Environmental Science & Engineering - www.esemag.com - November 2004
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Environmental News Items, January 2005
West Coast Environmental Law launches Smart Bylaws Guide
Many municipalities and developers in
British Columbia are emerging as
North American leaders in smart
growth practices at the regional and
local scale. Residents are demanding
more choices in housing, and in the
quality of neighbourhoods and job
opportunities. Bounded by ocean,
mountains, rivers and working lands,
communities are also being forced to
use land more efficiently to stop urban
sprawl, revitalize commercial centres,
and maintain a working land base.
In recognition of this leadership
role, West Coast Environmental Law
has developed a comprehensive webbased
Smart Bylaws Guide
(www.wcel.org/issues/urban/sbg) to
assist local governments to implement
smart growth strategies through policy
and bylaw changes. It describes smart
growth practices, and backs up the theory
with case studies, technical standards
and bylaws that can be tailored
to specific municipal circumstances.
The Guide brings together the good
practices of municipalities across BC,
and highlights innovators in the US.
The Smart Bylaws Guide can assist
local governments to:
- Create urban containment boundaries
and preserve agricultural land;
- Create more compact complete
communities where services and residential
uses are integrated into walkable
neighbourhoods;
- Assess the look and impact of
increasing densities;
- Implement affordable housing
strategies;
- Integrate the “green infrastructure”
into neighbourhood design; and
- Ensure that the cost impacts of
different types of development are
properly addressed.
For more information contact
Deborah Curran at deborah_curran@wcel.org.
Metcon to represent Krohne
Metcon Sales and Engineering Ltd.
has been appointed the exclusive representative
in the Atlantic provinces,
Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan
for Krohne Inc.
Krohne offers an assortment of
products including magnetic, ultrasonic,
VA, and mass flowmeters as well as
radar level instruments.
Now in its 20th year, Metcon provides
chemical feed and instrumentation
to the municipal and industrial
water and wastewater industry. The
company has over fifty employees, and
currently has offices in New
Brunswick, Concord, Thunder Bay,
Winnipeg and Saskatoon. For more
information visit www.metconeng.com
Phasing out coal
around the world
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has
launched an international campaign
called "PowerSwitch” to eliminate
dirty coal power. The campaign targets
coal-fired generation as the single
largest industrial contributor to global
climate change. In Canada, WWF is
teaming up with the Ontario Clean Air
Alliance (OCAA) to ensure the
Ontario government keeps its promise
to phase out coal by 2007, and
advances the switch to cleaner, renewable
power.
A WWF survey of power generators
around the world found that few are
taking active steps to get off dirty coal
and to reduce the increasingly disastrous
impacts of global climate
change. The good news is that right
now Ontario is setting the pace – and
setting a positive example – as the only jurisdiction in North America that has
committed to eliminating coal power.
The OCAA and the WWF are advocating
a combination of energy conservation,
renewable power and natural
gas-fired combined heat and power
plants to phase-out coal. The OCAA is
opposed to re-investing in nuclear
power, as a coal phase-out strategy,
stating that nuclear power is our highest-
cost and least reliable electricity
supply option. As Ontario’s Energy
Minister recently noted, after the
December 31, 2007 coal phase-out
date, the poor performance of our
nuclear reactors could require Ontario
to temporarily re-start the Nanticoke
coal-fired power plant to keep the
lights on. For more information visit
www.wwf.ca/HowYouCanHelp/Power
switch.asp.
Cover-All Building
Systems Inc. obtains ISO
9001:2000 Certification
Cover-All Building Systems, manufacturers
of steel-frame membrane covered
structures, has obtained ISO
9001:2000 Certification. This certification
applies to the quality management
system used for the design,
development, manufacture, shipping,
and after-sales service of steel-framed
membrane covered pre-engineered
building systems at the company’s
manufacturing facility.
Email: coverall@coverall.net Web: www.coverall.net
Stormwater BMP
Database Coalition formed;
research contract awarded
The Water Environment Research
Foundation (WERF) is collaborating
with several other organizations to
fund and manage the International
Stormwater Best Management
Practices (BMP) Database, an important
tool that will allow for continued
improvement in design and implementation
of BMPs.
This tool will prove critical as communities,
departments of transportation,
and private parties plan to spend
potentially billions of dollars over the
next several years implementing BMPs
for compliance with regulatory programs
for protecting water quality.
In addition to WERF, coalition partners
include:
- American Society of Civil Engineers
(ASCE)/Environmental and
Water Resource Institute EWRI)
- U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (US EPA)
- Federal Highway Administration
(FHWA)
- American Public Works Association
(APWA)
The coalition recently awarded a
contract to Wright Water Engineers
and GeoSyntec Consultants to operate
the database, grow the database
through the addition of new BMP data,
and develop protocols for integrating
low impact development (LID) techniques
into the database.
The International Stormwater BMP
Database was initially developed under
grants from the US EPA under the guidance
of the ASCE Urban Water
Resources Research Council
(UWRRC). Information on the database
is currently accessible through the project’s
website www.bmpdatabase.org.
WERF research on
endocrine disruptors
During the past decade, there has been
increased concern regarding the
potential adverse environmental
effects of endocrine disrupting compounds
(EDCs), a group of chemicals
that may affect the endocrine system
in humans and wildlife. The Water
Environment Research Foundation is
working to provide answers to deal
with this emerging issue. Specifically,
WERF research is looking at the fate
of EDCs in wastewater in order to
develop treatment technologies and
analytical techniques which can successfully
monitor EDCs in the products
of wastewater treatment. This
research also will determine what
potential impacts EDCs may have on
environmental health.
EDCs can end up in the municipal
and industrial wastewater treatment
system, either through direct discharge
into the sewers or via stormwater runoff.
To address this, WERF has either
initiated or contributed to several
research studies investigating the
occurrence of EDCs in wastewater
effluent and surface water, analytical
method development, and compound
fate and transport through wastewater
treatment processes.
One of WERF's most recent EDC
projects is developing a guidance document
aimed at wastewater treatmentrelated
issues. This project, Fact Sheet
on Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals
and Implications for Wastewater
Treatment (project no. 04-WEM-6),
will provide information to wastewater
treatment plant operators that answers
their questions on EDCs and provides
accurate information that they can then
pass along to their customers and communities.
Contact: www.werf.org/Watersheds/EDCs.cfm.
Zenon donates water filtration
units to Tsunami victims
Zenon Environmental
is sending its Homespring
units to provide
safe drinking
water to victims of the tsunami
in India and Sri Lanka. In
a combined initiative with
Eureka Forbes in India and
World Vision, ZENON will
initially donate 54 of its
Homespring water filtration
units to support relief efforts
in Asia.
The units will be installed
in Sri Lanka and India. Eureka Forbes
has taken on the responsibility of servicing
and maintaining the units to
ensure continued safe drinking water
to people in the area.World Vision will
identify those areas most in need as
well as coordinate the logistics of
transporting the units on the ground.
Clean water is critical to the victims’
survival at this point. According
to the World Health Organization, the
average physically active adult consumes
approximately four litres of
water per day. As each Homespring
water filtration unit can potentially
produce up to 27,000 litres of water
per day (7,000 gallons) depending on
water quality, the 54 units being provided
by ZENON are capable of providing
safe drinking water to over
350,000 people.
Also, the company’s larger water
purification systems will be deployed
by Canada’s Disaster Assistance Relief
Team (DART).
KSB sends free water pumps
to tsunami ravaged areas
KSB is supplying submersible borehole
pumps to Sumatra/Indonesia and
the region around Madras/India for
new wells aimed at providing drinking
water. Large submersible motor pumps
have been designated for South India
and were modified for their intended
applications in the disaster areas.
In Banda Aceh, on the northern tip
of Sumatra, the firm is working with
a local contractor from Singapore to
get a seawater desalination plant built
and installed as quickly as possible.
This plant, which will supply 100
cubic metres of drinking water a day,
requires two high-pressure pumps
made of special steels. These pump
sets are being donated by KSB AG.
They are being specially manufactured
and will then be shipped to the
region by air. A further seawater
desalination plant in the Maldives is
also being fitted and installed with
KSB support.
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