Webinar to look at natural gas development’s effect on agriculture
live.psu.edu/story/56136#nw69
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A Web-based seminar sponsored by Penn State Extension will examine how Marcellus Shale natural-gas development is affecting agriculture in Pennsylvania.
The 75-minute webinar will be held at 1 p.m. on Nov. 10. Presenters will be Gary Sheppard and Mark Madden, extension educators based in Westmoreland and Sullivan counties, respectively, who have extensive experience dealing with Marcellus Shale natural-gas drilling impacts on agriculture in their regions.
Sheppard will explore the impact natural gas wells have on farms from four perspectives. “Those include financial, family, farmstead and social,” he said. “I will discuss some planning considerations for the business plan of the farm and highlight the assistance available from organizations such as USDA’s Farm Service Agency and from resources such as the Conservation Reserve Enhancement and Farmland Preservation programs.”
Sheppard noted that he also will touch on how some farmers who are embracing holistic concepts of sustainability are struggling to decide how Marcellus drilling fits into their values.
Madden intends to review several case studies of farmers and farms near Marcellus gas-drilling operations.
“I want to capture some of the personal considerations and choices farmers are dealing with,” he said.
The webinar is part of a series of online workshops addressing opportunities and challenges related to the state’s Marcellus Shale gas boom. Information about how to register for the session is available on the webinar page of Penn State Extension’s natural-gas website at http://extension.psu.edu/naturalgas/webinars.
Titles of upcoming monthly webinars include “Natural Gas Development’s Impact on Forestlands,” “Seismic Testing: What’s It All About?” “Transportation Patterns and Impacts from Marcellus Development,” and “Municipalities’ Roles, Water Use, and Protections.”
Previous webinars, publications and information on topics such as air pollution from gas development; the gas boom’s effect on landfills; water use and quality; zoning; gas-leasing considerations for landowners; implications for local communities; gas pipelines and right-of-way issues; and legal issues surrounding gas development also are available on the Penn State Extension natural-gas website (http://extension.psu.edu/naturalgas).
For more information about the webinar, contact John Turack, extension educator based in Westmoreland County, at 724-837-1402 or by email at jdt15@psu.edu.
Penn State scientists part of new stink bug research project
live.psu.edu/story/56032#nw69
October 27, 2011
Stink-bug damage such as this cost the mid-Atlantic apple industry an estimated $37 million in 2010. (Credit: Penn State Department of Entomology)
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Researchers in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences are part of a new, multi-state project to study the brown marmorated stink bug.
The research is funded by a recently announced $5.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture through its Specialty Crops Research Initiative.
The three-year project is aimed at developing economically and environmentally sustainable pest-management practices for the brown marmorated stink bug, which has caused millions of dollars worth of crop damage and become a major homeowner nuisance since it first was found in the United States, near Allentown, in the late 1990s.
Penn State will receive nearly $900,000 of the grant to study stink bug biology and behavior, develop monitoring and management tools and practices, and provide extension education programs to disseminate new knowledge to crop producers.
“It’s too early to put a dollar value on crop damage this year, but the apple industry alone estimated losses of about $37 million as the result of stink bug infestations in the mid-Atlantic region in 2010,” said Greg Krawczyk, extension tree-fruit entomologist at Penn State’s Fruit Research and Extension Center in Biglerville.
Krawczyk, who leads the Penn State portion of the project, noted that crop damage this year appears to be lower than last year, though it varies from region to region. “Growers who experienced big losses last year managed this pest better during this season, but some individual growers still suffered losses of up to 60 percent,” he said.
Because the brown marmorated stink bug is native to Asia, it has few natural enemies in North America, allowing populations to grow largely unchecked. The pest is known to feed on as many as 300 host plants and migrates readily, further complicating control.
Krawczyk said one of the goals of the research is to develop control tactics that rely on the principles of IPM, or integrated pest management. IPM utilizes a variety of methods — including biological controls, pheromones for mating disruption and other techniques — that help minimize pesticide use.
He explained that some broad-spectrum pesticides that are effective against stink bugs also kill the beneficial insects tree-fruit growers rely on as part of IPM programs. “That upsets the balance in the orchard ecosystem — allowing other pests to become more of a problem — and could reverse much of the progress we’ve made in IPM, which has helped Pennsylvania growers to reduce pesticide use by as much as 75 percent in recent decades.”
Penn State scientists will study stink bugs as they relate to the production of tree fruits, vegetables and grapes. Researchers will explore biological control options, stink-bug chemical ecology (chemically mediated interactions among plants and insects), and monitoring strategies. The project also will assess the pest’s economic impact and the economic feasibility of new management methods.
Krawczyk said although the research will focus mostly on specialty crops and will not directly address infestations in homes or in major agronomic crops such as corn and soybean, knowledge gained should aid in the development of recommendations that could be useful for habitat-scale management.
Other Penn State personnel taking part in the project include David Biddinger, senior research associate in entomology at the Fruit Research and Extension Center; Gary Felton, professor and head of entomology; Shelby Fleischer, professor of entomology; Jayson Harper, professor of agricultural economics; Steven Jacobs, senior extension associate in entomology; Michael Saunders, professor of entomology; and John Tooker, assistant professor of entomology.
The project is led by USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, along with a core group of land-grant universities: Penn State, Rutgers, Virginia Tech, and the universities of Maryland and Delaware. Also participating are researchers from Cornell, Oregon State University, North Carolina State University, Washington State University and the Northeast IPM Center.
More information about the brown marmorated stink bug is available online at http://ento.psu.edu/extension/factsheets/brown-marmorated-stink-bug.
State may limit drilling byproduct from being spread on farms
Pennsylvania is seeking to limit the use of sewage sludge as a fertilizer on farmers’ fields if the sludge comes from sewer plants that treat wastewater from natural gas drilling.
Environmental regulators’ concerns about the sludge were highlighted in a New York Times article on Friday that described the risks of radioactive contaminants in the drilling wastewater concentrating in the sludge during treatment. The sludge, also called biosolids, is sometimes sold or given away to farmers and gardeners as fertilizer if it meets certain standards for pathogens and metals.
The Times article quotes from a transcript of a March 15 conference call between officials with the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Environmental Protection about how to better regulate discharges of the wastewater that can be high in salts, metals and naturally occurring radioactive materials.
DEP is developing a guidance document about how to include new wastewater treatment standards into permits for new or expanding treatment plants that handle the drilling fluids. The new standards limit the amount of salty discharge, called total dissolved solids, that can enter state streams.
The draft guidance document would also bar treatment plants that receive untreated drilling wastewater from using their sludge for land application.
Ron Furlan, a division manager for DEP’s Bureau of Water Standards and Facility Regulation, is quoted in the the New York Times as saying sludge was included in the guidance document because “we don’t have a good handle on the radiological concerns right now, and in any case we don’t want people land-applying biosolids that may be contaminated to any significant level by radium 226-228 or other emitters.”
The guidance does not carry the legal weight of a regulation and would not be imposed on treatment plants unless their discharge permit is up for renewal or they apply for a new or expanded permit.
The draft guidance also proposes that treatment plants accepting untreated drilling wastewater develop radiation protection “action plans” and have monitoring requirements for radium 226 and 228, gross alpha and uranium established in their permits.
In a letter this week to the EPA, DEP Acting Secretary Michael Krancer wrote that the state has directed 14 public water supplies that draw from rivers downstream from treatment plants that accept Marcellus Shale wastewater to test the finished drinking water for radioactive contaminants and other pollutants. The state also called on 25 treatment plants that accept the wastewater to begin twice monthly testing for radioactivity in their discharges.
Tests of seven state rivers at sites downstream from wastewater treatment plants last fall showed that levels of radioactivity were at or below normal levels.
In the conference call quoted by the New York Times, environmental regulators also expressed concerns about radionuclides settling in the sediment of rivers where the incompletely treated wastewater is discharged from sewer plants.
“If you were really looking for radionuclides, that’s the first place I would look,” Furlan said.
DEP spokeswoman Katy Gresh said Friday that there are currently no plans to begin testing river sediment for radionuclides.
“We will use the results of the increased testing/monitoring to see what is being discharged before making that decision,” she said.
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: April 9, 2011
http://citizensvoice.com/news/state-may-limit-drilling-byproduct-from-being-spread-on-farms-1.1130088#axzz1J1xZtYwG
Budget cuts tap out safe drinking water
In all of the debate on Capitol Hill about cutting budgets, you wouldn’t expect water to get a great deal of attention. But it should.
The Continuing Resolution set to emerge from the House this week makes drastic reductions in support for critical functions of the Environmental Protection Agency – the federal entity charged with protecting water supplies for hundreds of millions of Americans. But slashing the EPA’s budget, without shifting legal and financial responsibility to polluters, will leave America’s fisheries, drinking water supplies, and coastal areas vulnerable. No one else is guarding the door to the henhouse – quite literally, it turns out, when it comes to water pollution.
Industrial animal agriculture operations in the U.S. generate up to one billion tons of manure annually, most of which is applied – untreated – to cropland. As a result, according to the EPA, drinking water sources for an estimated 43 percent of the U.S. population have suffered some level of pathogen contamination associated with livestock operations, and 29 states have identified livestock feeding operations as a source of water pollution. In Congressional testimony, the U.S. Geological Survey identified livestock manure as the single largest source of nitrogen pollution in major rivers across the country, including rivers in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Florida, Arkansas, California and Wisconsin.
As food animal production in the U.S. has shifted from family farms to a concentrated industrial production system, efforts to protect the environment, rural communities and water supplies have not kept pace. These massive operations, housing thousands of hogs or hundreds of thousands of chickens in tight quarters, produce manure and other waste on an equally large scale, but continue to be regulated under a now-antiquated set of rules designed for small family farms. Corporations that own slaughterhouses, packing facilities and livestock often contract with farmers to raise the animals to the point of slaughter and argue that they bear no liability for compliance with Clean Water Act permits during the production period. The companies own the animals; the farmers are stuck with the manure.
Under this system, corporate owners have not been obligated to provide any financial assistance to farmers for the costs of waste treatment and disposal. As a result, local water utilities spend millions monitoring and treating this water pollution, and treasured gems like the Chesapeake Bay suffer from livestock-related pollution, while taxpayers pay the cleanup costs through EPA water programs. These programs are now on the chopping block.
Congressional efforts to find legitimate savings through efficiency and the elimination of waste in government programs are of course laudable. But members of Congress also have a responsibility to ensure that alternatives to government spending are identified so the health and welfare of millions of Americans is not jeopardized.
When it comes to water pollution, the polluters – and not the general public – should be responsible for cleaning up their own waste. It¹s time for industrial animal agriculture to pay its fair share.
By Karen Steuer – 02/15/11
Karen Steuer is Director of Government Relations for the Pew Environment Group.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-a-budget/144261-budget-cuts-tap-out-safe-drinking-water
Emergency drought relief loans available for farmers
http://www.tnonline.com/node/135921
Reported on Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Emergency drought relief loans available for farmers
State Rep. Keith McCall said that farmers in Carbon County are eligible to apply for low-interest emergency disaster assistance loans from the federal Department of Agriculture to help recover crop losses associated with the summer’s dry weather.
“The extreme heat and lack of rainfall has had a negative impact on Carbon County’s farmers this year, and I’m glad the federal government is making these loans available to help our farm families stay afloat and keep their farms up and running,” McCall said. “I hope every farmer affected by the drought conditions will apply for this funding.”
Farmers can apply for the loans through the Carbon County Farm Service Agency in Lehighton at (610) 377-6300 or by visiting the department online at www.fsa.usda.gov.
Besides Carbon County, 15 other counties in the region were declared primary disaster areas: Bucks, Chester, Dauphin, Franklin, Fulton, Lehigh, Luzerne, Monroe, Montgomery, Northampton, Northumberland, Schuylkill, Snyder, Union and York.
In addition, 22 counties bordering the primary disaster area were named contiguous disaster areas: Adams, Bedford, Berks, Centre, Clinton, Columbia, Cumberland, Delaware, Huntingdon, Juniata, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lebanon, Lycoming, Mifflin, Montour, Perry, Philadelphia, Pike, Sullivan, Wayne and Wyoming.
Farmers in all affected counties have eight months from the Sept. 10 date of disaster declaration to apply for the loans, and each application will be considered based on losses, available resources and ability to repay.
Weed Killers and Your Garden
http://www.emagazine.com/view/?5244
EARTHTALK
Week of 07/11/10
Dear EarthTalk: Within my lawn I have over 100 citrus, mango and avocado trees. When I use Scott’s Bonus S Weed and Feed, am I feeding my new fruit any poison? Will the weed killer be taken up by the fruit?– Richard Weissman, Miami, FL
In short, yes and yes: You will jeopardize the health of your fruit trees and your yard in general if you use such products. Scott’s Bonus S Weed and Feed, as well as many other “weed-and-feed” fertilizers (Vigero, Sam’s, etc.), contain the harsh chemical herbicide atrazine, which excels at terminating fast-growing weeds like dandelions and crabgrass but can also kill other desirable plants and trees and damage your entire yard as toxin-carrying root systems stretch underground in every corner and beyond.
Howard Garrett, a landscape architect who founded the DirtDoctor.com website and is an evangelist for natural organic gardening and landscaping, points out that anyone who reads the label on such products will learn that even manufacturers don’t take their health and environmental effects lightly. Some of the warnings right there in black and white on the Scott’s Bonus S Weed and Feed packaging include precautions against using it “under trees, shrubs, bedding plants or garden plants” or in the general vicinity of any such plants’ branch spreads or root zones.
Scott’s also recommends not applying it by hand or with hand-held rotary devices or applying “in a way that will contact any person either directly or through drift.” And just in case you were thinking it was okay for the environment, Scott’s adds that “runoff and drift from treated areas may be hazardous to aquatic organisms in neighboring areas” and that the product is “toxic to aquatic invertebrates.”
Of course, homeowners aren’t the only ones who want lush plant or grass growth without weeds. Farmers have been using atrazine for decades all over the country, although not surprisingly concentrations are highest along the Midwest’s so-called Corn Belt. The herbicide consistently delivers slightly increased agricultural yields, but environmentalists wonder at what cost. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a leading environmental research and advocacy non-profit, reports that atrazine exposure has been shown to impair the reproductive systems of amphibians and mammals, and has been linked to cancer in both laboratory animals and humans. Male frogs exposed to minute doses of the herbicide can develop female sex characteristics, including hermaphroditism and the presence of eggs in the testes. Researchers believe such effects are amplified when atrazine and other chemicals are used together.
As to safer alternatives, Garrett recommends organic fertilizers. “Synthetic fertilizers are unbalanced, often contain contaminants, have no carbon energy, contain far too much nitrogen and have few trace minerals,” he says. “Organic fertilizers, on the other hand, contain naturally buffered blends of major nutrients, trace minerals, organic matter and carbon. They have lots of beneficial life and, most important, they contain nothing that will damage the roots of your trees and other plants.” Some of Garret’s top choices include corn gluten meal (a natural way to prevent the growth of new weeds), THRIVE by AlphaBio, Garrett Juice, Ladybug, Medina, and Soil Mender. More and more choices are coming on the market all the time thanks to the growing popularity of organic gardening.
CONTACTS: Scotts; The Dirt Doctor; NRDC.
Research links pesticides with ADHD in children
May 17, 12:02 AM EDT
Research links pesticides with ADHD in children
By CARLA K. JOHNSON
AP Medical Writer
CHICAGO (AP) — A new analysis of U.S. health data links children’s attention-deficit disorder with exposure to common pesticides used on fruits and vegetables.
While the study couldn’t prove that pesticides used in agriculture contribute to childhood learning problems, experts said the research is persuasive.
“I would take it quite seriously,” said Virginia Rauh of Columbia University, who has studied prenatal exposure to pesticides and wasn’t involved in the new study.
More research will be needed to confirm the tie, she said.
Children may be especially prone to the health risks of pesticides because they’re still growing and they may consume more pesticide residue than adults relative to their body weight.
In the body, pesticides break down into compounds that can be measured in urine. Almost universally, the study found detectable levels: The compounds turned up in the urine of 94 percent of the children.
The kids with higher levels had increased chances of having ADHD, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, a common problem that causes students to have trouble in school. The findings were published Monday in Pediatrics.
The children may have eaten food treated with pesticides, breathed it in the air or swallowed it in their drinking water. The study didn’t determine how they were exposed. Experts said it’s likely children who don’t live near farms are exposed through what they eat.
“Exposure is practically ubiquitous. We’re all exposed,” said lead author Maryse Bouchard of the University of Montreal.
She said people can limit their exposure by eating organic produce. Frozen blueberries, strawberries and celery had more pesticide residue than other foods in one government report.
A 2008 Emory University study found that in children who switched to organically grown fruits and vegetables, urine levels of pesticide compounds dropped to undetectable or close to undetectable levels.
Because of known dangers of pesticides in humans, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency limits how much residue can stay on food. But the new study shows it’s possible even tiny, allowable amounts of pesticide may affect brain chemistry, Rauh said.
The exact causes behind the children’s reported ADHD though are unclear. Any number of factors could have caused the symptoms and the link with pesticides could be by chance.
The new findings are based on one-time urine samples in 1,139 children and interviews with their parents to determine which children had ADHD. The children, ages 8 to 15, took part in a government health survey in 2000-2004.
As reported by their parents, about 150 children in the study either showed the severe inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity characteristic of ADHD, or were taking drugs to treat it.
The study dealt with one common type of pesticide called organophosphates. Levels of six pesticide compounds were measured. For the most frequent compound detected, 20 percent of the children with above-average levels had ADHD. In children with no detectable amount in their urine, 10 percent had ADHD.
“This is a well conducted study,” said Dr. Lynn Goldman of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a former EPA administrator.
Relying on one urine sample for each child, instead of multiple samples over time, wasn’t ideal, Goldman said.
The study provides more evidence that the government should encourage farmers to switch to organic methods, said Margaret Reeves, senior scientist with the Pesticide Action Network, an advocacy group that’s been working to end the use of many pesticides.
“It’s unpardonable to allow this exposure to continue,” Reeves said.
On the Net:
Pediatrics: http://www.aap.org/
EPA: http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/food
U.S. Farmers Cope With Roundup-Resistant Weeds
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/business/energy-environment/04weed.html
