While some businesses grumbled about the challenge of complying with the California’s growing list of tough environmental regulations, Saint-Gobain Corp., the holding company for the U.S.- and Canadian-based businesses of Compagnie de Saint-Gobain, instead turned the situation to its advantage. Using the example of one of its California plants, the company has made effective waste management one of its top corporate-wide environmental priorities within the last five years.

A manufacturer of construction products, high-performance materials, packaging and flat glass, the company has 180 plants in the U.S. and Canada. In North America, some of its brand names include BPB, CertainTeed, Norton and Vetrotex. The CertainTeed Chowchilla, Calif., fiberglass insulation plant has led the way as a role model, achieving nearly zero discharge of manufacturing scrap into California’s landfills.

Now *that's* corporate stewardship.

-janelane, stewardess

Company Strives for Zero Discharge

Bacterial contamination closed more beaches and prompted more health warnings for the third straight year, according to a report released by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

The number of closing and health advisory days at ocean, bay and Great Lakes beaches topped 20,000 in 2005 -- the most since NRDC began tracking the problem 16 years ago -- confirming that our nation's beaches continue to suffer from serious water pollution.

This year's report, Testing the Waters, includes new information that provides a more alarming picture of the problem. For the first time, NRDC evaluated beachwater quality nationwide and found 200 beaches in two dozen states whose beachwater samples violated health standards at least 25 percent of the time.

In most cases, beachwater was contaminated with bacteria, and beachgoers were either swimming in it or banned from swimming because of the health risks. Overall, 8 percent of the beachwater samples taken nationwide violated health standards.

Current beachwater health standards, however, do not adequately protect the public and need to be updated, according to NRDC. Today the organization announced it is suing the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to modernize the standards as ordered by Congress six years ago.

"A day at the beach should not turn into a night in the bathroom, or worse, in the hospital," said Nancy Stoner, director of NRDC's Clean Water Project. "There have been significant advances over the last two decades that we should be using to protect beachgoers, but the EPA is dragging its feet in implementing them."

In 2000, Congress passed the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health Act (BEACH Act), which required the EPA to revise the current health standards by October 2005. The agency missed the deadline, and now says it will not be able to finish updating them until 2011.

The current beachwater quality standards are 20 years old and rely on obsolete monitoring methods and outdated science that leave beachgoers vulnerable to a range of waterborne illnesses. Risks include gastroenteritis, dysentery, hepatitis, respiratory ailments and other serious health problems. For senior citizens, small children, and people with weak immune systems, the results can be fatal.

20 THOUSAND?

-janelane, "no, really, the hep came from the OCEAN, man..."

WaterWorld - NRDC Report Examines Beach Water Pollution

New Clean Diesel Fuel Rules Start

July 2, 2006

As of June 1, 2006, at least 80 percent of on-road diesel fuel refined in the Unites States must be ultra-low sulfur diesel. This means it must contain less than 15 ppm of sulfur. Some have compared this event to the requirement that removed lead from gasoline in the 1970s.

The new fuels will contain 97-percent less sulfur and will be available nationally at retail outlets by Oct. 15, 2006. Just as lead was a problem for the catalytic converters that clean car exhausts today, sulfur quickly hampers the proposed diesel exhaust filters’ ability to remove contaminants.

Today’s diesel engines produce one-eighth of the tailpipe exhausts of a truck or bus built in 1990. With the new controls and fuel requirements, it would require 60 trucks built in 2007 to equal the soot exhaust of one truck built in 1988.

Update: Woo-hoo! 55 mpg diesels shall abound!

This also makes a lot more sense in light of the disclaimer I saw yesterday on an adjacent diesel pump at Shell. "Federal Law prohibits using regular diesel in 2007 and later models." I would next be interested to see how long it takes to phase in new diesel...how annoying would it be as a diesel driver to see that disclaimer in 90% of gas stations for the next 6 months?

-janelane, EPA-dazzled

New Clean Diesel Fuel Rules Start - Industry News - Pollution Engineering

The development of Texas colonias dates back to at least the 1950s. Using agriculturally worthless land, land that lay in floodplains or other rural properties, developers created unincorporated subdivisions. They divided the land into small lots, put in little or no infrastructure, then sold them to low-income individuals seeking affordable housing. Colonia residents generally have very low incomes. Per capita annual income for all Texas counties bordering Mexico-where most of the colonias are located-tends to be much lower than the state average of $16,717. In border counties such as Starr, Maverick and Hidalgo, per capita annual incomes in 1994 were $5,559, $7,631 and $8,899, respectively.

Stuff you learn about working for a water/wastewater consulting firm...colonias (i.e. shanty towns) in border counties that lack even adequate sewage disposal, much less electricity, healthcare, education, etc. The federal government via the US Department of Agriculture has earmarked a paltry $25M in FY07 for their (re-)habilitation. Even the smallest (150,000 resident) wastewater plant and piping infrastructure starts at $15M.

GWB, be ashamed. This is pork worth pulling.

-janelane, sheltered

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Texas-based Halliburton is the world's second-largest oil services company and the U.S. military's biggest contractor in Iraq. The logistical support is performed by Halliburton engineering and construction unit Kellogg Brown & Root. Last year, the Army paid the company more than $7 billion under the contract, the Post said.

Army officials defended the company's performance but said Pentagon leaders decided multiple contractors would give them better prices, more accountability and greater protection if a one contractor fails to perform, the newspaper said.

No fucking way! Competition is beneficial???!!!! {slaps forehead}

-janelane, fuck government incest

CNN.com - Paper: Army to end Halliburton deal - Jul 12, 2006

FSB chief Nikolai Patrushev said on Monday that Basayev, who claimed responsibility for the 2004 Beslan school attack in which 331 people, half of them children, were killed, was planning an attack to coincide with Russia hosting the G8 summit of world leaders this weekend.

CNN's Matthew Chance said the killing was a massive victory for the security services and a huge blow for the rebel leadership.

Russian television showed Patrushev meeting Monday with Putin to tell him about the special operation in Ingushetia -- a republic bordering Chechnya -- in which Basayev was killed in the early morning hours of Monday.

The Russian agents exploded a truck bomb next to several cars in which Basayev and other rebels were riding, according to Interfax, which was quoting Ingush Deputy Prime Minister Bashir Aushev.

"This is retaliation he deserves for killing our children in Beslan, Budennovsk, all the terrorist acts his bandits perpetrated in Moscow and other regions of Russia, including Ingushetia and the Chechen Republic," Patrushev said in an Interfax report.

Law enforcement officials in Ingushetia told Interfax Basarev's body was in pieces but it was identified by his head and by the fact that he had earlier lost a foot.

Whoa...hard core. It's only too bad they were able to draw out his death a little longer. Good riddance to bad child-killing rubbish.

-janelane, there has *got* to be a hell for people like this

CNN.com - Russia kills most-wanted warlord - Jul 10, 2006

Currently, the IRS has to prove a prostitute's or pimp's income to pursue a tax law violation. But under Grassley's proposal, a pimp could get up to 10 years in prison for each prostitute for whom the pimp hasn't filed a W-2, which means a pimp caught with 10 unregistered prostitutes faces a century in prison.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!! Genius!

-janelane

CNN.com - Senator seeks tax on pimps, prostitutes - Jun 27, 2006

● The interstates were originally designed to be able to run military equipment from coast to coast on flatbed trailers at sustained speeds of 75 mph.

● Did you know that if you're on interstate 5, you have 5% of the U.S. left to the west of you? If you are on interstate 95, you have 95% left to the west of you?

● If you are on interstate 20, you have 20% of the U.S. left to the south of you? If you are on interstate 90, you have 90% left to the south of you?

● ALL [or mostly all] interstates going east or west have EVEN numbers. ALL interstates going north or south have ODD numbers.

● If a city bypass has an even number it loops [called a LOOP] back to the same interstate. i.e. I-440 ends back up on I-40.

● If a city bypass has an odd number it does NOT loop [called a SPUR] back to the same interstate. i.e. I-540 does not come back to I-40.

Highway know-how from truckers.

-janelane

Map Facts & Highway Facts by Truckers

PIRACICABA, Brazil — At the dawn of the automobile age, Henry Ford predicted that "ethyl alcohol is the fuel of the future." With petroleum about $65 a barrel, President Bush has now embraced that view, too. But Brazil is already there.

This country expects to become energy self-sufficient this year, meeting its growing demand for fuel by increasing production from petroleum and ethanol. Already the use of ethanol, derived in Brazil from sugar cane, is so widespread that some gas stations have two sets of pumps, marked A for alcohol and G for gas.

In his State of the Union address in January, Mr. Bush backed financing for "cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but wood chips and stalks or switch grass" with the goal of making ethanol competitive in six years.

But Brazil's path has taken 30 years of effort, required several billion dollars in incentives and involved many missteps. While not always easy, it provides clues to the real challenges facing the United States' ambitions.

Energy self-sufficiency. God, I hope I live long enough to see that happen here.

-janelane

With Big Boost From Sugar Cane, Brazil Is Satisfying Its Fuel Needs - New York Times

All of them are chasing the same holy grail: bio-based substances that can replace oil and gas as building blocks for chemicals. "We figure out what works in theory, and then we see what works in practice," Alexander D. Kopatsis, a research associate, said.

E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, unlike most chemical companies, has moved the quest for bio-based raw materials off the wish list and onto the to-do agenda. The company has allocated nearly 10 percent of its $1.3 billion research budget to extracting ingredients from carbohydrates — things that grow and can be infinitely replaced — rather than from hydrocarbons, which are mined or drilled and readily depleted.

Way to go, DuPont!

-janelane, birthday girl

DuPont Looking to Displace Fossil Fuels as Building Blocks of Chemicals - New York Times