs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=QUuLxO1K2rA:9_4HzRXh5HA:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=QUuLxO1K2rA:9_4HzRXh5HA:KwTdNBX3Jqk"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=QUuLxO1K2rA:9_4HzRXh5HA:KwTdNBX3Jqk" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=QUuLxO1K2rA:9_4HzRXh5HA:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=QUuLxO1K2rA:9_4HzRXh5HA:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=QUuLxO1K2rA:9_4HzRXh5HA:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=QUuLxO1K2rA:9_4HzRXh5HA:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=QUuLxO1K2rA:9_4HzRXh5HA:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=QUuLxO1K2rA:9_4HzRXh5HA:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=QUuLxO1K2rA:9_4HzRXh5HA:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=QUuLxO1K2rA:9_4HzRXh5HA:-BTjWOF_DHI"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=QUuLxO1K2rA:9_4HzRXh5HA:-BTjWOF_DHI" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=QUuLxO1K2rA:9_4HzRXh5HA:63t7Ie-LG7Y"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=QUuLxO1K2rA:9_4HzRXh5HA:dnMXMwOfBR0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheErieWire/~4/QUuLxO1K2rA" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12791/section/wire/feed/ 0 The Investigative NewswireAs part of the suit, the groups asked the Department of Pesticide Regulation to release documents explaining how the agency decided to approve the chemical. The plaintiffs wanted to know how the agency had settled on exposure levels more than 100 times higher than what scientists within the agency believed were safe. [caption id=&quot;attachment_12792&quot; align=&quot;alignright&quot; width=&quot;300&quot; caption=&quot;America&#039;s strawberry growers are testing various new methods of growing beautiful berries like these without using methyl bromide, an effective but environmentally unfriendly soil fumigant that&#039;s scheduled for phaseout by 2005. photo: Brian Prechtel (Wikimedia Commons)&quot;][/caption] State scientists ignored in pesticide&#039;s approval By Amy Standen for California Watch California’s former top pesticide regulatory official dismissed safety guidelines suggested by her own staff scientists on the grounds that they were &quot;excessive&quot; and too onerous for the pesticide manufacturer, recently released internal documents show. In response, the scientists lodged a formal protest, calling the official’s actions “not scientifically credible,” according to the documents released by court order last week. The documents amount to a “smoking gun,” says Paul Blanc, a professor of occupational and environmental medicine at UC San Francisco. Last year, Blanc helped advise the staff scientists on their evaluation of the pesticide, methyl iodide. “The decision by the regulatory superiors was not science-based,&quot; Blanc said. In one of the documents, Mary-Ann Warmerdam, who led the state&#039;s Department of Pesticide Regulation until this year, weighs a recommendation from her staff that farm workers be exposed to no more than a trace amount of methyl iodide per day. The recommendation – intended to protect farm workers from cancer and miscarriage – is &quot;excessive and difficult to enforce,&quot; Warmerdam wrote in April 2010, about two weeks before the department made its recommendation that California approve methyl iodide. If the restrictions on methyl iodide were approved, she wrote, the pesticide manufacturer might find the recommendations &quot;unacceptable, due to economic viability.&quot; &quot;(Warmerdam&#039;s) method was to consult with the pesticide manufacturer and determine what was acceptable to them, and then decide on what an acceptable level of exposure was,&quot; said Susan Kegley, a consulting scientist for the Pesticide Action Network, a group suing the state. Department spokeswoman Lea Brooks declined to comment on the documents, citing the pending litigation. &quot;It is inappropriate to try this case in the media,&quot; Brooks said. Warmerdam resigned from the department in January. Gov. Jerry Brown has yet to appoint a successor. Methyl iodide was approved in December 2010, at the tail end of the Schwarzenegger administration. It&#039;s a chemical fumigant used primarily by strawberry growers. A coalition of environmental and farm-worker groups has sued the state to try to ban the chemical. As part of the suit, the groups asked the Department of Pesticide Regulation to release documents explaining how the agency decided to approve the chemical. The plaintiffs wanted to know how the agency had settled on exposure levels more than 100 times higher than what scientists within the agency believed were safe. When pressed for documents that might reveal the agency&#039;s rationale, Warmerdam declined to release them, citing the &quot;deliberative process&quot; exemption, which allows government agencies to keep the thought process behind a decision private. A public records act request filed by California Watch and KQED QUEST elicited the same response. Earlier this month, a judge disagreed, ordering the department to release the documents, which plaintiffs shared with reporters on Thursday. &quot;DPR has an obligation to explain to the public the basis for its decision,&quot; said Earthjustice attorney Greg Loarie, who is representing the plaintiffs. &quot;The public has every right to know that DPR approved methyl iodide over the objections of its own staff scientists.&quot; That rift between scientists and regulators first became public last year, in an e-mail exchange unearthed by KQED QUEST and California Watch&#039;s Public Records Act request. In the e-mails, two staff toxicologists – Lori Lim and Ruby Reed – said they had not been part of the decision to approve methyl iodide, and they stood by their original work. &quot;We had to read between the lines to figure out how the target levels were calculated,&quot; they wrote. Both Lim and Reed have since resigned from the department. The new documents show staff scientists sending their complaints up the department’s chain of command. &quot;I am puzzled by the numbers,&quot; staff scientist Jay Schreider wrote in a memo to the state&#039;s top toxicologist, Gary Patterson. Approving methyl iodide was &quot;management&#039;s prerogative,&quot; Schreider wrote. But he said managers should not imply that the scientists&#039; findings &quot;are the basis for that decision, or that the apparent &#039;mix and match&#039; approach provides a scientifically credible basis for the decision.&quot; In his order, Judge Frank Roesch of the Alameda County Superior Court found that the &quot;great majority&quot; of the department’s documents should never have been withheld in the first place. As for the rest, Roesch found &quot;the interest in public disclosure clearly outweighs agency interest in non-disclosure.&quot; The documents reveal a rare point of agreement between the department’s scientists and its managers: that methyl iodide may cause brain damage in developing fetuses. When California first began evaluating methyl iodide, it took the unusual step of bringing in an outside group of scientists, hired to work alongside department scientists, as an independent peer-review group. The scientists, including UCSF’s Blanc, worried that methyl iodide could drift up from strawberry fields and be inhaled by pregnant farm workers or children playing nearby, causing subtle effects such as IQ loss, which might never be detected or traced back to the chemical. &quot;Methyl iodide concentrates in the fetal brain to levels well above those in the mother,&quot; they wrote in their assessment. &quot;There is a high likelihood that methyl iodide is a developmental neurotoxin.&quot; The new documents show department managers also contending with the lack of data about methyl iodide&#039;s potential effects on developing brains. In animal tests, they wrote, &quot;several measures of neurological deficiency were measured. … Overall, there is a need for a more thorough investigation into developmental neurotoxicity in pre- and post-natal exposures to methyl iodide, because the existing data do not address these exposures.&quot; Given the lack of data, the panel scientists recommended that a 10-fold &quot;uncertainty factor&quot; be added into the calculations about how much methyl iodide to which a worker could be safely be exposed. Toxicologists use uncertainty factors to help them quantify the amount of a chemical that might be determined “safe.” In this case, the added uncertainty factor would have left managers with a lower number, which would have put greater restrictions on methyl iodide’s use. Department managers chose to drop the uncertainty factor. An internal document shows that they debated where, and how, to explain that decision. &quot;Hello Gary!&quot; reads a memo from Marylou Verder-Carlos to Patterson, the lead toxicologist. &quot;If you could please look over this document and see how and where we could explain dropping the additional 10X for the lack of DNT (developmental neurotoxicity) study.&quot; Ultimately, department managers chose not to mention the uncertainty factor in the approval notice at all. Ted Slotkin, a pharmacology and cancer biology professor at Duke University who served on the peer-review panel, says the documents show that the Department of Pesticide Regulation has no way of knowing whether methyl iodide is safe. &quot;DPR has no benchmark with which to establish the limits of exposures that could be deemed as &#039;safe&#039; for pregnant women and children living in agricultural communities or attending schools adjacent to fields where methyl iodide will be applied,&quot; he said. Some farmers in California already are starting to use the chemical, and they are expected to ramp up its use sharply in the fall, during strawberry planting season. http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12791/section/wire/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheErieWire/~3/fOieUtLRU_M/ http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12781/section/wire/#comments Tue, 30 Aug 2011 01:49:51 +0000 eriewire@gmail.com (The Erie Wire) http://www.eriewire.org/?p=12781 1. Visit facebook.com from a PC and login, in the top-right corner of the screen, click on Account and then Edit Friends 2. In the menu on the left side of the screen, click on Contacts. Here, you will see that each and every one of your contacts in 3. Address Book are listed along with their phone numbers 4. On the right side of the screen, click on the "this page" link 5. Follow the instructions on this page — you'll have to disable contact-sync in Facebook's mobile app if it's enabled — and click the Remove button<div class="crp_related"><h3><i>Related Posts:</i></h3><ul><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/10477/section/culture/" class="crp_title">Poetry: The Slideshow</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12383/section/wire/" class="crp_title">Investigations of the Month: July 2011</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/11139/blog/thelandethic/" class="crp_title">Dirt: A Look at Civilization in the Ground</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/10664/section/wire/" class="crp_title">Investigations of the Month: December 2010</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/10656/section/wire/" class="crp_title">Investigations of the Month: November 2010</a></li></ul></div><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=fOieUtLRU_M:bh2GqCagoL8:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=fOieUtLRU_M:bh2GqCagoL8:YwkR-u9nhCs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=YwkR-u9nhCs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=fOieUtLRU_M:bh2GqCagoL8:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=fOieUtLRU_M:bh2GqCagoL8:KwTdNBX3Jqk"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=fOieUtLRU_M:bh2GqCagoL8:KwTdNBX3Jqk" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=fOieUtLRU_M:bh2GqCagoL8:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=fOieUtLRU_M:bh2GqCagoL8:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=fOieUtLRU_M:bh2GqCagoL8:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=fOieUtLRU_M:bh2GqCagoL8:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=fOieUtLRU_M:bh2GqCagoL8:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=fOieUtLRU_M:bh2GqCagoL8:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=fOieUtLRU_M:bh2GqCagoL8:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=fOieUtLRU_M:bh2GqCagoL8:-BTjWOF_DHI"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=fOieUtLRU_M:bh2GqCagoL8:-BTjWOF_DHI" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=fOieUtLRU_M:bh2GqCagoL8:63t7Ie-LG7Y"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=fOieUtLRU_M:bh2GqCagoL8:dnMXMwOfBR0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheErieWire/~4/fOieUtLRU_M" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12781/section/wire/feed/ 0 The Investigative Newswire1. Visit facebook.com from a PC and login, in the top-right corner of the screen, click on Account and then Edit Friends 2. In the menu on the left side of the screen, click on Contacts. Here, you will see that each and every one of your contacts in 3. Address Book are listed along with their phone numbers 4. On the right side of the screen, click on the &quot;this page&quot; link 5. Follow the instructions on this page — you&#039;ll have to disable contact-sync in Facebook&#039;s mobile app if it&#039;s enabled — and click the Remove button facebooks phone number poaching By Casey Neistat like me on facebook facebook.com/​cneistat instructions; 1. Visit facebook.com from a PC and log in in the top-right corner of the screen, click on Account and then Edit Friends 2. In the menu on the left side of the screen, click on Contacts Here, you will see that each and every one of your contacts in 3. Address Book are listed along with their phone numbers 4. On the right side of the screen, click on the &quot;this page&quot; link 5. Follow the instructions on this page — you&#039;ll have to disable contact-sync in Facebook&#039;s mobile app if it&#039;s enabled — and click the Remove button i used this BGR article as a reference for this movie; tinyurl.com/​3u62z2g http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12781/section/wire/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheErieWire/~3/aGytYYMvi_c/ http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12772/section/wire/#comments Tue, 30 Aug 2011 01:20:03 +0000 eriewire@gmail.com (The Erie Wire) http://www.eriewire.org/?p=12772 Although the curriculum includes the environmental hazards of plastic bags, the consultant also added a five-point question to a workbook asking students to list some advantages. According to the teachers’ edition, the correct answer is: “Plastic shopping bags are very convenient to use. They take less energy to manufacture than paper bags, cost less to transport, and can be reused.”<div class="crp_related"><h3><i>Related Posts:</i></h3><ul><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/9942/section/wire/" class="crp_title">Study Finds Many Toxic Chemicals in Pregnant Women</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/9422/section/wire/" class="crp_title">Toxic Chemical Approved for Pesticide Use on California&hellip;</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/11963/section/wire/" class="crp_title">EPA Announces to Disclose Confidential Chemicals: Industry&hellip;</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/11873/section/wire/" class="crp_title">EWG Sponsors California Bill to Disclose Fracking Fluid&hellip;</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12654/section/wire/" class="crp_title">What is ALEC? How Model Legislation is Written by&hellip;</a></li></ul></div><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=aGytYYMvi_c:nqFT4j8SJpQ:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=aGytYYMvi_c:nqFT4j8SJpQ:YwkR-u9nhCs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=YwkR-u9nhCs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=aGytYYMvi_c:nqFT4j8SJpQ:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=aGytYYMvi_c:nqFT4j8SJpQ:KwTdNBX3Jqk"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=aGytYYMvi_c:nqFT4j8SJpQ:KwTdNBX3Jqk" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=aGytYYMvi_c:nqFT4j8SJpQ:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=aGytYYMvi_c:nqFT4j8SJpQ:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=aGytYYMvi_c:nqFT4j8SJpQ:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=aGytYYMvi_c:nqFT4j8SJpQ:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=aGytYYMvi_c:nqFT4j8SJpQ:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=aGytYYMvi_c:nqFT4j8SJpQ:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=aGytYYMvi_c:nqFT4j8SJpQ:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=aGytYYMvi_c:nqFT4j8SJpQ:-BTjWOF_DHI"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=aGytYYMvi_c:nqFT4j8SJpQ:-BTjWOF_DHI" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=aGytYYMvi_c:nqFT4j8SJpQ:63t7Ie-LG7Y"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=aGytYYMvi_c:nqFT4j8SJpQ:dnMXMwOfBR0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheErieWire/~4/aGytYYMvi_c" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12772/section/wire/feed/ 1 The Investigative NewswireAlthough the curriculum includes the environmental hazards of plastic bags, the consultant also added a five-point question to a workbook asking students to list some advantages. According to the teachers’ edition, the correct answer is: “Plastic shopping bags are very convenient to use. They take less energy to manufacture than paper bags, cost less to transport, and can be reused.”Plastics industry edited environmental textbook By Susanne Rust for California Watch [caption id=&quot;attachment_12773&quot; align=&quot;alignright&quot; width=&quot;300&quot; caption=&quot;A bag with a smiley face design that bids the viewer &quot;Thank you&quot; and &quot;Have a nice day!&quot; photo: GorillaSushi (Wikimedia Commons)&quot;][/caption] Under pressure from the American Chemistry Council, a lobbying group for the plastics industry, schools officials in California edited a new environmental curriculum to include positive messages about plastic shopping bags, interviews and documents show. The rewritten textbooks and teachers’ guides coincided with a public relations and lobbying effort by the chemistry council to fight proposed plastic bag bans throughout the country. But despite the positive message, activists say there is no debate: Plastic bags kill marine animals, leech toxic chemicals and take an estimated 1,000 years to decompose in landfills. In 2009, a private consultant hired by California school officials added a new section to the 11th-grade teachers’ edition textbook called “The Advantages of Plastic Shopping Bags.” The title and some of the textbook language were inserted almost verbatim from letters written by the chemistry council. Although the curriculum includes the environmental hazards of plastic bags, the consultant also added a five-point question to a workbook asking students to list some advantages. According to the teachers’ edition, the correct answer is: “Plastic shopping bags are very convenient to use. They take less energy to manufacture than paper bags, cost less to transport, and can be reused.” Americans use an estimated 100 billion plastic shopping bags each year – almost all of which are thrown into the garbage. Grocery stores and other retailers spend about $4 billion a year to purchase the bags for customers. “The American Chemistry Council obviously got engaged to protect their bottom line,” said Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Santa Monica, author of the 2003 legislation[PDF] requiring that environmental principles and concepts be taught in the state’s public schools. She had been unaware of the lobby’s efforts until contacted by California Watch. The environmental curriculum, which took seven years to develop, is being tested at 19 school districts that include 140 schools and more than 14,000 students. An additional 400 school districts have signed up to use the curriculum, according to Bryan Ehlers, the California Environmental Protection Agency’s assistant secretary for education and quality programs. Other states have expressed interest in adopting the California curriculum, including Delaware and Maryland, Ehlers said. Touted as the first public-private partnership of its kind, the trade group’s edit of California’s school curriculum illustrates a growing concern for special-interest influence over public education. It also shows how school officials abandoned some of their responsibility to write curriculum, handing the heavy lifting over to a paid consultant. Just this month, Scholastic Inc. – a major textbook publisher – promised to limit its practice of collaborating with corporations to produce classroom materials. The New York-based publisher had been under pressure from parents and education groups to stop distributing a fourth-grade curriculum paid for by the coal industry. The new California curriculum covers science, history, social studies and arts and weaves in environmental principles and concepts over 85 units and hundreds of pages. The full-color pages of the curriculum, which can be downloaded off the state’s website, mirror the look of a textbook. Teachers are encouraged to use the materials as handouts in the classroom and as reading assignments for students. “Parents should be outraged that their kids are going to be potentially taught bogus facts written by a plastic-industry consultant suggesting advantages of plastic bags,” said Mark Murray, executive director ofCalifornians Against Waste, a recycling and environmental lobbying group. The chemistry council declined to comment in detail about its work on California’s environmental curriculum. But its views were made known to the state during a period of public review and comment. “The ACC takes exception to the overall tone, instructional approach, and the lack of solutions offered – most especially the lack of mention of the overall solution of plastic recycling,” wrote Alyson Thomas, senior account executive with Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, a lobbying firm retained by the trade group. “We believe education works best when students are exposed to all viewpoints, alternatives and attitudes, particularly when addressing socially complex issues” such as plastic bags, she continued. Kenneth McDonald, spokesman for the California Department of Education, said he was not aware that the trade group’s edits had been included. He said the development and editing of the content was Cal/EPA’s responsibility. The education department’s sole duty was to review the curriculum for accuracy, content and overt bias, he said. “Whether or not there was corporate input, nothing problematic was seen,” he said of the changes. After hearing from California Watch about the chemical industry additions and edits, Pavley said she would write to Cal/EPA to ask officials to tweak the current text to remove some of the trade group’s additions. She was quick to add that the rest of the curriculum was excellent and the result of “an open, transparent, multi-stakeholder process.” “A lot of people took the time to participate, and other interest groups took the time to review the curriculum,” she said. Consultant integrates lobby’s critiques As Cal/EPA began preparing the curriculum in 2004, it called together a team of stakeholders – including industry trade groups and environmental organizations – to provide advice on writing the new curriculum. A representative from the American Chemistry Council was present at the meeting. So were representatives from oil giant BP, National Geographic and the California Ocean Science Trust. The American Chemistry Council did not provide any financial backing to the development of the curriculum. By 2009, the curriculum was mostly written, and the chemistry council once again weighed in with criticisms and suggested edits for a section in the 11th-grade text that portrays plastic bags as harmful to the environment. At the time, the trade group was fighting state and city plastic shopping bag bans across the country. In 2010, it successfully quashed legislation that would have banned plastic bags in the state. It was not so successful in San Francisco and Los Angeles County, which in recent years have imposed bans. Although the trade group will not say how much money it spent on advertising and lobbying the issue, state documents show the group has spent more than $9 million lobbying government agencies since 2003. The state had handed the bulk of the curriculum development and editing responsibility to Gerald Lieberman, director of the State Education and Environment Roundtable. The roundtable is a nonprofit group originally developed by 16 state departments of education to enhance environmental education in schools. According to Cal/EPA, the state has paid Lieberman’s organization nearly $2.4 million between 2004 and 2010 for consulting. Lieberman said the state gave him discretion over whether to include editorial suggestions and comments from outside sources in the curriculum copy. “I had total control, really, about what comments I accepted or didn’t accept,” he said. “Even the ones that came internally. I was happy to have that. It meant I could get it done the way I thought was best.” The first edit of the teachers’ edition had been highly critical of plastic shopping bags. It highlighted the long decomposition rate of the bags and their threat to marine life and ocean health. That information remains in the text. A letter with the chemistry council’s comments about the 11th-grade curriculum was presented to Lieberman in 2009 as submissions during a nine-month public commenting period. The state received hundreds of comments from a variety of groups, including private individuals, environmental organizations, and other agencies within the state and federal governments. “We made numerous changes in various EEI (Education and the Environment Initiative curriculum) units during and as a result of multiple stages in the review process,” Lieberman said. “I never made changes to the text anywhere, in any of the units, that I didn’t see as improving the educational value of the materials, or I would not have made the changes.” Lieberman incorporated nearly all of the trade group’s suggestions into the teachers’ edition, which provides the context and lesson plan for the course. The 11th-grade course is entitled, “Mass Production, Marketing, and Consumption in the Roaring Twenties.” Lieberman added the section on the benefits of plastic bags, after the chemistry council complained in a letter: “To counteract what is perceived as an exclusively negative positioning of plastic bags issues, we recommend adding a section here entitled ‘Benefits of Plastic Shopping Bags.’ ” He also removed a mention of plastic bags as “litter” in the teachers’ edition after the trade group’s representative complained. “To be clear,” wrote the Ogilvy executive, “plastic bags don’t start as litter; they become litter. …” Now, when the word litter appears in the text, it is prefaced with “can become” or is used as a verb. Lieberman also changed key statistics in the text to reflect the American Chemistry Council’s preferred numbers. Citing a passage in the original version, which showed that Americans recycled only about 1 percent of plastic bags, Thomas recommended using numbers from a 2007 U.S. EPA report on municipal waste. According to Thomas, that report showed that nearly 12 percent of plastic bags and film are recycled annually. The report does indicate that certain kinds of plastic bags, wraps and films are recycled at around 12 percent. But when all types of plastic bags, wraps and films produced in the United States are included, only about 9 percent were recycled in 2007. Murray, of Californians Against Waste, said a better and more accurate figure – one that only looks at plastic shopping bags – is from the state, which in 2009 reported a 3 percent recycling rate. The environmental curriculum nevertheless now includes the 12 percent recycling rate suggested by the chemistry council. Mark Gold, president of Heal the Bay, a Santa Monica group that pushed for an environmental curriculum in California schools, said: &quot;I’m not happy with the language in the unit, but the state followed the process, and the process was designed to ensure that the units were accurate, factual instead of dogmatic, and were consistent with state standard.&quot; Researchers find harm to marine life The chemistry council claims that plastic bags are not a “two-plus-two problem with only one correct answer.” By rewriting the curriculum, the lobbying group was attempting to suggest there was a legitimate debate about the harm caused by plastic bags to the environment. But the issue is straightforward, said Wallace J. Nichols, a researcher with the California Academy of Sciences who has studied the effect of plastic debris on sea turtles: Plastic bags, which are made from high-density polyethylene, are harmful. “Plastic shouldn’t be inside a sea turtle’s stomach. It is not good,” Nichols said. “I don’t know what kind of balance you add to that statement. The plastic takes up space that should be occupied by food.” In June, a team of researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography reported that 9 percent of fish collected from the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” – a gyre of plastic debris, estimated to be larger than the state of Texas, swirling in the middle of the Pacific Ocean – had plastic in their stomachs. “Industry would like us to focus on the functions and conveniences of plastic bags and ignore the costs,” Nichols said. “I think it’s getting harder and harder to ignore the costs. I think we’re at a tipping point.” The National Geographic Society, which provided consultation, maps and visuals to the entire K-12 curriculum text, was not aware of the trade group’s edits, according to a spokeswoman. “National Geographic did not have a role in final editorial decisions,” said Mimi Koumanelis. According to the state, slightly more than $200,000 has been donated to print and deliver the curriculum to California public schools. Donors included the Sempra Energy Foundation and First Republic Bank. The Packard Foundation and Seventh Generation, a green-products manufacturer, provided nearly $300,000 to curriculum development. State officials said any errors found in the text would be corrected in future versions. “Is it perfect? No,” said Ehlers, the Cal/EPA assistant secretary. “We think it is excellent given the process.” Others worry about the influence of profit-driven corporate lobbyists over public education. “It’s like church and state. It wouldn’t be OK for a religious society to influence public school textbooks. So, is it OK for the private sector to influence education?” said Ellen Wright, an educational consultant who helped spearhead the project. “I don’t think private interest is the way to go.” http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12772/section/wire/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheErieWire/~3/ttfYdEHA938/ http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12767/section/wire/#comments Tue, 30 Aug 2011 00:57:38 +0000 eriewire@gmail.com (The Erie Wire) http://www.eriewire.org/?p=12767 Iowa is ground zero for undercover investigations of livestock facilities by animal rights activists. It is also the first of four states to try to ban them. 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It is also the first of four states to try to ban them. One former investigator goes public for the first time to offer a rare glimpse at how these videos are made, and what&#039;s at stake for farmers, animals and consumers. Produced by Vanessa Carr and Carl Nasman for The Ration Iowa is ground zero for undercover investigations of livestock facilities by animal rights activists. It is also the first of four states to try to ban them. One former investigator goes public for the first time to offer a rare glimpse at how these videos are made, and what&#039;s at stake for farmers, animals and consumers. http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12767/section/wire/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheErieWire/~3/Hx4evnwemmY/ http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12761/section/wire/#comments Mon, 29 Aug 2011 23:29:06 +0000 eriewire@gmail.com (The Erie Wire) http://www.eriewire.org/?p=12761 Living “off the grid” may conjure images of counter-culture hippies or the old-fashioned ways of the Amish, but there’s a growing movement of people who generate their own electricity and live in the lap of luxury without ever paying a utility bill. 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Correspondent Patty Kim meets some of the estimated 180,000 families across North America using clean energy technology to become self-sufficient and enjoy all the comforts of modern life, off the grid. VIDEO: Taking Charge: Living Off-Grid by energyNOW! [ASSURAS] Welcome back. If you&#039;re not watching &quot;energyNOW!&quot; on a mobile device, you&#039;ve got the TV or computer on, right? Maybe the A/C is cranked up in your home as well to keep you cool. Maybe you&#039;ve got something else plugged in and running. As we&#039;ve been saying, all those devices pull power from the grid, for the most part, but there are some people who shun utility companies and produce their own power. &quot;energyNOW!&quot;&#039;s Patty Kim discovered some unlikely places where people are taking charge and living &quot;off the grid.&quot; [TEXT ON SCREEN] takingCHARGE [KIM] When you&#039;re as plugged-in as this... you&#039;d think the electricity bill would go through the roof. But this homeowner never pays an electric bill, ever. [TEXT ON SCREEN] Ontario, Canada [KIM] That&#039;s because Bill Kemp has his very own power supply -- a system of solar panels that keeps his home, located just outside Ottawa, Canada, running just like yours and mine. It&#039;s called living &quot;off the grid.&quot; Yep, that means Bill Kemp doesn&#039;t rely on electricity from any utility company to power his home. He&#039;s completely independent. Now, when you hear the words &quot;off-gridder,&quot; what&#039;s the first thing that comes to mind? I&#039;m betting you didn&#039;t picture this. I got to be honest, I honestly thought -- I pictured a guy out in the woods, kind of like that, frying a raccoon over a Bunsen burner. Bill, an energy consultant and best-selling author of &quot;The Renewable Energy Handbook,&quot; and his wife Lorraine, are one of an estimated 180,000 families living in off-grid homes in North America today. So this is going to be my first taste of a solar-brewed cup of cappuccino. Bill&#039;s journey began on the grid. He and Lorraine wanted to move, but they found out it would cost a small fortune to bring electric lines in, so they decided instead to invest that money into building a new home, off the grid. [TEXT ON SCREEN] Bill Kemp. LIVES OFF THE GRID [KEMP] Well, a lot of people thought that we were just plain crazy. Lorraine was very supportive. Her question was, &quot;Can I still run my hairdryer?&quot; I said, &quot;Absolutely, I guarantee that.&quot; [KIM] That was 20 years ago and they&#039;ve never looked back. Two large rotating solar arrays track the Sun every 90 seconds, each array generating over 1,000 watts of energy, enough to run a large appliance. How do you go from the Sun, billions of miles away, how does that thing run your hairdryer in the morning? [KEMP] Okay, well, it&#039;s really very simple. The sunlight comes in and hits these photovoltaic panels. These are like great big integrated circuits on steroids. [KIM] The sunlight charges a bank of batteries in Bill&#039;s basement, feeds into an inverter, a device that converts the energy into normal household power, then flows through the home. [KEMP] And then into your electrical devices -- the hairdryer. [KIM] Long after the Sun goes down, the charged batteries keep the lights on, and anything else Bill needs, well into the night. On a cloudy day, a 1,500-watt wind turbine picks up the slack. And in case of Armageddon or a spell of gray skies and no wind, a backup half-biodiesel, half-diesel generator kicks in to charge up the batteries. [KEMP] It would be pretty tough to lose power here. [KIM] Oh, and did I mention this living off the grid is pretty low-maintenance? All Bill has to do is pour distilled water into the batteries about two to three times a year. My uncle gets a colonoscopy more often than you check your batteries, okay? Bill&#039;s nearest neighbors are about a half a mile away, and a heck of a lot farther if you&#039;re looking for a fellow off-gridder, but here in central Oregon, believe it or not, there&#039;s an entire community that&#039;s off the grid. [TEXT ON SCREEN] Culver, OR [KIM] This is the Three Rivers Recreational Area, a one-of-a-kind gated community made up of about 300 off-grid homes, everything from million-dollar mansions to trailers. A solar-run fire hall. Heck, there&#039;s even a solar-powered yurt, a traditional Mongolian house. [TEXT ON SCREEN] To see more of this solar powered yurt go to energynow.com [KIM] This is bigger than my apartment in D.C., and I would say maybe a little nicer. So, Delores, do you ever just look around here and just go, &quot;Oh, my gosh, my husband and I started this whole thing&quot;? [DOLORES STILLS, CO-FOUNDER. THREE RIVERS] Yeah, sometimes, yeah, I do. Sometimes I&#039;m proud, and sometimes I think, &quot;Oh, what a monster!&quot; [KIM] Delores Stills and her late husband, Doug, pioneered this community. They purchased the nearly 4,000 acres of land in the late 1960s, made it into a campground with individual lots for sale. Back then, being off the grid wasn&#039;t a choice. [LORNE STILLS, MARINA MANAGER, THREE RIVERS] There was no power here. We had propane lights that put out about as much light as a cigarette lighter. [KIM] This is the original cabin built by Lorne&#039;s father. Lorne and his mom now live on the grid in a nearby town. They haven&#039;t laid eyes on this cabin for 20 years, until now. [LORRAINE STILLS] Oh, my goodness! [LORNE STILLS] Holy cow. [LORRAINE STILLS] This is different. [KIM] It was here Lorne&#039;s father tinkered with 12-volt lights and experimented with wind power. By the late 1970s, this off-grid community was flourishing, but for real-estate agent Elaine Budden, it wasn&#039;t exactly love at first sight. [BUDDEN] I mean, I&#039;m hardly city-slick, but it was like, holy smoke! [KIM] Eventually, Elaine came around. [BUDDEN] The peace and quiet, the stars at night, the wildlife -- it got to the point where we thought, you know, we could make this work. [KIM] She and her husband David moved into the area 17 years ago. They settled into a prefab home they&#039;d expanded, connected it to water, and wired it to a modest 800-watt solar system. [BUDDEN] There&#039;s nothing we do not have here. Wireless Internet, washer/dryer, refrigeration -- we have everything. [KIM] But if you can&#039;t live without your soy no-foam latte, then this lifestyle might not be your cup of tea. You are 25 miles from the nearest Starbucks or supermarket and you can&#039;t order in pizza. For Elaine and her fellow off-gridders in Canada... [MAN] Here you go, babe. [KIM] It&#039;s a small price to pay for a life unplugged. In other words, the good life. In Ontario, Canada, Patty Kim, &quot;energyNOW!&quot; [ASSURAS] Bill and Lorraine Kemp say their getting off the grid had its upfront cost -- about $40,000 worth. For other homeowners, the cost really depends on how much electricity you think you need to live comfortably. http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12761/section/wire/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheErieWire/~3/8gKDDTDpnHw/ http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12758/section/wire/#comments Mon, 29 Aug 2011 23:11:47 +0000 eriewire@gmail.com (The Erie Wire) http://www.eriewire.org/?p=12758 Solutions by NOOR is the second part of our climate change project. We focused on human stories about alternative power sources, renewable energies, and attempts to alleviate, adjust or cope with the rise of global temperatures. 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We focused on human stories about alternative power sources, renewable energies, and attempts to alleviate, adjust or cope with the rise of global temperatures. [NOOR in this installation showcases the brilliant solutions being practiced globally to fuel energy demand.] Solutions by NOOR is the second part of our climate change project. We focused on human stories about alternative power sources, renewable energies, and attempts to alleviate, adjust or cope with the rise of global temperatures. [NOOR in this installation showcases the brilliant solutions being practiced globally to fuel energy demand.] http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12758/section/wire/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheErieWire/~3/tJtCnZbpwoA/ http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12727/section/wire/#comments Thu, 18 Aug 2011 17:34:01 +0000 eriewire@gmail.com (The Erie Wire) http://www.eriewire.org/?p=12727 A liquid concoction, often laced with toxic chemicals, is a central villain in the controversy over extracting natural gas by fracturing rock beneath the earth’s surface. Opponents fear this fracking fluid may foul water supplies, endangering human health and the environment. Adapting, the industry is responding to public concern. Giant energy services company Halliburton, in a safety demonstration at an August 3 industry conference in Colorado, had an employee demonstrate just how palatable fracking fluid can be. He drank it.<div class="crp_related"><h3><i>Related Posts:</i></h3><ul><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/11183/section/wire/" class="crp_title">Democrats New Report on Hydraulic Fracturing Highlights&hellip;</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/11873/section/wire/" class="crp_title">EWG Sponsors California Bill to Disclose Fracking Fluid&hellip;</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/10421/section/wire/" class="crp_title">EPA Proposes New Study on Hydraulic Fracturing &#038; Its&hellip;</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/10215/section/wire/" class="crp_title">Environmental Working Group (EWG) Renews Drinking Water&hellip;</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12688/section/wire/" class="crp_title">1987 EPA Report Provides Evidence for Water Contamination&hellip;</a></li></ul></div><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=tJtCnZbpwoA:mvXi2Dev2fQ:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=tJtCnZbpwoA:mvXi2Dev2fQ:YwkR-u9nhCs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=YwkR-u9nhCs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=tJtCnZbpwoA:mvXi2Dev2fQ:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=tJtCnZbpwoA:mvXi2Dev2fQ:KwTdNBX3Jqk"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=tJtCnZbpwoA:mvXi2Dev2fQ:KwTdNBX3Jqk" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=tJtCnZbpwoA:mvXi2Dev2fQ:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=tJtCnZbpwoA:mvXi2Dev2fQ:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=tJtCnZbpwoA:mvXi2Dev2fQ:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=tJtCnZbpwoA:mvXi2Dev2fQ:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=tJtCnZbpwoA:mvXi2Dev2fQ:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=tJtCnZbpwoA:mvXi2Dev2fQ:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=tJtCnZbpwoA:mvXi2Dev2fQ:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=tJtCnZbpwoA:mvXi2Dev2fQ:-BTjWOF_DHI"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=tJtCnZbpwoA:mvXi2Dev2fQ:-BTjWOF_DHI" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=tJtCnZbpwoA:mvXi2Dev2fQ:63t7Ie-LG7Y"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=tJtCnZbpwoA:mvXi2Dev2fQ:dnMXMwOfBR0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheErieWire/~4/tJtCnZbpwoA" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12727/section/wire/feed/ 0 The Investigative NewswireA liquid concoction, often laced with toxic chemicals, is a central villain in the controversy over extracting natural gas by fracturing rock beneath the earth’s surface. Opponents fear this fracking fluid may foul water supplies, endangering human health and the environment. Adapting, the industry is responding to public concern. Giant energy services company Halliburton, in a safety demonstration at an August 3 industry conference in Colorado, had an employee demonstrate just how palatable fracking fluid can be. He drank it.[caption id=&quot;attachment_12731&quot; align=&quot;alignright&quot; width=&quot;265&quot; caption=&quot;CleanStim fracturing service uses a new fracturing formulation made with ingredients sourced from the food industry.* Haliburton&quot;][/caption] Federal fracking response could be years away While environmentalists expect little from Obama or Congress, industry advertises safety by having Halliburton worker swallow new fracking fluid By Evan Bush for iwatch news A liquid concoction, often laced with toxic chemicals, is a central villain in the controversy over extracting natural gas by fracturing rock beneath the earth’s surface. Opponents fear this fracking fluid may foul water supplies, endangering human health and the environment. Adapting, the industry is responding to public concern. Giant energy services company Halliburton, in a safety demonstration at an August 3 industry conference in Colorado, had an employee demonstrate just how palatable fracking fluid can be. He drank it. But the formula was different this time, the company says – more environmentally friendly because it is made from ingredients used by the food industry, including sweeteners found in chocolate, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, and part of recipes for baby wipes and shampoos. Totally safe , says Halliburton spokesperson Tara Mullee Agard – though “not intended for human consumption.” To some, it may be surprising that companies are responding at all. Even if the formula turns out to be more of a public relations ploy than a fix, the industry expects little meaningful resistance from Washington. For all the furor over fracking, opponents’ best hopes for action appear to be many months if not years away. Business is gaining so much momentum – and the political anti-regulatory mood so pervasive – that analysts foresee few barriers to growth. While some states and local governments are aggressively setting up safeguards and barriers to the industry, the Obama administration – under pressure from Republicans and slowed by the bureaucratic process itself – is moving slowly to study or craft new rules. Energy analysts told iWatch News that a spate of recent scrutiny and criticism – along with recent recommendations from an Energy Department advisory panel calling for more disclosure of the chemicals used in fracking, as well as better protection of air and water nearby – have had little impact on the industry’s prospects. “This is not going to derail the industry. The industry is still big and growing,” said Fadel Gheit , an analyst with Oppenheimer &amp; Co. The resistance of environmental groups is only “going to put a [temporary] hurdle in front of them,” he added. As if to underscore the industry’s self-assurance, Halliburton came up with the new way to counter perceptions that the solution of chemicals used in fracking is necessarily toxic and could jeopardize drinking water supplies. Another energy field services company has added citrus scents to its fracking formula. Halliburton&#039;s industry advertising cautions that CleanStim, the new fracking fluid swigged by the employee at the conference, is &quot;designed for downhole use, not dinner tables.&quot; Fracking, also known as hydraulic fracturing, is used to tap previously unreachable deposits of natural gas in the earth. Sand, water and chemicals are pumped into shale formations to release and then capture the gas. Critics say fracking could be tainting groundwater, killing wildlife and asiWatch News has reported, giving off methane gas that contributes to global warming . But the drilling technique evolved outside the bounds of existing regulation, and federal, state and local authorities are only beginning to weigh possible rules to apply to the industry. Several federal agencies that could limit fracking are expected to study the issues for many more months; even if the administration decides on a course of action, federal officials confirmed to iWatch News , the rule-making process could drag on for many months if not years. The Department of Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Forest Service, part of the Agriculture Department, all could have a hand in regulation of fracking. Thus far, none of the agencies has indicated they have plans to move in that direction, though EPA spokesperson Betsaida Alcantara said the agency “will not hesitate to take any steps under the law to protect Americans whose health may be at risk.” An EPA study of water quality issues won’t be finished until 2012. A proposed EPA rule , which could limit air pollution as a result of drilling and won’t be final until next February, doesn’t address groundwater contamination, a chief concern of many environmental groups. Congress in 2005 made the chemicals used in fracking exempt from disclosure because they have been considered trade secrets. Department of Interior spokesman Adam Fetcher said officials were working with representatives from industry and public interest groups to make sure natural gas on public lands “is developed in a safe and environmentally sustainable manner.” &#039;Only so much administration can do&#039; Environmentalists cheered when the Forest Service in May proposed banning fracking in George Washington National Forest, in Western Virginia, but Joel Holtrop, deputy chief of the national forest system, said the agency has no plans for a wider-ranging limit. “We don&#039;t have a policy or any plans to make a policy that would ban horizontal drilling or hydraulic fracturing.” Earlier this month, an Energy Department advisory committee called for tougher standards on air pollution and greenhouse gases associated with fracking, disclosure of the potentially carcinogenic ingredients in fracking fluid, as well as better tracking and disposal of waste and curtailing the use of diesel fuel from the fluid. “The public deserves assurance that the full economic, environmental and energy security benefits of shale gas development will be realized without sacrificing public health, environmental protection and safety,” said the report , prepared by a subcommittee reporting to Energy Secretary Steven Chu. While the Energy Department doesn’t regulate fracking or the environment, the report appeared to give a boost to environmental groups, who have been trying to put pressure on national leaders, including Obama. Nonprofit environmental law firm Earthjustice, supported by dozens of other organizations, petitioned the EPA two weeks ago, urging further study of the chemicals used in the process and their toxicity. Last Monday, a number of green groups demanded that Obama &quot;employ any legal means to put a halt to hydraulic fracturing&quot; on federal lands. Employees for environmental groups, in interviews with iWatch News , acknowledged the president’s limitations. &quot;There&#039;s only so much the administration can do,&quot; said Kyle Ash, a lobbyist at Greenpeace, among the organizations urging Obama to halt fracking. Fracking opponents’ expectations center more on piecemeal victories – for instance, rejection of specific requests for permission to drill on federal land. That’s “one thing the administration can do right now,” Ash noted. “Anytime there&#039;s a federal permit required, they could put a halt on it.” The government also could prevent companies from drilling on lands owned by the federal government, much as it did with exploratory drilling following the Deepwater Horizon incident. But even a full-scale moratorium would affect only a small percentage of the nation’s total natural gas output. Most fracking takes place on lands where the federal government has little or no jurisdiction. As of 2009, about 13 percent of the nation’s onshore natural gas was drilled on federal lands, according to the Bureau of Land Management. About 90 percent of that was a result of fracking. Election-year politics and resistance of many Republicans in Congress to regulations, especially involving the EPA, also suggests substantial inaction on fracking. Michael A. Levi , who specializes in energy and environment at the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan foreign policy think tank, anticipates little movement on the issue in Washington. “We&#039;re very unlikely to see a situation where regulators can do anything beyond the current authority, which is pretty limited,” said Levi. Industry sees no reason for ban Obama has been a prime backer of natural gas, which he endorsed most visibly during this year’s State of the Union address . The president has acknowledged environmental and safety concerns but says drilling can be done safely. At an April town hall , for instance, Obama noted that the technologies for extracting natural gas “aren’t as developed as we’d like and so there are some concerns that it might create pollution in our groundwater, for example. So we’ve got to make sure that if we’re going to do it, we do it in a way that doesn’t poison people.” Natural gas production, touted as a “bridge” fuel to alternative energy, has risen significantly. In Pennsylvania, drilling in the Marcellus shale region, which is one of the most prominent in the country, has risen exponentially. In 2005 according to a report commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute , just three wells were drilled. In 2009, that number rose to 710. The Energy Information Administration has predicted that shale gas, which fracking produces, will account for 47 percent of total U.S. natural gas consumption by 2035, nearly three times its level now. Earthjustice’s petition urging the EPA to require companies to divulge the chemicals they use could itself be tied up in the bureaucracy for some time. The EPA has 90 days to respond, and then would have to go through the lengthy process of a rulemaking. &quot;Typically, rulemakings take a couple of years, minimum,” acknowledged Deborah Goldberg, the Earthjustice attorney who authored the petition. “Still, it’s better than anything we’ve got right now.” The industry portrays concerns as overblown. “Natural gas is produced safely and responsibly every single day. We have an outstanding safety track record,” said Dan Whitten a spokesperson for America’s Natural Gas Alliance , a trade organization. “There would be no legitimate reason for a moratorium.” Whitten said there have been isolated incidents of surface spills, but that their impact has been minimal. The industry is responsible with its byproducts, including fracking wastewater, he added. “No production of energy resources is without risk. There are risks associated with natural gas development just like any other form of energy. When you balance the risks against the development of gas, those risks are minor.” Whitten and Devon Energy spokesman Chip Minty pointed to the website www.fracfocus.org – labeled as a “chemical disclosure registry” – as proof the industry was working toward public disclosure of fracking fluid chemicals. Conclusive evidence that fracking poses a danger has been elusive. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has said she didn’t know of any proof that fracking is harmful to water supplies . Critics point to anecdotal evidence that suggests otherwise. In particular, a 1987 report from the agency contradicts the current administration’s claims and has given ammunition to critics’ case. So far, most of the action has been in some states. New York state is currently under a temporary moratorium as regulators develop a plan for safe fracking . The New Jersey legislature has voted to ban fracking , though the bill has not been signed by Governor Christie. Pennsylvania, a hotbed for fracking, recently released a 96-point list of health and safety recommendations known as theMarcellus Shale Report . Environmental organizations said they are taking it step by step. “It isn’t as much or as fast as we’d like,” said Amy Mall, a policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council , “but it’s clear policies are changing at the state level.” DV.load(&#039;http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/235848-haliburton-cleanstim-fracking-water.js&#039;, { width: 600, height: 700, sidebar: false, container: &quot;#DV-viewer-235848-haliburton-cleanstim-fracking-water&quot; }); http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12727/section/wire/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheErieWire/~3/HkMZC7LJQBI/ http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12707/section/wire/#comments Sun, 14 Aug 2011 20:56:01 +0000 eriewire@gmail.com (The Erie Wire) http://www.eriewire.org/?p=12707 Coal ash is the waste leftover at the end of the coal burning cycle. It’s laced with the same arsenic, mercury, lead and other toxics. It’s the second largest waste stream in America—15 billion tons of toxic sludge per year. And here’s the dirty little secret: it’s subject to less regulation than the garbage you take to the curb every week. <div class="crp_related"><h3><i>Related Posts:</i></h3><ul><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/11731/section/wire/" class="crp_title">Hazardous Classification of Coal Ash Tabled by EPA: Industry</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/10956/section/wire/" class="crp_title">Coal Ash Products Unsafe According to EPA&#8217;s Recent&hellip;</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/10457/section/wire/" class="crp_title">Spending Bill Prompts Republican Attack on EPA Proposal for&hellip;</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/9079/section/wire/" class="crp_title">New Documentary &#8220;Dirty Business&#8221; Investigates&hellip;</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/11467/section/wire/" class="crp_title">Coal Production Grows as Economy Improves</a></li></ul></div><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=HkMZC7LJQBI:8e3VdWVzFWE:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=HkMZC7LJQBI:8e3VdWVzFWE:YwkR-u9nhCs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=YwkR-u9nhCs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=HkMZC7LJQBI:8e3VdWVzFWE:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=HkMZC7LJQBI:8e3VdWVzFWE:KwTdNBX3Jqk"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=HkMZC7LJQBI:8e3VdWVzFWE:KwTdNBX3Jqk" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=HkMZC7LJQBI:8e3VdWVzFWE:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=HkMZC7LJQBI:8e3VdWVzFWE:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=HkMZC7LJQBI:8e3VdWVzFWE:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=HkMZC7LJQBI:8e3VdWVzFWE:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=HkMZC7LJQBI:8e3VdWVzFWE:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=HkMZC7LJQBI:8e3VdWVzFWE:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=HkMZC7LJQBI:8e3VdWVzFWE:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=HkMZC7LJQBI:8e3VdWVzFWE:-BTjWOF_DHI"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=HkMZC7LJQBI:8e3VdWVzFWE:-BTjWOF_DHI" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=HkMZC7LJQBI:8e3VdWVzFWE:63t7Ie-LG7Y"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=HkMZC7LJQBI:8e3VdWVzFWE:dnMXMwOfBR0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheErieWire/~4/HkMZC7LJQBI" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12707/section/wire/feed/ 0 The Investigative NewswireCoal ash is the waste leftover at the end of the coal burning cycle. It’s laced with the same arsenic, mercury, lead and other toxics. It’s the second largest waste stream in America—15 billion tons of toxic sludge per year. And here’s the dirty little secret: it’s subject to less regulation than the garbage you take to the curb every week. An Ill Wind Blows in Moapa by Chris Jordan-Bloch for Earth Justice [caption id=&quot;attachment_12711&quot; align=&quot;alignright&quot; width=&quot;300&quot; caption=&quot;Locomotives over the ash pit at the roundhouse and coaling station at the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad yards, Chicago, Ill. photo: Delano, Jack (flickr commons) © 1942&quot;][/caption] It starts with a warning. Then it&#039;s just a matter of which way the wind blows. In the evening, someone will go from house to house and tell the neighborhood that tomorrow will be a windy day and perhaps, a bad air day. The next afternoon—if the conditions are just wrong—a toxic dust called coal ash picks up from the landfills and slag ponds of the coal-fired Reid Gardner Power Station and heads towards the reservation like a sandstorm. &quot;But this is a sandstorm that burns your skin, buries in your lungs and kills your neighbors,&quot; says Calvin Meyers, a tribal elder who lives on the reservation, the tribal home of a band of Paiute Indians that sits about 30 miles north of Las Vegas and about 300 yards from Reid Gardner. Meyers and the remaining 310 members of his tribe are locked in a David-and-Goliath struggle against one power plant&#039;s desire to expand and an industry&#039;s desire to keep a dirty secret. It’s no secret that coal is our dirtiest energy source. It’s laced with mercury, arsenic, lead and other toxics and as it’s burned it creates huge problems for our health. All across America, these contaminants billow out of smokestacks and spill out of wastewater pipes right into our lungs and drinking water. Let’s call this the front door. Now, if this is what big coal is taking out the front door, the next logical question is what are they taking out the back? The answer: coal ash. Coal ash is the waste leftover at the end of the coal burning cycle. It’s laced with the same arsenic, mercury, lead and other toxics. It’s the second largest waste stream in America—15 billion tons of toxic sludge per year. And here’s the dirty little secret: it’s subject to less regulation than the garbage you take to the curb every week. It sits in unlined pits in Moapa and unlined landfills in Alabama. It&#039;s put behind old leaky dams in Pennsylvania. It basically goes wherever big coal says it will. And where it goes, people get sick. “I can taste the salts of it coming into my mouth and sometimes when I sweat my skin burns,” said Meyers, who I met on my first day in Moapa. He introduced me to people who told similar stories of health problems. “I’ve had a sore throat for six months,” said Eunice Ohte, a tribal elder who is one of several women on the reservation with hyperthyroidism. &quot;I never had asthma until I moved here and now I have to use an inhaler,” said Deanna Domingo who moved onto the reservation a few years ago. “I used to have an incredible memory and now I’m having trouble remembering simple things,” said former Tribal Chairman Vernon Lee. &quot;I’ve always been healthy, and now my heart has been constantly racing for several months,” said Vickie Simmons. “For years I didn&#039;t even know what it was that was blowing from the plant onto the reservation,&quot; she added. &quot;Once we learned what coal ash was and what&#039;s in it, well that&#039;s when we stood up and said &#039;No.&#039;&quot; &nbsp; Simmons and I went on a hike to a mesa that overlooks the plant and some of the homes on the reservation. While we were standing there, a cloud of coal ash picked up from one of the dry slag ponds. It billowed out to about the size of a large house and then it traveled a few hundred yards before settling back down. &nbsp; “Oh my God,” I said. &nbsp; “That’s nothing,” Vickie told me. “That sort of stuff is pretty much constant. On the bad days, you have to run for your house because it takes over the whole place.” &nbsp; Reid Gardner has announced that it wants to expand the coal ash landfill and waste ponds for the plant, and the people of the Moapa River Reservation have voiced their disapproval of the idea. &nbsp; But actions often speak louder than words. &nbsp; The next day I went with Simmons to her new job. Twice a week she heads into the desert about 5 miles from her house and checks a meter that measures the sun’s intensity. The tribe is about to become the first in America to install a large-scale solar plant and Simmons is the first worker in their new “Green Energy” program. The deep, dark irony of the Paiutes&#039; situation is that none of their power comes from the Reid Gardner coal plant. So they get all of the problems and none of the benefits. Rather than dwell on this sad fact, the tribe is seeking a new way forward, one that moves past dirty coal. “What we’ve got is land and sun, and we are tired just sitting here and taking pollution from this plant,” said William Anderson, tribal chairman of the Moapa Band of Paiutes. “So we’re gonna go ahead and do something about it. To go ahead and have a solar project is to say, ‘Hey, there are alternative ways.’” As the sun set at the future solar plant, Simmons climbed a ladder and took her readings. The shadows from the desert plants grew long and for the first time since I’d been on the reservation I couldn’t see or hear the Reid Gardner plant. Simmons climbed down from the ladder and a few minutes later we saw a hawk fly overhead. I couldn’t help but think what a brighter alternative this was. “I just feel like the Indian people are here for a reason,” Simmons later said to me. “Maybe it’s to try to help do what we can to preserve the environment.” A note of appreciation: Many thanks to the Moapa Band of Paiutes for allowing us to tell this story and to Vinny Spotleson of the Sierra Club and Dan Galpern of the Western Environmental Law Center for helping with the project. To see a short film about the situation in Moapa, please visit:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL49Ibc0L88 To view an interactive presentation of the story, please visit: http://earthjustice.org/illwind To learn more about coal ash, please visit: http://earthjustice.org/coalash http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12707/section/wire/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheErieWire/~3/FcYS5FxDO6A/ http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12667/section/wire/#comments Tue, 09 Aug 2011 10:45:22 +0000 eriewire@gmail.com (The Erie Wire) http://www.eriewire.org/?p=12667 Researchers at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, England, recorded a case of a leptin-deficient girl who ate enormous meals and constantly demanded snacks. After a year of leptin treatment, she lost weight and reported that she no longer felt constantly hungry. Berridge called leptin-deficient people “proof of the logical possibility that something like a food addiction exists.” <div class="crp_related"><h3><i>Related Posts:</i></h3><ul><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/9942/section/wire/" class="crp_title">Study Finds Many Toxic Chemicals in Pregnant Women</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/11673/section/wire/" class="crp_title">Freedom of Information Filed to USDA by Environmental&hellip;</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/9397/section/wire/" class="crp_title">Expert Studies Ghostwritten by Drug Company</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/11664/blog/community-blog/" class="crp_title">Taking Back Control: Slaying the Price of Food</a></li><li><a href="http://www.eriewire.org/archives/9374/section/agriculture/" class="crp_title">Joel Salatin Speaks About &#8220;The Food Safety Bill&#8221;</a></li></ul></div><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=FcYS5FxDO6A:nmsh8ASTUXw:yIl2AUoC8zA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=FcYS5FxDO6A:nmsh8ASTUXw:YwkR-u9nhCs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=YwkR-u9nhCs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=FcYS5FxDO6A:nmsh8ASTUXw:qj6IDK7rITs"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=FcYS5FxDO6A:nmsh8ASTUXw:KwTdNBX3Jqk"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=FcYS5FxDO6A:nmsh8ASTUXw:KwTdNBX3Jqk" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=FcYS5FxDO6A:nmsh8ASTUXw:V_sGLiPBpWU"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=FcYS5FxDO6A:nmsh8ASTUXw:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=FcYS5FxDO6A:nmsh8ASTUXw:7Q72WNTAKBA"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=FcYS5FxDO6A:nmsh8ASTUXw:F7zBnMyn0Lo"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=FcYS5FxDO6A:nmsh8ASTUXw:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=FcYS5FxDO6A:nmsh8ASTUXw:gIN9vFwOqvQ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=FcYS5FxDO6A:nmsh8ASTUXw:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=FcYS5FxDO6A:nmsh8ASTUXw:-BTjWOF_DHI"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?i=FcYS5FxDO6A:nmsh8ASTUXw:-BTjWOF_DHI" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=FcYS5FxDO6A:nmsh8ASTUXw:63t7Ie-LG7Y"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=63t7Ie-LG7Y" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?a=FcYS5FxDO6A:nmsh8ASTUXw:dnMXMwOfBR0"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/TheErieWire?d=dnMXMwOfBR0" border="0"></img></a> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheErieWire/~4/FcYS5FxDO6A" height="1" width="1"/> http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12667/section/wire/feed/ 0 The Investigative NewswireResearchers at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, England, recorded a case of a leptin-deficient girl who ate enormous meals and constantly demanded snacks. After a year of leptin treatment, she lost weight and reported that she no longer felt constantly hungry. Berridge called leptin-deficient people “proof of the logical possibility that something like a food addiction exists.” THE SCIENCE OF FOOD ADDICTION Can a doughnut act like a drug? By Rebecca Wolfson and Anja Strejcek for The Ration [caption id=&quot;attachment_12685&quot; align=&quot;alignright&quot; width=&quot;300&quot; caption=&quot;Customers eating herring in the traditional Dutch way. The Netherlands, Rotterdam, 1937 Collectie Spaarnestad. photo: flickr (The Commons)&quot;][/caption] Jan, the vice president of a public relations firm, tried everything she could think of to lose weight. The 58-year-old, who declined to share her full name, tried the traditional route with various diets, including Weight Watchers. She also tried more extreme techniques, such as demanding that her husband threaten her with divorce if she did not lose weight. None of it worked. Then in 2003, she found herself in the hospital with a life-threatening blood clot in her leg, which doctors said was the result of her obesity. She survived the clot, but it did not cure her of the desire to eat until she was full—and then eat some more. While recovering from surgery at home in Sacramento, Calif., she continued to sneak food. “I was like an alcoholic,” she said. “I couldn’t stop.” As soon as her family left the house, she said she would crawl downstairs and binge on anything she could find. It was not until months later, when she called herself a “food addict” aloud and in front of other people for the first time, that she began to recover control of her eating. In recent years, some scientific research has suggested that food can be addictive, much like drugs or alcohol. But the term “food addiction” and the notion that humans could be addicted to something they need for survival is controversial among health experts. UNDERSTANDING SO-CALLED “FOOD ADDICTION” There is no scientific consensus on how the term “food addiction” should be defined, or whether the medical community should consider food an addictive substance at all. The Food Addiction Institute, a non-profit organization that tracks research in the field, defines food addiction as a chemical dependence caused by changes in the brain in reaction to the biochemistry of a specific food, several foods, or volume of food. For a substance to qualify as addictive in the medical profession it must meet certain criteria. The American Medical Association identifies four such criteria for a substance to be considered addictive: bingeing, withdrawal, craving and sensitization. Sensitization means that if you expose an animal to one substance, it will have a heightened neurological response to a second substance. For example, an animal that is already addicted to sugar would have a higher likelihood of becoming addicted to cocaine or another drug of abuse. To date, neither the American Medical Association nor the American Psychological Association has recognized “food addiction” as a disease or psychiatric disorder, which has potential consequences for treatment. Food addiction is not included in the American Psychiatric Association’s current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM IV. However, binge eating disorder, which is characterized by frequent episodes of extreme over-eating, often followed by feelings of guilt, is set to be included in the fifth edition, which will be released in 2013. While a handful of researchers argue that foods, most notably sugar, are addictive, many scientists have chosen to wait for more research on the neurological effects of food on the brain before they embrace the term. Plus, food addiction can stigmatize obese individuals, according to Joseph Frascella, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s Division of Clinical Neuroscience &amp; Behavioral Research. To soften the stigma, health experts have started using the more benign sounding “food and addiction.” “It’s a subtlety,” said Frascella, “but it moves the focus from the individual to the food.” EVIDENCE Regardless of the terminology, an increasing number of scientific studies suggest that food, like drugs or alcohol, can indeed have addictive qualities. The Food Addiction Institute has compiled a bibliography of 2,733 peer-reviewed studies on aspects of food addiction. Human genetic research, animal studies, brain imaging and biochemical studies of the digestive processes all indicate that some people could experience addictions to food. There are more than 70 million food-addicted adults in the U.S. according to estimates by David Kessler, professor of pediatrics epidemiology and biostatistics at UC San Francisco Medical School and a former commissioner of the U.S Food and Drug Administration. Leptin Studies of the hormone leptin present some of the strongest human evidence for food addiction, according to Kent Berridge, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Michigan who has studied how pleasure from food is generated in the brain. Leptin regulates appetite and tells people when they’re full. An extremely small proportion of the population is born without the leptin gene. These people feel as if they are constantly starving. Researchers at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, England, recorded a case of a leptin-deficient girl who ate enormous meals and constantly demanded snacks. After a year of leptin treatment, she lost weight and reported that she no longer felt constantly hungry. Berridge called leptin-deficient people “proof of the logical possibility that something like a food addiction exists.” While very few people are born without the leptin gene, ongoing research indicates that many more could be leptin-resistant. Researchers say leptin therapy, like the therapy that was administered to the leptin-deficient girl, could be a promising treatment for obesity in the future. Pleasure Rewards Dopamine is a neurotransmitter — a chemical messenger — in the brain that is linked to the reward system. In 2001, Gene-Jack Wang, chairman of the Brookhaven National Laboratory Medical Department, and Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, published an influential study in the prominent British medical journal, The Lancet, which examined brain images of obese people. The study found that the brain’s ability to register dopamine was significantly lower in some obese individuals. “We did not expect a result like that,” Wang said. The study suggests that some people might overeat to counterbalance low levels of dopamine, one of the chemicals in the brain linked to pleasure. “Animal studies indicate that most, if not all, drugs of abuse increase levels of dopamine in part of the brain — the reward system, the nucleus accumbens,” Frascella said. “We know that food increases dopamine, too.” When people eat highly palatable—sweet, salty and fat—foods, taste buds in the tongue respond by sending signals to the brain reward circuitry. Studies show that these foods blunt the dopamine receptors in parts of the brain. This means that some people may need to eat more to reach the same level of pleasure, Frascella said. Many subsequent studies have supported the idea that food is physically addictive, including one published in April in The Archives of General Psychiatry. Researchers at Yale University’s Rudd Center for Obesity Research and Policy took brain scans, or MRI’s, of people they deemed to be food addicts through a 25-point questionnaire, and showed them images of a chocolate milkshake. The scientists found that the parts of the brain associated with anticipation and craving were activated by the image. Furthermore, actually tasting a milkshake was associated with decreased activity in the part of the brain that makes people feel full, or stop eating. Paul Johnson and Paul Kenny, neuroscientists at the Scripps Research Institute in Florida, found that rat brains react similarly to junk food as they do to drugs. Their study, published in March 2010 in Nature Neuroscience,involved implanting electrodes in rats’ brains. Some of the rats were given healthy diets, others were given limited amounts of junk food diets, and the last group was given unlimited amounts of junk food. Johnson and Kenny discovered that the rats on junk food diets needed more and more junk food stimulation to reach the same level of pleasure and reward as the rats on healthy diets. THE SKEPTICS Many scientists are reluctant to use the term “food addiction.” Gene-Jack Wang, the author of the 2001 dopamine study, prefers instead to refer to the umbrella terms “food and addiction,” or “refined or processed food addiction.” Barry Levin, an obesity researcher and professor of neurology and neurosciences at New Jersey Medical School, is also wary of the term. While hormones like leptin and insulin impact brain function, imaging studies still don’t prove cause and effect. “People draw conclusions based on the function of the brain, and it’s fairly meaningless as far as I’m concerned,” said Levin. Researchers who study addictive behavior often refer to the decrease of dopamine receptors in the brains of obese individuals, said Levin. “It’s interesting, but doesn’t tell you that’s what drove them to be that way.” “There is this release of chemicals in your brain that may be similar to what you see with cocaine,” said Ronna Kabatznick, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California-San Francisco who thinks that “food addiction” is perhaps too grave a term for the situation. “But you see that with shoppers, with love, in many different circumstances. The question again is: what is the behavioral element? You still have a choice, even though those circuits might be going wild. How are you going to respond to them?” WILLPOWER V. BIOCHEMISTRY Food addiction has nothing to do with willpower, according to Anne Kathrin, a psychologist who has written several books about food addiction. Brain chemistry is always stronger than willpower, and the body’s chemical cravings will always overrule individual resolve. Once the combination of chemical events in the brain is set in motion, a chain reaction takes place, Kathrin says. “Over time the pleasure center of the brain changes so that it requires even more of the substance that triggers it.” Those susceptible to food addiction might start by eating a piece of pie for dessert every day. After a while they want a bigger piece, and then they might want some cookies and ice cream, too. Over time, the addiction grows stronger and they will have to eat more often, says Kathrin. Selena Bartlett is the director of Preclinical Development at the Gallo Center, a University of California San Francisco-affiliated research center that focuses on the impact of addiction on the brain. She says people have as much control over their food addiction as they have over their height. In other words, none. Some people get angry over the term “food addiction” because they feel it gives overeaters an excuse for their behavior. “They will say, ‘I’m not addicted to food, why should you be?” Bartlett said. “I’m not addicted to alcohol, why don’t you say, ‘no’? I just say, ‘no,’ why don’t you say, ‘no?’” Bartlett is in the initial stages of testing a drug that would help people control compulsive eating. In a recent rat study she tested ezlopitant, a drug that blocks the action of substance P, a neurotransmitter that is believed to play a role in the reward system. In the study, rats given ezlopitant showed decreased motivation to consume water sweetened with sugar, water sweetened with saccharin, and an alcohol solution. Other researchers are looking at leptin as a potential therapy for food-addicted people. THE IMPLICATIONS In his book The End of Overeating, former FDA Commissioner David Kessler explains how the food industry creates and markets sweet, salty and fattening food, so that people keep coming back for more. As a society, Kessler writes, “we can identify the forces that drive overeating and find ways to diminish their power with comprehensive labeling, public education campaigns, regulation of marketing and new perspectives on what kinds of behavior are acceptable and appropriate.” Many self-described food addicts end up in 12-step addiction recovery programs modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous. Overeaters Anonymous has about 5,000 weekly meetings across the U.S. Soon after returning from the hospital a friend suggested that Jan join Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous, known by participants as FA. The program is one of the stricter food addiction groups, emphasizing abstinence from trigger foods, and requiring members to adopt an eating plan and have a former food addict sponsor. Within three months of joining, Jan lost about 50 pounds. Today, she is healthy-looking and fit. She weighs her meals three times a day, and has returned to her full-time job. For now, her eating is in check, and she’s convinced that FA saved her life. But, like an addict, the only way for her to stay safe is for her to abstain from her trigger food, sugar. Even the smallest taste of a cookie might set her back on the path of uncontrolled eating, she says. Resources Overeaters Anonymous, a program that uses the 12-step program for food addicts. Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous, a membership-based organization that uses the 12-step for food addicts. Food Addiction Institute, a non-profit organization for food addicts. Yale University’s Rudd Center for food policy and obesity Lenoir M, Serre F, Cantin L, Ahmed S. “Intense Sweetness Surpasses Cocaine Reward.”PLoS ONE, August 2007. YouTube video featuring UC San Francisco pediatrics professorRobert H. Lusting on “Sugar: The Bitter Truth”. http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12667/section/wire/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheErieWire/~3/rt0rUwNfgSo/ http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12671/section/wire/#comments Tue, 09 Aug 2011 10:32:52 +0000 eriewire@gmail.com (The Erie Wire) http://www.eriewire.org/?p=12671 VIDEO: LOST IN SPRAWL Threatened by suburban development, a fourth-generation farmer documents his family&#8217;s doomed legacy with time-lapse video. By Thomas Gorman for The Ration When artist Matt Moore returned to his family farm outside Phoenix, signs of approaching suburbia were everywhere. 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By Thomas Gorman for The Ration When artist Matt Moore returned to his family farm outside Phoenix, signs of approaching suburbia were everywhere. Using time-lapse video, Moore captures his crops’ hidden lives, inviting viewers to reflect on the shrinking space for independent farmers. [caption id=&quot;attachment_12672&quot; align=&quot;alignleft&quot; width=&quot;600&quot; caption=&quot; Horseshoe Bend, Arizona. Horseshoe Bend is a horseshoe-shaped meander of the Colorado River located near the town of Page, Arizona. photo: Luca Galuzzi (Lucag) (Wikimedia Commons)&quot;][/caption] http://www.eriewire.org/archives/12671/section/wire/ The Erie WirenonadultThe Erie Wire