Thursday, January 26, 2006

[Grants] WMRC Announces Competition WMRC has posted its annual research proposal solicitation. Proposals in response to this solicitation will be funded with FY07 research funds, as available, with projects beginning no earlier than September 1, 2006. Please pay close attention to the proposal submittal guidelines and to information in the solicitation to insure that you prepare all the documentation required for submittal. Note that the deadline for proposal receipt is Friday, February 24, at 5pm. 4:23:55 PM Google It!    [Water pollution] New Tool for Determining Cause of Ecological Harm to Rivers and Streams To improve the nation's waters, EPA has released a new web-based tool, the Causal Analysis/Diagnosis Decision Information System (CADDIS), which simplifies determining the cause of contamination in impaired rivers, streams and estuaries.  An impaired body of water does not meet the state or federal water quality standards for one or more pollutants. More than a thousand U.S. water bodies have been identified as impaired, and in many cases, the cause is unknown.  There are many possible sources of pollution such as industrial waste, municipal sewage, agricultural runoff, naturally occurring minerals in rock and sand, and biological materials.  Before restorative or remedial actions can be taken, the cause of impairment must be determined.  By helping to find the source of contamination, state and local organizations will be better able to implement the Clean Water Act. CADDIS provides a standardized and easily accessible system to help scientists find, use and share information to determine the causes of aquatic impairment.  Causal analyses look at stressor-response relationships, meaning the effect of a specific substance or activity (stressor) on the environment.  Typical water stressors include excess fine sediments, nutrients, or toxic substances. CADDIS was developed by EPA scientists through partnerships with EPA programs and regions, as well as states and tribes.  "The development of CADDIS has been an impressive effort and a great example of customer focus by EPA's Office of Research and Development," said Michael Shapiro, deputy assistant administrator in EPA's Office of Water The version of CADDIS released today is the first of three.  Future versions will include modules to quantify stressor-response relationships, and databases and syntheses of relevant literature on sediments and toxic metals.  CADDIS is available on EPA's Web pages at:  http://www.epa.gov/caddis 4:19:35 PM Google It!    [Schools] Waldorf School Aims for Top Green Building Achievement Charlottesville Virginia's new Charlottesville Waldorf School is in the midst of a $6.2 million capital campaign designed to help the school become the first LEED Platinum elementary school in the country. It will feature a completely integrated "green" design featuring straw-bale construction, a rammed-earth wall, a living roof, geothermal heating and cooling, water reclamation and passive solar technologies. [Source: RenewableEnergyAccess.com] 4:18:02 PM Google It!    [Renewable energy] Ohio Announces Renewable Energy Grants Ohio Lieutenant Governor Bruce Johnson announced that the Ohio Department of Development will award $450,000 in grants to help deploy residential, commercial and industrial projects that implement renewable energy technologies. [Source: RenewableEnergyAccess.com] 4:16:42 PM Google It!    [Wind power] A Free Fuel That Tackles Oil Price Rises Conventional economic wisdom goes something like this. Traditional energy is cheap and renewable energy expensive. Therefore we should 'wait' until the day renewables become cost competitive before they can be considered a realistic proposition. This viewpoint may have been true for the last two oil crises - in the 1970s, when modern wind power had not been invented, and in the 1980s, when wind was in its R&D phase. But with wind energy now an advanced technology it is an outdated fallacy, overtaken by today's energy realities. [Source: RenewableEnergyAccess.com] 4:15:31 PM Google It!    [Grants] Research and Development of Fuel Cell Technology for the Hydrogen Economy Applications due Apr 05, 2006. The date for the Letter of Intent is 2/28/2006. The Department of Energy (DOE) seeks to develop a durable, direct hydrogen fuel cell power system that reaches a peak efficiency of 60% and has a power density of 650 W/L, a specific power of 650 W/kg and a cost of $45/kW by 2010 ($30/kW by 2015). Additional technical performance and cost targets have been developed for components and sub-systems that comprise a complete fuel cell system. The research and development sought through this funding announcement will be focused on advancing fuel cell technology towards the 2010 technical performance and cost targets developed through the FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership and detailed in the DOE Hydrogen, Fuel Cells, and Infrastructure Technologies Program Multi-Year RD D Plan (MYPP), http://www.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/mypp/. The technologies must be scalable to be suitable across the spectrum of vehicle platforms. The targets are revised periodically to reflect advances in the technology. Applications for this Funding Opportunity Announcement must be accessed, completed, and submitted through Grants.gov at http://www.grants.gov to be considered for award. 4:01:51 PM Google It!    [Metals] Study Raises Questions About Sustainability Of Metal Resources Researchers studying supplies of copper, zinc and other metals have concluded that these finite resources, even if recycled, may not meet the needs of the global population forever. According to the study, if all nations were to use the same services enjoyed in developed nations, even the full extraction of metals from the Earth's crust and extensive recycling programs may not meet future demand. The article was published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. The full citation is: R. B. Gordon, M. Bertram, and T. E. Graedel. (2006) "Metal stocks and sustainability." Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 103(5), 1209-1214. Online at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0509498103. 1:03:42 PM Google It!    [Environmental policy] Study: United States Ranks 28th In Environmental Performance New Zealand ranks first in the world in environmental performance, according to the Pilot 2006 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) produced by a team of environmental experts at the environment school at Yale University and the Earth Institute at Columbia University. The study is available on the web at http://www.yale.edu/epi. [Source: Environmental Protection E-News] 12:41:46 PM Google It!    [E-Waste] Maine's New E-Waste Recycling Law Takes Effect On Jan. 18, Maine became the first state in the nation to require television and computer manufacturers to pay for the recycling and disposal of their discarded products. According to The Associated Press, jurisdictions in the state previously charged consumers between $15 and $20 to dispose of e-waste; however, the new law charges consumers only $2 to drop of their equipment. Supporters of the law hope it will encourage manufacturers to use less toxic materials and create products that are more easily recyclable. [Source: Waste News] For more information: Main DEQ -- E-Waste http://www.maine.gov/dep/rwm/ewaste/ Maine's Electronic Waste Program Uses Market Forces Wisely http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/viewpoints/editorials/060119recycle.shtml Maine Makes TV, PC Monitor Makers Recycle http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10910607/ Electronic Waste and eCycling http://www.epa.gov/region1/solidwaste/electronic/ 12:38:38 PM Google It!    [Environmental health] Diabetes from a Plastic? Estrogen mimic provokes insulin resistance Exposure to trace amounts of an estrogenlike ingredient of polycarbonate plastic may increase the risk of diabetes, experiments in mice show. [Source: Science News] 12:34:14 PM Google It!    [Grants] The Alcan Prize for Sustainability Aluminum and packaging company Alcan, Inc. and the International Business Leaders Forum have announced the Call for Entries for the 2006 $1 million Alcan Prize for Sustainability. The Alcan Prize is open to all not-for-profit, nongovernmental, and civil-society organizations based anywhere in the world that are working to advance the goals of economic, environmental, and social sustainability. The Alcan Prize was created to recognize the not-for-profit sector for its contributions to global sustainability, and to underline the belief that all sectors of society must work together to achieve sustainable development. Last year's Alcan Prize winner was the Aga Khan Planning and Building Services Pakistan. In addition, the program's Adjudication Panel named five other NGOs as recipients of grants worth $15,000 each; those grants allow a suitably qualified senior member of staff to participate in the one-year, part-time Postgraduate Certificate in Cross Sector Partnership accredited by the University of Cambridge (http://www.cpi.cam.ac.uk/pccp/). 12:32:27 PM Google It!    [Grants] Fund for Wild Nature The Fund for Wild Nature provides money for campaigns to save and restore native species and wild ecosystems, including actions to defend wilderness and biological diversity. The fund supports advocacy, litigation, public policy work, development of citizen science, and similar endeavors. The fund does not support basic scientific research, private land acquisition, individual action or study, or conferences. The fund will only support media projects that have a clear strategic value and a concrete plan for dissemination of the final product. The fund supports biocentric goals that are premised on effective and intelligible strategies, and will give special attention to ecological issues not currently receiving sufficient public attention and funding. All proposals must be highly cost effective. The fund supports projects only in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and rarely supports proposals from organizations with annual budgets greater than $250,000. 12:25:18 PM Google It!    [Grants] Rural People, Rural Policy The W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Rural People, Rural Policy is a new multi-year national initiative designed to energize and equip rural organizations and networks to shape policy that will improve the lives of rural people and the vitality of rural communities. One of the primary components of the initiative is Regional Rural Policy Networks. Regional Rural Policy Networks are a set of selected organizations from four specific geographic regions and one "at-large" region in the United States. Network organizations will engage in a multi-year process designed to help develop their individual and collective strategies, skills, and efforts to improve the impact of public and private policy on rural people and rural places. Starting this year, RPRP will recruit a cohort of five organizations from each region to take part in the initiative. Any nonprofit organization seeking to improve policy that affects rural people and rural places may apply to participate in a Regional Rural Policy Network. This includes organizations working in economic development, education, community philanthropy, health, or other issues critical to the vitality and sustainability of rural life. Organizations that seek to participate may be anywhere on a spectrum from small to large, focused on one community or across state lines, targeted on a single issue or a range of issues, or young and learning to highly experienced. Four Regional Rural Policy Networks will be based in specific regions where the W.K. Kellogg Foundation has invested considerable resources in recent years. These four regions are: 1) Central Appalachia (i.e., West Virginia and the Appalachian counties of Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, and Virginia); 2) the Mid South (Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi; 3) the Midwest/Great Plains (Nebraska, Montana, and North and South Dakota; and 4) the Southwest (New Mexico and Arizona). Organizations that are not based in these eligible regions but that consider themselves to be very connected to one of these regions may make a case to be included in that network. In addition, the foundation is considering organizing one At-Large Network to include up to five organizations that meet all the criteria for participation but are from outside the four specified geographic regions. Organizations selected in the first year of the program will each receive a grant commitment from WKKF totaling $100,000 over five years. Funds may be used for salary, travel, and other costs associated with strengthening the organization's capacity to engage in rural policy decisions. In the first year of participation, organizations will engage in three peer-learning sessions that include all participating organizations nationwide. 12:21:01 PM Google It!    [Grants] Project Orange Thumb Fiskars Garden & Outdoor Living is now accepting applications for its 2006 Project Orange Thumb grants program. The company created Project Orange Thumb to support community garden groups in the U.S. with tools and materials. Project Orange Thumb recipients will receive grants of up to $1,500 in Fiskars Garden Tools (retail value), and up to $800 in gardening-related materials such as plants, seeds, mulch, etc. Recipients will also receive Project Orange Thumb t-shirts for garden members/volunteers. Gardens and/or gardening projects geared toward community involvement, neighborhood beautification, sustainable agriculture, and/or horticultural education are eligible Community garden groups, as well as schools, youth groups, community centers, camps, clubs, treatment facilities, etc. are encouraged to apply. Only group applications will be considered; single individuals are not eligible. The program is open to any community garden in the fifty states and the District of Columbia. 12:17:56 PM Google It!    [Grants] Build-A-Bear Workshop's Huggable Heroes program Now in its third year, the Build-A-Bear Workshop's Huggable Heroes program seeks to reward kids who demonstrate extraordinary service to their local communities. Build-A-Bear Workshop seeks nominations of young people who have made a difference to the life of their communities to be named 2006 Huggable Heroes. Nominations will be accepted of young people who are 18 years of age or younger and are legal residents of the United States, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Canada. Twelve young people will be selected and recognized as 2006 Huggable Heroes. Each of the twelve honorees will be rewarded with a $2,500 donation to help further their cause along with a trip to Los Angeles, where they will be recognized for their achievements. Nominees may perform their community service as an individual working within a group or on an individual basis. Self-nominations will be accepted. Nomination guidelines and forms are available at the company's Web site. 12:16:01 PM Google It!

© Copyright 2006 Laura L. Barnes. Last update: 2/8/2006; 4:25:07 PM.