Blowing Smoke in Yellowstone: Air Quality Impacts of Oversnow Motorized Recreation in the Park

Snowmobile use in Yellowstone National Park has been shown to impact air quality, with implications for the safety and welfare of Park staff and other Park resource values. Localized impacts have been documented at several high-use sites in the Park, but the broader spatial variability of snowmobile emissions and air quality was not understood. Measurements of 87 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were made for ambient air sampled across the Park and West Yellowstone, Montana, during 2 days of the 2002–2003 winter use season, 1 year before the implementation of a new snowmobile policy. The data were compared with similar data from pristine West Coast sites at similar latitudes. Backward trajectories of local air masses, alkyl nitrate-parent alkane ratios, and atmospheric soundings were used to identify the VOC sources and assess their impact. Different oversnow vehicle types used in the Park were sampled to determine their relative influence on air mass pollutant composition. VOCs were of local origin and demonstrated strong spatiotemporal variability that is primarily influenced by levels of snowmobile traffic on given road segments at different times of day. High levels of snowmobile traffic in and around West Yellowstone produced consistently high levels of benzene, toluene, and carbon monoxide.     

A NONLINEAR MULTILEVEL MODEL FOR REGIONAL WATER RESOURCES PLANNING1

ABSTRACT: A nonlinear multilevel transportation model is developed to study large-scale allocations in a water resources system. The model uses a modified transportation matrix formulated with nonlinear cost functions as the basic subregional model and the goal coordination method for multilevel decomposition and optimization of the overall regional system. The model is applied to projected water requirements for Salt Lake County in 1985. Sources of water supply - surface water, ground water, import water, and reuse of reclaimed wastewater on a restricted basis - are available to satisfy water requirements for municipal, industrial, and agricultural sectors in four subregions. The conjugate gradient projection method is used to optimize the first level subregional models having cost functions of the form of C = aX^b, and the second level problem is solved using the conjugate gradient method.     

Fate and efficacy of polyacrylamide applied in furrow irrigation: full-advance and continuous treatments

Polyacrylamide (PAM) is applied to 400000 irrigated hectares annually in the USA to control irrigation-induced erosion, yet the fate of dissolved PAM applied in irrigation water is not well documented. We determined the fate of PAM added to furrow streams under two treatments: Initial-10, 10 mg L(-1) PAM product applied only during the initial hours of the irrigation, and Cont-1, 1.0 mg L(-1) PAM product applied continuously during the entire irrigation. The study measured PAM concentrations in 167-m-long PAM-treated furrow streams and along a 530-m tail ditch that received this runoff. Soil was Portneuf silt loam (coarse-silty, mixed, superactive, mesic Durinodic Xeric Haplocalcid) with 1.5% slope. Samples were taken at three times during the irrigations, both during and after PAM application. Polyacrylamide was adsorbed to soil and removed from solution as the streams traversed the soil-lined channels. The removal rate increased with stream sediment concentration. Stream sediment concentrations were higher when PAM concentrations were <2 mg L(-1) a.i., for early irrigations, and when untreated tributary flows combined with the stream. In these cases, PAM concentration decreased to undetectable levels over the flow lengths used in this study. When inflows contained >6 mg L(-1) PAM a.i., stream sediment concentrations were minimal and PAM concentrations did not change down the furrow, though they decreased to undetectable levels within 0.5 h after application ceased. One percent of applied PAM was lost in tail-ditch runoff. This loss could have been eliminated by treating only the furrow advance or not treating the last two irrigations.     

Floodplain management: Land acquisition versus preservation of historic buildings in Cambridge,Ontario, Canada

Non-structural adjustments in floodplain management are often avoided because they are seen to infringe on personal rights, adversely affect property values and restrict local tax bases. Land acquisition programs in urban areas encounter a further problem when they lead to demolition of buildings and other structures considered to have historical or architectural value. An experience in Cambridge, Ontario demonstrates that the potential conflict between flood damage reduction and historical preservation objectives can be exacerbated as a result of uncoordinated planning efforts, inflexibility in interpreting mandates, unclear roles for participating agencies, and lack of cooperation Many of these dilemmas can be resolved through consultation and discussion early in the planning process as well as through a willingness to be flexible and to search for a compromise     

FACTORS THAT AFFECT ACTIVATED SLUDGE PHOSPHATE RELEASE1

The activated sludge process can remove significant amounts of phosphorus from sewage, but the removal efficiency is usually significantly reduced by the release of phosphate back to solution during subsequent treatment steps. This research presents a study of soluble phosphate release from activated sludge with emphasis on defining the factors that affect such release and the actual release mechanisms. Laboratory units were used for experimental purposes. The experiments were designed to study the relationship between soluble phosphate release and various environmental factors such as redox potential (ORP), dissolved oxygen (DO), pH, solids concentration, solids destruction, and sulfate salt addition. The effect of substrate utilization on phosphate uptake and the relationship between uptake characteristics and subsequent phosphate release were also studied. The results show that some phosphate storage occurs during aerobic substrate utilization. Following substrate utilization, activated sludge phosphate release is directly related to the amount of biological stress the organisms are subjected to, and the mechanism of release is primarily cell lysis. The phosphate released per unit sludge under anoxic conditions is relatively constant. Under normal environmental conditions, neither ORP or pH change have a significant affect on phosphate release.     

Serving one another: Are shared and self‐leadership the keys to service sustainability?

Service has received increasing attention in the management literature, yet sustainability of service is often overlooked. In this Incubator we examine the potential for client involvement through shared and self‐leadership to foster empathy enhanced service and reduced costs, both of which may support a more sustainable service delivery process. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.