Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Nasty odour drives residents indoors

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 really foul but it’s ripe at the moment.

“Around Christmas the smell started getting worse and it’s just absolutely disgusting.

“I hope the work they are doing works.”

Ms MacKender said the ongoing odour has made her regret buying on Maple Road.

Patricia Taylor has been a resident of Maple Road for 30 years, but yesterday she said this Christmas was the first one she had been forced to celebrate indoors.

“This is the worst I have ever smelt it, you walk outside and you gag,” she said.

“I was actually blaming the horses before I realised it was coming from the sewerage.”

Resident Robert Van Delft was less out-spoken, admitting while he has noticed the smell is a “bit worse”, he hopes the work being carried out will end the odour.

“If after they have finished the work there is no improvement, then I would complain,” he said.

“We were warned this was going to happen, and if it is going to be better in the long run we just have to put up with it at the moment.”

Wagga mayor Kerry Pascoe yesterday apologised for the “fairly strong odour”, but declared the smell will subside in the “next three or four days”.

“The odour out there is due to the de-commissioning of the old sewage plant combined with extremely high temperatures,” he said.

“At the moment they are cleaning out the sludge and it is causing the problem. Of course this could happen when it is old sludge and water.

“We hope within the next three to four days the smell will subside.”

Friday, January 08, 2010

MOON'S 'PERFUME' COMES FROM SUN

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 discovery is important for several reasons, explains NASA lunar scientist Menelaos Sarantos. One is that it could help interpret what kinds of minerals are on the moon's surface.

"What comes out [as exosphere] more or less tells you the mineralogy of the surface," Sarantos said.

The ions and how they change over time also provide direct evidence of how much of a beating the lunar surface is taking, which is invaluable information for anyone hoping to house humans on the moon in the future.

"If you want to build a lunar base or put humans on the surface for any time," Sarantos said, "you want a well-defined radiation environment."

The experiment worked like this: When the moon passed inside of the tail of Earth's magnetic field -- which streams off the Earth like a gigantic windsock whipping in the solar wind -- the moon's surface was protected for about four days from solar wind, but not from sunlight.


WATCH VIDEO: NASA's LCROSS and spent Centaur rocket was smashed into the moon in a search for water on the lunar surface. The impact was captured on video.
Related Links:


Organics Reportedly Found on the Moon
Tall Dust Plume Seen in Moon Crash Pics
Moon Poses Radiation Risk To Future Travelers
HowStuffWorks.com: Lunar Surface


So if the hot-particle-laden solar wind was the culprit in making the exosphere, the Japanese spacecraft SELENE should have seen a noticeable drop in the exosphere ions. But that's not what the Japanese research team saw.

"The ion fluxes were higher when the [sun was higher], which is consistent with the idea that the solar photon-driven processes dominates," writes Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Takaaki Tanaka, the lead author of the report.

In other words, powerful ultraviolet light photons are big-time exosphere-makers.

The report was published in the latest issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

In addition to offering a better understanding our moon, the measurements may actually prove valuable in interpreting the exosphere of Mercury.

Early next year the NASA MESSENGER spacecraft will go into orbit around Mercury. About the only primer we have for understanding Mercury's exosphere, said Sarantos, will be the moon's.

Finally, Sarantos said, getting a better handle on the makeup of the moon's exosphere needs to be done now, because there's no telling how much longer it will remain pristine.

: Discovery News http://bit.ly/5FQMRP

Moon's 'Perfume' Comes From Sun : Discovery News

Moon's 'Perfume' Comes From Sun : Discovery News

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Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Odor source might have been found at refinery

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.

Feedlot visit opens DEC officers' eyes

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.

"Their receptiveness to hearing what works from our perspective, particularly in regard to pen surfaces and drainage, was really encouraging," Ms Mouritz said.

"WALFA, DEC, WA Local Government Association (WALGA) and DAFWA delegates liaised with the Australian Lot Feeders' Association (ALFA) policy and project analyst Peter Loneragan and Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) feedlot manager Des Rinehart, to clarify the environmental guidelines and codes of practice that will best suit and practically applicable in WA."

* Read full story in this week's Farm Weekly.

Sunday, January 03, 2010

Disinfectant misuse could help create superbugs

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 infect anyone whose defenses have been weakened, whether from chemotherapy or diabetes, cystic fibrosis or AIDS.

After gradually upping the dose of benzalkonium chloride, an antiseptic used in products that include eyedrops and wet wipes, researchers had on their hands a Frankensteinian pathogen that showed a 12-fold resistance to the common disinfectant. (Generally, showing four or five times the normal resistance level is enough to earn a newer, nastier disease “superbug” status.)

Even worse, that same variant of P. aeruginosadisplayed a whopping 256-fold increase in resistance to the antibiotic ciprofloxacin – even though it had never been exposed to the drug before. That’s worrisome, since the commonly prescribed Cipro has been used to treat such high-profile pathogens as anthrax spores.

The upshot? That hospitals that don’t use enough disinfectant to kill every last bacterium on a given surface could provide an ideal breeding ground for new superbugs. These mutations could become virtually immune to prevention and treatment.

“The message, for heaven’s sake, is use disinfectants properly,” lead author Gerard Fleming said in an interview. “The first line of defense is disinfection. The second line of defense is antibiotics.”

By misusing disinfectants, he concluded, “You're making an environment where you've now lost the first and second lines of defense.”

There’s a dangerous tendency toward using disinfectants as a clean-all, Fleming said, when there was a much more potent, proven remedy to rid oneself of germs.

“Soap and water. I am not messing with you,” Fleming said. “Why doesn’t the surgeon, when he’s going into the theater, just take a hand sanitizer? Why does he go to the sink and scrub and scrub and scrub? Because he’s physically removing the bacteria.”

Friday, January 01, 2010

Dairy emission, odor study out

- 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 impermeable cover placed over manure lagoons, a permeable manure lagoon cover and a solids separation and aeration system.

"The project evaluated the air emissions and odor levels from six dairy and livestock operations and then compared the odor levels both before and after the installation of best management practices that were intended to reduce odor or emissions," said Steve Struss, DATCP project co-manager.

More than 2,000 air samples were collected during the project. The samples measured odors and the airborne concentrations of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, two compounds most likely to be present on livestock operations.

"Keep in mind that we were not measuring the amount of emissions from entire farms," Struss said. "The samples were collected at the edge of practices such as manure lagoons, sand separation channels or an animal feedlot."

While the number of farms within the study was limited, it appears that impermeable covers significantly reduce ambient concentrations of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, DATCP said. Not surprisingly, the department noted that when stored manure was agitated or pumped, higher concentrations of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide were detected.

The project also will provide valuable data for Wisconsin's existing livestock facility siting rule.

"The siting rule uses a model to predict the amount of odor that might be produced from new or expanding livestock operations. One goal of this project was to compare the levels that the model predicts with actual odor levels measured on farms," Struss said. "The study gives us some real-world data we can consider in evaluating the odor model."

Based on sampling results, DATCP said it appears that the odor model used in its siting process accurately predicts the amount of odor from covered manure storage lagoons and from manure lagoons between two and four acres in size. However, the model seems to underestimate the amount of odor from small manure lagoons and manure digesters, the agency reported.

The findings of the study suggest options for farmers who wish to reduce odors, including:

* Minimize surface agitation of waste storage lagoons to limit exposure to the air, including the use of submerged inlet pipes and mixing below the surface of the lagoon.

* If a manure digester is used, maximize the time manure is kept inside the digester to reduce odors from the manure lagoon. A high-quality flare with a reliable igniter to burn off gas also avoids unintentional releases of digester gas.

* Installation of new manure storage lagoons would benefit from an impermeable cover, which can reduce odors 100%.

* Existing manure storage lagoons would benefit from a permeable cover that can reduce odors about 70%.

* Keep stored feed clean and dry. Wet feed produces odors and reduces feed quality.

* A solids separator can be used to produce bedding materials and reduce odors approximately 25%.

* Keep animal densities low on open feedlots as high stocking rates increase odors as well as runoff and erosion.

* The separation distance from neighbors is a simple but effective tool to reduce odor impacts; place new livestock housing or manure lagoons as far as possible from nearby residents.

The final report and farm-specific data are available on the DATCP web site at www.datcp.state.wi.us/arm/agriculture/land-water/odor/index.jsp.