Environmental odour news

WAGGA residents living in the vicinity of the Kooringal sewage treatment plant were confined indoors over the weekend as the smell from the plant became unbearable. In the past week, residents have been left confined to their homes with the usual odour from the old plant becoming stronger and more pungent. A door-to-door investigation carried out by The Daily Advertiser yesterday found residents torn between disgust for the increasing repulsive smell and patience for the new plant that will supposedly end the ongoing odour. Residents living in the streets surrounding the plant received a letter from Wagga City Council informing them of work that would be carried out at the old plant, which may increase the smell temporarily. Kara MacKender, who has lived on Maple Road for eight years, received the letter in September which she said “promised there would be no more smell”. “You can’t even sit outside at the moment. It is putrid,” she said. “I have always hated it and found it...

A Japanese craft sniffs the moon's thin atmosphere and provides details that could help future human explorers. By Larry O'Hanlon | Thu Jan 7, 2010 04:52 AM ET A Japanese craft recently "sniffed" the atmosphere of the moon, which is so thin, it is referred to as an exosphere. iStockPhoto The moon's whiff of an atmosphere has been sniffed by a Japanese spacecraft under very special conditions and confirmed as coming largely from sunlight brutally hammering the lunar surface. Using the very first direct measurements of the moon's "exosphere" as the moon passed through the streaming tail of Earth's protective magnetic field, researchers were able to watch the short-lived and ever-changing exosphere in the absence of the hot, magnetized solar wind. What they found confirmed that it's really just powerful ultraviolet light knocking beat-up atoms, or ions, off the lunar surface and manufacturing the bulk of the weak lunar perfume. This ...

Moon's 'Perfume' Comes From Sun : Discovery News Posted using ShareThis

Associated Press RAWLINS, Wyo. (AP) - Officials say a storage tank appears to be the source of odors at Sinclair Wyoming Refining Company. John Pfeffer is a refinery environmental health and safety manager. He says the tank normally stores crude oil but was being used to store slop oils before being reprocessed. Pfeffer says liquid streams being directed to the tank were hotter than expected and may have been causing the odors. He says the refinery last week stopped diverting slop oils to the tank. Information from: Rawlins Daily Times Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

THE Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) joined Department of Agriculture and Food (DAFWA) representatives last week to conduct a visit of a Hyden feedlot. The visit was not a surprise one, but rather the initiative of DAFWA Narrogin development officers Claire Coffey and Pat Page, who were keen to give Government officers a better understanding of on-farm procedures, particularly relating to feedlots. DEC Wheatbelt regional manager Wayne Elliott and DEC Avon Mortlock district manager Alan Kietzmann joined Ms Coffey and Mr Page at Vern, Jane and Elliott Mouritz's Hydillowah Feedlot, Hyden, for a tour of the facility. According to Ms Mouritz, who is also on the WA Lot Feeders Association (WALFA) executive, the purpose of the visit was to increase the understanding of current WA feedlot practices, feedlot set-up, consideration of environmental aspects, feedlot design and what is acceptable practice in terms of drainage, pen cleaning, dust and odour management, etc. ...

Disinfectants may be a double-edged sword in the fight against hospital-borne diseases, scientists say. According to a study to be published in January’s issue of Microbiology, researchers from the National University of Ireland in Galway slowly introduced higher levels of disinfectant to lab cultures of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which lives in the soil and water around us. It can’t seriously hurt healthy people (it’s been implicated in “hot tub itch” and “swimmer’s ear”) but preys on those with compromised immune systems. This opportunistic pathogen can infect the lungs, joints, burn wounds, take advantage of a compromised urinary tract or cause blood diseases. The bacterium can live in man-made environments and colonize catheters and other medical equipment. It’s ideally suited for hospital transmission – the Online Textbook of Bacteriology calls it “the fourth most commonly-isolated nosocomial pathogen accounting for 10.1 percent of all hospital-acquired infections” – but it can in...

- Larger livestock farms volunteered to be part of the study. - Ammonia and hydrogen sulfide levels were measured. - Project provides data for siting rule. A RECENTLY completed study by the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade & Consumer Protection (DATCP) and the Department of Natural Resources has increased the understanding of air emissions and odors on larger-sized livestock farms and lays the groundwork for future studies in this important area, officials said. The multiyear project to study odor and air emissions from Wisconsin dairy and livestock farms was supported by a Conservation Innovation Grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service. Larger livestock farms volunteered to be part of the study. Five dairy farms and one heifer-raising operation were selected. The farms ranged in size from 400 to more than 2,500 head of cattle. Four manure management practices were evaluated: anaerobic manure digesters, an imper...