Determining the Costs of Air Pollution Control

A general procedure has been described that can be followed for estimating the cost of reducing air pollution emissions within a metropolitan region. The six step procedure examines emission inventories, regional trends, control trends, alternate control schemes, control costs, and optimum cost-effectiveness. The procedure is illustrated for one emission source in the Delaware Valley. By application of “feasible controls,” automobile emissions were shown to be reduced from 4.5 billion pounds per year in the Region during 1968 to 1.5 billion pounds in the year 2000. Annual control costs during the same period will increase from $30 million to over $300 million per year. This represents a cost increase from $15 per registered vehicle in 1968 to about $58 per vehicle per year in 2000. A method was illustrated for determining minimum cost to achieve any desired degree of emission reduction where alternate feasible control schemes are available. This method is especially useful where the allocation of scarce resources is involved. The general procedure is applicable to any number of pollutants and emission sources, and may be useful for calculations in any metropolitan area. The objectives of the present study are to apply this method to other sources within the Delaware Valley and to determine total regional costs for various levels of emission reduction. As one example of a practical application for this type of analysis, the economic impact of regulatory schemes can be evaluated on a cost-effectiveness basis     

Emission of dioxins/furans and other U-POPs from test burns of non-POP pesticides in a hazardous waste incinerator

This paper presents the results of test burns for obsolete pesticides (OPs) of the permethrin group in a high temperature incinerator (HTI) in Southeast Asia. Three test burn runs were conducted, a baseline run when no OP was fed to the incinerator, and two test runs with different mixtures of OP compounds (formula 1 and 2, refer to Table 1 for detail) containing chlorine in the feeding wastes. The unintentional formed persistent organic pollutants (U-POPs) including 17 dioxins/furans, 12 dioxin-like PCBs and 12 chlorobenzenes (CBs) were monitored in all input materials and all discharges (flue gas, scrubbing liquid and solid residues). The results show relatively high levels of the U-POPs in the flue gas emission with total dioxins/furans of 4.4, 3.4, and 8.4 ng I-TEQ/m³ in the baseline, test run 1 and test run 2, respectively, which are above international acceptable emission levels. The PCB levels in flue gas were, respectively, 0.01, 0.3 and 0.4 ng I-TEQ/m³. The baseline thus had similar U-POPs levels with the OP test runs.In stack emission, approximately 90% of the U-POPs and 100% of CBs were present in gas phase. The emission factors, mass of pollutants per metric ton (tonne) of input waste, of U-POPs associated with fly ash (from bag house) were the highest, followed by flue gas and bottom ash while those associated with scrubbing liquid were relatively low. Among the waste input material only the black toner power contained U-POPs, but at low levels. The profiles of the dioxins/furans and PCBs in the toner waste were significantly different from that in the discharges. Despite the overall good destruction and removal efficiency of permethrin (better than 90%) the high emission of U-POPs and CBs from the test burn is of another more serious concern. To our best knowledge the findings of this study are the first of this kind for the Southeast Asia. The findings emphasize that if not properly conducted a standard destruction technology of a non-POP chemical can lead to a release of a range of more dangerous U-POPs into the environment.     

Effects of Fluoride on Agriculture

The effects of atmospheric fluorides on plants are summarized with respect to the level of biological organization at which they occur. The factors that determine the occurrence and degree of these effects are reviewed briefly. A series of economic effects on agriculture is postulated and its possible relationship to the botanical effects of fluorides is discussed.     

Modeling the dynamic habitat and breeding population of Southwestern Willow Flycatcher

To aid in the management and conservation of Southwestern Willow Flycatcher (Empidonax traillii extimus, hereafter “Flycatcher”), we developed numerous models of flycatcher breeding habitat at Roosevelt Lake, AZ. For model development and testing, we compiled 10 years of flycatcher territory data that were obtained from intensive fieldwork between 1996 and 2005. We identified riparian vegetation annually in the project area from Landsat Thematic Mapper images, and extracted floodplain features from a digital elevation model. We created a novel class of temporal (i.e., multiyear) variables by characterizing the stability and variability in breeding habitat over a 6-year time interval. We used logistic regression to determine associations between environmental variables and flycatcher territory occurrence, and to test specific hypotheses. We mapped the probability of territory occurrence with a GIS and determined model accuracies with a classification table and a 10-year population database. Environmental features that were associated with breeding flycatchers included floodplain size, proximity to water, and the density, heterogeneity, age and stability of riparian vegetation. Our best model explained 79% of the variability in the flycatcher breeding population at Roosevelt Lake. The majority of predicted flycatcher habitat formed between 1996 and 2004 on an exposed lakebed ～3 years after water levels receded during a prolonged drought. A high correlation between annual reservoir levels and predicted breeding habitat (r = ?0.82) indicates that we can create and manage habitat for conservation purposes. Our predictive models quantify and assess the relative quality of flycatcher breeding habitat remotely, and can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of habitat restoration activities. Numerous techniques we developed can be used to characterize riparian vegetation and patch dynamics directly off of satellite imagery, thereby increasing its utility for conservation purposes.     

Manganese in the urban atmosphere: identifying anomalous concentrations and sources

Purpose  

Industrial emissions can raise urban background levels of inhalable Mn particles in an order of magnitude above normal, eclipsing the contribution made by natural sources and traffic.     

Consistent personality differences in house-hunting behavior but not decision speed in swarms of honey bees (<Emphasis Type="BoldItalic">Apis mellifera</Emphasis>)

Speed-accuracy tradeoffs are a common feature of decision-making processes, both in individual animals and in groups of animals working together to reach a single collective decision. Individual organisms display consistent differences in their “impulsivity,” and vary in their tendency to make rapid, impulsive choices as opposed to slower, more accurate decisions. However, we do not yet know whether groups of animals consistently differ in their tendency to prioritize decision speed over accuracy. We challenged 17 swarms of honey bees (Apis mellifera) to simultaneously choose a new nest site in each of three locations, and measured their decision speeds in each trial. We found that swarms displayed consistent personality differences in the number of waggle dances and shaking signals they performed and in how actively they scouted for new nest sites. However, swarms did not consistently differ in how long they took to choose a nest site. We suggest that house-hunting A. mellifera swarms may place an especially high emphasis on decision accuracy when choosing a nest site, and that chance events—such as the time when each swarm discovers a sufficiently high-quality nest site—may consequently play a greater role in determining a swarm’s decision speed than intrinsic characteristics such as a swarm’s “impulsivity.”