New Source Performance Standards For Coal-Fired Power Plants

To preserve and improve environmental quality in a prosperous industrialized nation like the United States, we must use efficient control technology to reduce the pollution which would otherwise accompany our growth. The need for control is especially great in our use of energy. In the near term our country must depend increasingly on coal to meet our energy needs. In his 1977 energy message President Carter declared that it would be this Administration’s policy to require the use of best available control technology for all new coal burning plants. EPA is implementing this policy by adopting a rule that will require such controls on new coal-fired power plants.     

Stream Temperature Surges Under Urbanization and Climate Change: Data,Models, and Responses1

ABSTRACT: Multiple anthropogenic stressors, including increased watershed imperviousness, destruction of the riparian vegetation, increased siltation, and changes in climate, will impact streams over the coming century. These stressors will alter water temperature, thus influencing ecological processes and stream biota. Quantitative tools are needed to predict the magnitude and direction of altered thermal regimes. Here, empirical relationships were derived to complement a simple model of in‐stream temperature [developed by Caissie et al. Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering 25 (1998) 250; Journal of Hydrology 251 (2001) 14], including seasonal temperature shifts linked to land use, and temperature surges linked to localized rainstorms; surges in temperature averaged about 3.5°C and dissipated over about 3 h. These temperature surges occurred frequently at the most urbanized sites (up to 10% of summer days) and could briefly increase maximum temperature by >7°C. The combination of empirical relationships and model show that headwater streams may be more pervasively impacted by urbanization than by climate change, although the two stressors reinforce each other. A profound community shift, from common cold and coolwater species to some of the many warmwater species currently present in smaller numbers, may be expected, as shown by a count of days on which temperature exceeds the “good growth” range for coldwater species.     

Long-Term Changes in the Avifauna of Barro Colorado Island, Panama, a Tropical Forest Isolate

Since its isolation from the mainland more than 85 years ago, 65 bird species have disappeared from Barro Colorado Island, Panama. Because of these extinctions the island is often used as a model for the study of faunal relaxation, or loss of species through time. The most recent survey of the island's bird community was completed in 1970. Between June 1994 and May 1996 I surveyed the island and observed 218 species, including 5 species never before recorded. Three relatively sedentary species have experienced severe population declines since Willis's 1970 survey and may be on the brink of disappearing from the island. Willis estimated 500 Slate-colored Grosbeaks ( Pitylus grossus ), whereas I found only two pairs of this conspicuous midstory-dwelling finch. Two cotingas—Speckled Mourner ( Laniocera rufescens ) and Rufous Piha ( Lipaugus unirufus )—have declined by 85–95%. I did not locate any individuals of 36 other species that were present during the 1970s. Most (21) of these are uncommon aquatic or nocturnal species, which I may have missed during my surveys, or are rare to uncommon edge species that probably move frequently to and from the island. Seven species, however, are primarily inhabitants of second-growth forest and have been lost probably because of continuing successional maturation of the forest, including changes in land use around the laboratory clearing. Seven forest-dwelling species disappeared during the 1970s and have not recolonized. I detected only one sedentary forest-dwelling species, Great Currasow ( Crax rubra ), that previously had been reported as missing from the island. The nearly complete lack of recolonizations by such forest-interior species suggests that local extinction from tropical forest isolates may be extremely persistent. Tropical forest reserves as small as Barro Colorado Island (1600 ha) may not preserve high levels of regional avian diversity over long periods of time.