By John Sutter

A Nobel Peace Prize winner will speak at OCU on Wednesday. Wangari Maathai is the founder of a grassroots movement in East Africa to plant trees and protect the environment. Should be an interesting talk, and there’s a film screening tonight in advance of her speech. Check out this preview article in The Oklahoman.

Here’s some info from OCU’s Web site:

Oklahoma City University
Distinguished Speakers Series

2008-09 SPEAKERS

Wangari Maathai
Nobel Laureate
author of Unbowed
Henry J. Freede Wellness and Activity Center
NW 27th Street and Florida Avenue
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
7:30 p.m.

Wangari Muta Maathai, recipient of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, is recognized worldwide for her work for democracy, human rights, and the environment. The daughter of farmers from Mount Kenya, Maathai is the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctoral degree. She has taught at universities throughout the world and founded Kenya’s Green Belt Movement, through which women’s groups have helped to conserve the environment and improve quality of life by planting more than 30 million trees. At least half a dozen African countries have started similar programs.

Maathai has chaired the National Council of Women of Kenya, served on the U.N. Commission for Global Governance and the Commission on the Future, was elected to Kenya’s Parliament, and was appointed as Assistant Minister for the Environment. She has been named a Top 100 Eco-Hero, one of the 100 Heroines of the World, and one of the 100 people who made an environmental difference. Time magazine named her as one of the 100 most influential people in the world and Forbes named her one of the 100 most powerful women in the world. In 2006, she received the Legion d’Honneur, France’s highest honor. She has received honorary degrees from many institutions, including Yale University and Williams College.

She has written two books: her autobiography, Unbowed, 2006), and The Greenbelt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience (2002).

Prepare yourself for Maathai’s lecture. Don’t miss the screening of Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai, the 2008 documentary film by Lisa Merton and Alan Dater. The film will be shown in Kerr- McGee Auditorium at the Meinders School of Business, NW 27th and McKinley, 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, September 30.

Free and open to the public
Seating limited. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
For more information, call 405.208.4956

By John Sutter

In a much-delayed decision, a federal judge on Monday denied the state of Oklahoma’s request for poultry companies to stop spreading manure because it could degrade water quality and put the public in danger.

That ruling does not necessarily affect Attorney General Drew Edmondson’s case against poultry companies. Edmondson filed a lawsuit in 2005 and the trial is expected to begin next year.

Still, the ruling — which came after hearings in March –is not sitting well with environmentalists. Poultry groups applauded the decision.

Read more in this story by Jim Stafford.

Poultry waste is thought to be a problem because it is spread on land in such large quantities. Like other fecal matter, it can run into rivers, where it contributes to processes that sap the water of oxygen. That can kill aquatic life, and bacteria from the feces can make people who swim in the rivers ill.

In his ruling, Judge Gregory K. Frizzell says people, cattle and septic tanks may also contribute to pollution problems. The state did not prove that water quality and public health are in jeopardy because of chicken poop specifically, he wrote.

The ruling follows, but was not related to, a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which calls for more monitoring of concentrated animal farms, like the chicken farms in northeast Oklahoma and Arkansas. Based on figures from that report and from Oklahoma City, chickens in two counties on the Oklahoma-Arkansas border produce more fecal waste per year — 471,000 tons — than all of the people in Oklahoma City.

Edmond Beautiful unveils new Web site

EDMOND — The nonprofit Edmond Beautiful, which staffs Edmond’s recycling center at 20 W Third St., launched a new Web site last week designed to educate the community about environmental issues and ways residents can address them.

The site provides tips to those looking for ways to live “green,” as well as provides dates of upcoming events and ways to volunteer.

Other features and information include an Edmond ‘Yard of the Week’ archive, a history of Edmond Beautiful — formally known as Keep Edmond Beautiful — and a community profile.

For more, go to www.edmondbeautiful.org.

– Micah Gamino, Staff Writer

By Micah Gamino 

One key element of the Edmond Electric Energy Efficient Home, or E4 Home, is the geothermal heat pump.

(For those of you who need a refresher: The E4 is a demo home being constructed by Edmond Electric and their partner, Edmond-based Red Rock Builders Inc., as part of their bid to convince home buyers to demand more energy efficient homes from builders. For more explination, visit http://newsok.com/article/3295312/)

So, what’s a geothermal heat pump? Well, you’re not alone. I had never heard of such a contraption before officials with Edmond’s electric utility told me of their plans to put one in the E4 Home.  A geothermal heat pump, or ground source heat pump, uses a system of pipes containing water or a water and antifreeze mixture to circulate the Earth’s constant temperature from the ground into your home. The system is said to heat and cool a home much more efficiently — using less electricity — than a conventional heat pump. A conventional heat pump works very hard to heat or cool outside air before injecting it into your home to provide a desired temperature.

But does geothermal really work better? The federal government may be able to shed some light. http://www1.eere.energy.gov/geothermal/heatpumps.html

One interesting note exclusive to Go Green blog readers: Edmond Electric’s Energy Service Manager Bob Corff, who is the brainchild behind the E4 Home, long ago installed a geothermal system at his home in Edmond.

By John Sutter

Millions of chickens raised in two counties on the Oklahoma-Arkansas border create more manure in a single year than all of the people in Oklahoma City, according to figures from a government report issued Wednesday.The 14.3 million chickens in that area, and large-scale animal farms nationwide, may pose a threat to human health and the environment, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report. However, federal agencies don’t monitor air and water quality well enough to assess nationwide trends and possible threats posed by industrial-scale animal farming, the GAO report concludes.

The report says large animal farms may pose greater threats to the environment and human health when they are concentrated in small geographic areas. The report specifically mentions the Arkansas-Oklahoma border. The chickens in the two northwest Arkansas counties produce a total of 471,000 tons of manure per year, according to the document. That’s more than 1½ times the amount of feces that people in Oklahoma City produced in the 2007 fiscal year. The report says the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should develop a comprehensive air quality monitoring program for animal farms, and should keep a national database on the industry.

The GAO report says efforts by farmers to store waste and limit the manure they put on their land is helpful but should be supplemented with more thorough government pollution monitoring.

The rise in large-scale farms

Between 1982 and 2002, the number of large farms increased 234 percent in the United States, from 3,594 to 11,995, a government report found. The number of large broiler-chicken farms increased 1,187 percent to 2,227.

A greater percentage of animals are being raised on industrial-size farms. In 1982, 43 percent of animals were raised on large farms; that number jumped to 55 percent by 2002. Some individual farms produce more waste than large cities such as Philadelphia.

Source: U.S. Government Accountability Office

Background

The issue of chicken-farm pollution is the subject of a 2005 lawsuit filed by state Attorney General Drew Edmondson against several poultry companies.

By John Sutter

The U.S. military is widely said to be one of the country’s major polluters. Former and current shooting ranges are part of the problem, since many of the military’s bullets used in training are made of lead, which is a neurotoxin. Oklahoma is home to more than 140 former federal military training sites, according this 2006 U.S. Department of Defense list.

In this week’s environment podcast, I talked with Angela Hughes, of the state Department of Environmental Quality, about a state program to clean up former National Guard shooting ranges and training grounds. In all, 57 former armories will be cleaned up and turned over to local governments in coming years, Hughes said.

Have you used shooting ranges? Are you concerned about contamination? Feel free to e-mail me (jsutter [at] oklahoman.com) or comment on this story. Your input will help with an upcoming story for The Oklahoman.

By John Sutter

The Los Angeles Times has a story this morning on the 1,000 acre switchgrass field in the Oklahoma Panhandle. A reporter talked with the gentleman who’s growing the biofuels crop, which is native to this state and the Great Plains, and can be grown on marginal land:

Curtis Raines describes himself as “just a dumb old farmer” who’s not afraid to ask an obvious question: Why grow corn for fuel when it could be used to feed hungry people?

“That just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” Raines said.

State leaders are banking on that kind of common sense, and have invested in grass-based biofuels research. As I reported in The Oklahoman, the issue rests on the ability of industry to transform the grasses into fuel. That hasn’t been done on commercial scales, and is the focus of much of the state-funded research:

About one-fifth of the corn crop in the United States is converted into ethanol, a fuel that can be mixed with gasoline and then used in standard automobile engines.

Ethanol once was seen as a silver bullet in the nation’s battle for energy independence, and, to some extent, the battle against global warming.

But corn ethanol started drawing heated criticism late last year as food prices jumped around the world, putting basic nutrition out of the hands of many of the world’s poor. Jean Ziegler, the U.N.’s independent expert on the right to food, called food-to-fuel schemes a “crime against humanity.”

Officials say Oklahoma is free from any of that blame because it is not much of a corn-producing state. The 2008 corn crop here is expected to cover 330,000 acres, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That’s about 5 percent of the state’s total crop acreage.

Researchers and officials say switchgrass, which is native to the state and the Great Plains, will do better here. It will grow on marginal land not suitable for food crops. If managed properly, it wouldn’t contribute to food shortages.

Nathanael Greene, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, warned against taking the concept too far.

“It’s important that we not latch onto a crop like switchgrass as a panacea, because we could start harvesting corn fields and planting them with switchgrass and cause the same amount of complications — and reduce the amount of food available — as we do now,” Greene said.

“I don’t think any technology is inherently evil, or inherently the solution,” he added.

By John Sutter

A ranking of “sustainable” cities released Monday put Oklahoma City and Tulsa among the least environmentally friendly cities in the country.

A green media group called SustainLane ranked OKC 49 and Tulsa 48 on its list, which included the 50 most populous cities in the country. Mesa, Ariz., finished last on the list. Portland, Ore., ranked No. 1, followed by San Francisco. The report takes into account things like climate policy, bus ridership, commute length, city planning, air quality and water quality.

Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett said he was “disappointed” in the ranking, but did not argue with the results. The city is looking to hire a director of sustainability to address environmental issues, he said, adding that quality of life in Oklahoma City is still high.

Commute lengths set the city back in the rankings, he said. He called for a cultural shift away from automobile dependence.

The Wall Street Journal’s “Environmental Capital” blog makes an interesting point concerning the survey:

The big winners are all out west: Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle. The biggest laggards are, too: Las Vegas, Tulsa, and Oklahoma City.

The bottom line: The kind of things that make cities “sustainable” also make them expensive. Take the rankings of “housing affordability.” The cheapest cities—San Antonio, Fort Worth, Arlington, El Paso—also scored the worst on public transit, bike-friendliness, and ability to walk to work. The big winners there are also among the most expensive places to live, like San Francisco, New York, San Jose, and Boston.

Check out this story on the pelican migration through northwest Oklahoma. Birders say there’s an amazing drama unfolding in the bird world — you just have to look up and take notice. A wilderness guide at the Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge says the American white pelicans are like grumpy old men that you can’t help but love.

Also see an audio-photo slideshow. The photos by Paul Hellstern are great. –John

By John Sutter

The Pryor Daily News reports that Adair, a town northeast of Tulsa, will take out a loan from the state Water Resources Board so that it can purchase water from a rural water district. Like in many other communities, this means the town will have to raise its water rates. The paper reports that town expansion was jeopardized by Adair’s limited water capacity:

The problem, Water Superintendent Scott Martin said, is there is “no room for growth. We’re maxed out.” The water plant is functioning at capacity and it is not possible to add more customers. There are two developers waiting for water to build housing additions.