An Ozone Event in Indianapolis

There are doubts concerning the sources of the pollutant ozone in an urban location. Current control regulations,¹ for example, are based on local sources. Many studies suggest that plumes of pollutants released by upwind areas are the cause. For example, New York City has been associated with high O₃ in New England,² Chicago with O₃ in Milwaukee,³ and St. Louis with O₃ in rural Illinois.⁴ Others^5,6 have suggested the problem must be treated on a synoptic scale. In an effort to understand the problem at Indianapolis better, a series of experiments involving aircraft flights were conducted in the Indianapolis area and their results are herein reported. Specifically, a cross country flight of over 100 mi both to the northeast and southwest of Indianapolis, a vertical spiral to 28,000 ft, low level data associated with takeoff and landing of the aircraft, and ground data at four sites, are available for the afternoon of June 9,1976.     

Flow Injection Analysis of MWC Fly Ash Leaching Characteristics

Abstract

A completely mixed batch reactor leaching method utilizing flow injection analysis (the CMBR-FIA method) was developed to study the lead leaching characteristics of municipal waste combustor fly ash. Flow injection analysis (FIA) coupled with atomic absorption spectrophotometry enabled the determination of lead concentrations at one minute intervals. The pH and oxidation-reduction potential of the solution were continuously monitored to characterize the leaching conditions. Automatic titration was used to alter the solution pH to defined endpoints. The CMBR-FIA method offers the ability to immediately observe alterations to the leaching solution, and grants the freedom to study a number of parameters concurrently. The CMBR-FIA method is a rapid and reliable means to investigate leaching characteristics. This paper describes the method and demonstrates its use to monitor the leaching of lead from municipal solid waste combustor fly ash as a function of pH. Soluble lead concentrations are shown to increase quickly with decreasing pH.

A maximum of 50% of the total lead concentration was available in solution at pH 2. This value gradually decreased with time to over 35% of the total.     

Conservation Genetics at the Species Boundary

Abstract: Conservation genetics has expanded its purview such that molecular techniques are now used routinely to prioritize populations for listing and protection and infer their historical relationships in addition to addressing more traditional questions of heterozygosity and inbreeding depression. Failure to specify whether molecular data are being used for diagnosis-related questions or for population viability questions, however, can lead either to misinterpretation of character data as adaptive information or to misinterpretation of frequency or distance data as diagnostic or historical information. Each of these misinterpretations will confound conservation programs. The character-based approach to delimiting phylogenetic species is both operationally and logically superior to "diagnostic" methods that involve distance- or frequency-based routines, which are unstable over time. Tree-based criteria for the diagnosis of conservation "units" are also inappropriate because they can depend on patterns inferred without reference to diagnostic characters. Intraspecific studies, conservation-related or otherwise, that adopt terminology and methods designed to infer nested hierarchic relationships confuse diagnosis with historical inferences by treating diagnoses as outcomes rather than as precursors to phylogeny reconstruction. A character-based diagnostic approach recognizes the analytical dichotomy between species hierarchies and population statistics and provides a framework for the understanding of each. No species concept, however, should be viewed as an absolute criterion for protecting populations, but as part of a framework from within which identification of protection and management goals can be achieved effectively and defensibly.     

Effectiveness of a publicly-funded demonstration program to promote management of dryland salinity

Community and catchment-based approaches to salinity management continue to attract interest in Australia. In one such approach, Catchment Demonstration Initiative (CDI) projects were established by the Western Australian (WA) Government in 2000 for targeted investment in large-scale catchment-based demonstrations of integrated salinity management practices. The aim was to promote a process for technically-informed salinity management by landholders. This paper offers an evaluation of the effectiveness of one CDI project in the central wheatbelt of WA, covering issues including: its role in fostering adoption of salinity management options, the role of research and the technical requirements for design and implementation of on-ground works, the role of monitoring and evaluation, the identification and measurement of public and private benefits, comparison and identification of the place and value of plant-based and engineering-based options, reliance on social processes and impacts of constraints on capacity, management of governance and administration requirements and an appreciation of the value of group-based approaches.A number of factors may reduce the effectiveness of CDI-type approaches in facilitating landholder action to address salinity, many of these are socially-based. Such approaches can create considerable demands on landholders, can be expensive (because of the planning and accountability required) on the basis of dollars per hectare impacted, and can be difficult to garner ownership from all involved. An additional problem could be that few community groups would have the capacity to run such programs and disseminate the new knowledge so that the CDI-type projects can impact outside the focus catchment. In common with many publicly-funded approaches to salinity, we found that direct benefits on public assets are smaller than planned and that results from science-based requirements of monitoring and evaluation have long lead times, causing farmers to either wait for the information or act sooner and take risks based on initial results. We also found that often it is a clear outline of the process that is of most importance in decision making as opposed to the actual results. We identified limitations in regulatory processes and the capacity for local government to engage in the CDI.The opportunities that CDI-type approaches provide centre around the value of its group-based approach. We conclude that they can overcome knowledge constraints in managing salinity by fostering group-based learning, offer a structured process of trialling options so that the costs and benefits can be clearly and transparently quantified, and avoid the costly mistakes and “learning failures” of the past.     

Terrestrial exposure of oilfield flowline additives diminish soil structural stability and remediative microbial function

Onshore oil production pipelines are major installations in the petroleum industry, stretching many thousands of kilometres worldwide which also contain flowline additives. The current study focuses on the effect of the flowline additives on soil physico-chemical and biological properties and quantified the impact using resilience and resistance indices. Our findings are the first to highlight deleterious effect of flowline additives by altering some fundamental soil properties, including a complete loss of structural integrity of the impacted soil and a reduced capacity to degrade hydrocarbons mainly due to: (i) phosphonate salts (in scale inhibitor) prevented accumulation of scale in pipelines but also disrupted soil physical structure; (ii) glutaraldehyde (in biocides) which repressed microbial activity in the pipeline and reduced hydrocarbon degradation in soil upon environmental exposure; (iii) the combinatory effects of these two chemicals synergistically caused severe soil structural collapse and disruption of microbial degradation of petroleum hydrocarbons.     

Effects of diesel/biodiesel blends on regulated and unregulated pollutants from a passenger vehicle operated over the European and the Athens driving cycles

This paper presents the regulated and unregulated exhaust emissions of a diesel passenger vehicle, operated with low sulphur automotive diesel and soy methyl ester blends. Emission and fuel consumption measurements were conducted under real driving conditions (Athens Driving Cycle, ADC) and compared with those of a modified New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) using a chassis dynamometer. A Euro II compliant diesel vehicle was used in this study, equipped with an indirect injection diesel engine, fuelled with diesel fuel and biodiesel blends at proportions of 5, 10, and 20% respectively. Unregulated emissions of 11 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), 5 nitro-PAHs, 13 carbonyl compounds (CBCs) and the soluble organic fraction (SOF) of the particulate matter were measured. Qualitative hydrocarbon analysis was also performed on the SOF. Regulated emissions of NO_x, CO, HC, CO₂, and PM were also measured over the two test cycles. It was established that some of the emissions measured over the (hot-start) NEDC differed from the real-world cycle. Significant differences were also observed in the vehicle's fuel consumption between the two test cycles. The addition of biodiesel reduced the regulated emissions of CO, HC and PM, while an increase in NO_x was observed over the ADC. Carbonyl emissions, PAHs and nitro-PAHs were reduced with the addition of biodiesel over both driving cycles.