Cooling Towers and the Environment

Measurements of natural draft cooling tower plume behavior, as well as meteorological variables, were obtained from aircraft flights near major power plants of the American Electric Power System. Persistence of the visible plume to great distances depends essentially on ambient humidity. Atmospheric stability at plume elevation was also important. Cooling tower-induced fog at ground-level was never observed in any of the tests, and aerodynamic downwash of the visible plume was absent also. The cooling towers did cause modification of natural clouds and they occasionally shadowed some local areas from the sun. Merging of the stack and cooling tower plumes was a common occurrence.     

The Impact of Gold Smelter Emissions on Vegetation and Soils of a Sub-Arctic Forest-Tundra Transition Ecosystem

Gold smelters near Yellowknife in Canada's Northwest Territories have emitted large quantities of sulfur dioxide and arsenic since inception of roasting in 1941. Although particulate wastes are well contained by baghouse fitters in the one remaining operating smelter, significant gaseous emissions continue. Soil and vegetation were sampled at 52 sites over an area of about 40 km radius from the source. Plant ecology was studied at 43 of those sites. After preliminary multi-element screening that indicated only arsenic was a serious persistent contaminant, x-ray fluorescence was used to measure arsenic content in sampled materials. The plant ecology data were synthesized into an Index of Vitality with numerical ratings of pertinent factors. In the marginal forests and rocky outcrops of the area, indicator species of vegetation permitted a division into zones of severe, moderate, mild, or no impact in order of increasing distance from the current center of emissions. Severe impact, including killing of trees, is local only. Analyses of foliage indicate little uptake of arsenic which, together with the presence of S0₂ symptoms, point to S0₂ as the main factor causing decline of vegetation. A separate study, abstracted here, supports this view by providing data that show a frequency of at least 2 significant fumigation episodes per growing season. Soil analyses indicate extremely high arsenic contamination near the stack. A monotonie pattern of dispersion yielded a function explainable in terms of rapid condensation of gaseous emissions. The relationship of arsenic in surface soil and vegetation to distance is approximately an inverse square.     

A Comparison of Mass,Lead, Sulfate,and Nitrate Concentrations in a Field Study Using Dichotomous,Size-Selective,and Standard Hi-Vol Samplers

Air monitoring In the San Francisco Bay Area was carried out to measure outdoor community air concentrations of poly cyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and mutagenlc activity (mutagenlclty) In participate organic matter (POM). Monitoring began In 1979 and Is currently conducted at six stations. PAH and mutagenlclty tests were performed on organic extracts prepared from high volume (hl-vol) filters composited every four months, by meteorological season. PAH were determined by high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) with fluorescence and ultraviolet detection. Mutagenlclty was measured In the Ames Salmonella bloas-say using strain TA98 with and without metabolic activation. The nine-year mean concentration of benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) was 0.4 ng/m³. The mutagenlcfty of this amount of BaP accounted for only about 0.2% of the observed mutagenicity In POM and other measured PAH accounted for even less. Concentrations of PAH and mutagenlclty were three to nine times higher during the winter than during other seasons. Year-to-year wintertime trends In several PAH were also seen. Early In the 1980s, winter concentrations of BaP and benzo (g,h,i)perylene Increased. However since the mld-1980’s, their concentrations have fallen. The decrease In PAH concentrations may be the result of an Increasing proportion of vehicles with relatively low organic emissions. In contrast to PAH, mutagenlcfty did not show significant year-to-year time trends.     

Detection of antibacterial-like activity on a silica surface: fluoroquinolones and their environmental metabolites

Background, scope, and aims

Antibacterial fluoroquinolones (FQs) are third-generation antibiotics that are commonly used as therapeutic treatments of respiratory and urinary tract infections. They are used far less in intensively farmed animal production systems, though their use may be permitted in the veterinary treatments of flocks or in medicated feeds. When used, only a fraction of ingested parent FQ actually reaches the in vivo target site of infection, while the remainder is excreted as the parent FQ and its metabolized products. In many species?? metabolism, enrofloxacin (EF) is converted into ciprofloxacin (CF) while both FQs are classified as parent FQs in human treatments. It is therefore likely that both FQs and their metabolic products will contribute to a common pool of metabolites in biological wastes. Wastes from intensive farming practices are either directly applied to agricultural land without treatment or may be temporarily stored prior to disposal. However, human waste is treated in sewage treatment plants (STPs) where it is converted into biosolids. In the storage or treatment process of STPs, FQs and their in vivo metabolites are further converted into other environmental metabolites (FQEMs) by ex vivo physicochemical processes that act and interact to produce complex mixtures of FQEMs, some of which have antibacterial-like activities. Biosolids are then often applied to agricultural land as a fertilizer amendment where FQs and FQEMs can be further converted into additional FQEMs by soil processes. It is therefore likely that FQ-contaminated biowaste-treated soils will contain complex mixtures of FQEMs, some of which may have antibacterial-like activities that may be expressed on bacteria endemic to the receiving agricultural soil environment. Concern has arisen in the scientific and in the general community that repeated use of FQ-contaminated biowaste as fertilizer amendments of nutrient-impoverished agricultural land may create a selective environment in which FQ-resistant bacteria might grow. The likelihood of this happening will depend, to some extent, on whether bioactive FQEMs are first synthesized from the parent FQs by the action and interaction of in vivo and ex vivo processes producing bioactive FQEMs in biowastes and biosolids. The postulated creation of a selective environment will also depend, in part, on whether such bioactive FQEMs are biologically available to bacteria, which may, in turn, be influenced by soil type, amendment regime, and the persistence of the bioactive FQEMs. Additionally, soil bacteria and soil processes may be affected in different ways or extents by bioactive FQEMs that could possibly act additively or synergistically at ecological targets in these non-target bacteria. This is an important consideration, since, while parent FQs have well-defined ecological targets (DNA gyrase and topoisomerase IV) and modes of bactericidal action, the FQEMs and their possible modes of action on the many different species of soil bacteria is less well studied. It is therefore understandable that there is a lack of conclusive evidence directly attributing biosolid usage to any increase in FQ-resistant bacteria detected in biowaste-amended agricultural soil. However, a lack of evidence may simply imply that a causal relationship between biosolid usage programs and any detection of low levels of FQ-resistant bacteria in soils has yet to be established, rather than an assumption of no relationship whatsoever. Based on results presented in this paper, the precautionary principle should be applied in the usage of FQ-contaminated biosolids as fertilizer amendments of agricultural land. The aim of this research was to test whether any bioactive FQEMs of EF could be synthesized by aerobic fermentation processes using Mycobacterium gilvum (American Tissue Culture Collection) and a mixed culture of microorganisms derived from an agricultural soil. High-performance thin-layer chromatography (HPTLC) and bioautography were tested as screening techniques in the detection and analysis of bioactive FQEMs.

Materials and methods

FQEMs derived from M. gilvum and mixed (soil) culture aerobic ferments were fractionated using preparative HPTLC. A standard strain of Escherichia coli was then used as the reporter organism in a bioautography assay in the detection of bioactive-FQEMs on a mid-section of the HPTLC plate. Plate sections were reassembled, and a photograph was taken under low-intensity ultraviolet (UV) light to reveal regions that contained analytes that had UV chromophores and antibacterial-like activities.

Results and discussion

Many fractionated FQEMs displayed antibacterial-like activity while bound to silica gel HPTLC plates. These results also provide evidence that sufficient quantities of biologically active FQEMs were biologically available from a silica gel surface to prevent the adherent growth of E. coli. Six to seven FQEMs derived from EF using aerobic fermentation processes had antibacterial-like activities, while two FQEMs were also detectable using UV light. Furthermore, similar banding patterns of antibacterial-like activity were observed in both the monoculture (M. gilvum) and mixed culture bioautography assays, indicating that similar processes operated in both aerobic fermentations, either producing similar biologically active FQEMs or biologically active FQEMs that had similar physicochemical properties in both ferments. The simplest explanation for these findings is that the tested agricultural soil also contained mycobacteria that metabolized EF in a similar way to the purchased standard monoculture M. gilvum. Additionally, the marked contrast between the bioautography results and the UV results indicated that the presence of UV chromophores is not a prerequisite for the detection of antibacterial-like activity.

Conclusions

A reliance on spectrophotometric techniques in the detection of bioactive FQEMs in the environment may underestimate component antibacterial-like activity and, possibly, total antibacterial-like activity expressed by EF and its FQEMs. The described bioautography method provides a screening technique with which antibacterial-like activities derived from EF and possibly other FQs can be detected directly on silica gel HPTLC plates.

Recommendations

It is recommended that both bioassay and instrumental analytical techniques be used in any measurement of hazard and risk relating to antibacterial-like activities in the environment that are derived from fluoroquinolone antibiotics and their environmental metabolites.     

Framework for integrating sustainability into remediation projects

The US Sustainable Remediation Forum (SURF) created this Framework to enable sustainability parameters to be integrated and balanced throughout the remediation project life cycle, while ensuring long‐term protection of human health and the environment and achieving public and regulatory acceptance. Parameters are considerations, impacts, or stressors of environmental, social, and economic importance. Because remediation project phases are not stand‐alone entities but interconnected components of the wider remediation system, the Framework provides a systematic, process‐based approach in which sustainability is integrated holistically and iteratively within the wider remediation system. By focusing stakeholders on the preferred end use or future use of a site at the beginning of a remediation project, the Framework helps stakeholders form a disciplined planning strategy. Specifically, the Framework is designed to help remediation practitioners (1) perform a tiered sustainability evaluation, (2) update the conceptual site model based on the results of the sustainability evaluation, (3) identify and implement sustainability impact measures, and (4) balance sustainability and other considerations during the remediation decision‐making process. The result is a process that encourages communication among different stakeholders and allows remediation practitioners to achieve regulatory goals and maximize the integration of sustainability parameters during the remediation process. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Integrating Media Studies of Climate Change into Transdisciplinary Research: Which Direction Should We Be Heading?

Research in the area of media coverage on climate change communication represents one of the most prolific areas of inquiry within communication and mass communication studies. This body of literature, which ranges from empirical to critical studies, continues to expand. Much research has focused on representations of climate change causes, effects, and human actions, while some has assessed the impacts of these representations. What is broadly missing from this literature, however, is a discussion of how we might integrate media analysis into transdisciplinary collaborative research aimed at creating solutions to the social, environmental, and economic issues intertwined with climate change. Given the magnitude of problems the society and science are currently grasping with, it behooves us to understand how media studies can contribute most effectively to characterizing and solving problems. We maintain that the move toward integrating media studies into transdisciplinary collaborative research marks an essential transition for environmental communication in general, but climate change communication in particular, given the urgency and magnitude of creating meaningful adaptation and mitigation strategies to address this pressing, complex challenge. Drawing on our work as part of a large transdisciplinary sustainability science team, we provide a case study for understanding what collaborations are key to moving media studies into a transdisciplinary context and the key opportunities and barriers that come along with that move. We argue that media studies must increasingly engage directly in collaboration with other researchers, stakeholders, and communities to serve on-the-ground decision-making and enhance society's ability to take action.     

Support for maternal manipulation of developmental nutrition in a facultatively eusocial bee, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Megalopta genalis</Emphasis> (Halictidae)

Developmental maternal effects are a potentially important source of phenotypic variation, but they can be difficult to distinguish from other environmental factors. This is an important distinction within the context of social evolution, because if variation in offspring helping behavior is due to maternal manipulation, social selection may act on maternal phenotypes, as well as those of offspring. Factors correlated with social castes have been linked to variation in developmental nutrition, which might provide opportunity for females to manipulate the social behavior of their offspring. Megalopta genalis is a mass-provisioning facultatively eusocial sweat bee for which production of males and females in social and solitary nests is concurrent and asynchronous. Female offspring may become either gynes (reproductive dispersers) or workers (non-reproductive helpers). We predicted that if maternal manipulation plays a role in M. genalis caste determination, investment in daughters should vary more than for sons. The mass and protein content of pollen stores provided to female offspring varied significantly more than those of males, but volume and sugar content did not. Sugar content varied more among female eggs in social nests than in solitary nests. Provisions were larger, with higher nutrient content, for female eggs and in social nests. Adult females and males show different patterns of allometry, and their investment ratio ranged from 1.23 to 1.69. Adult body weight varied more for females than males, possibly reflecting increased variation in maternal investment in female offspring. These differences are consistent with a role for maternal manipulation in the social plasticity observed in M. genalis.