In the state I chose, New York, there are 86 NPL sites. It seems the sites are located more to populous areas than by an geographic landmarks. Crown Cleaners of Watertown is the only site in Jefferson County, it is a laundry and dry cleaning facility. I have never heard of this site, it has been cleaned up. Most of the sites that have been spotted have been noticed and cleared by 2001. I think it the responsibility of the residents of the area to deal with any problems in the area. So therefore it is my problem to deal with the cleaning of the sites listed by the national priority list in my area.

2.)    The major sources of commercial energy are in order from greatest to least; oil, coal, gas, hydro, nuclear, and wind. Commercial energy is the most common use of this energy, it is directed towards all endeavors.

3.)    Energy use exceeds most other countries, for having only 5 percent of the global population, it consumes one quarter of available energy.

4.)    10 trillion metric tons are the estimated amounts of total resource. 90% of reserves are in the US, Russia, China, India, and Australia.

5.)    Coal bed methane is methane gas trapped under a layer of coal.  The reason it is controversial is because it is highly explosive and leads to poisoning.

6.)    Fossil fuel is the cause of serious loss of forests and soil.  It degrades air quality, creates smog, and pollutes the water supply.

7.)    Nuclear reactors start at fuel assembly, rods of uranium are bound together, put into a reactor and subjected to nuclear fission, where steam is created which powers a turbine.  The danger of it is in the cooling process, if the reactor is not manually cooled it will burn up, if coolant leeks and doesn’t reach the reactor, serious problems occur, Chernobyl occurs.

8.)    The four types of reactor designs are pressurized water reactors, using water as its coolant. European models use graphite, where the moderator and structural material for the reactor core are graphite.  High temperature Gas Cooled Reactors, and Process inherent ultimate safety reactor which has a small core that cannot generate enough heat to become dangerous.

9.)    The pros and cons of the breeder reactor are that it produces fuel rather than consumes it, creates fissionable plutonium and thorium isotopes from the abundant, but stable, forms or uranium. The cons are that the reactor core must be at a very high density to work, also liquid sodium must be used to cool it, which is very corrosive and difficult to handle.

10.) The past has shown that tossing nuclear waste into the ocean is a bad idea.  Now we usually use land disposal, some using deep water filled pools to store them, others use containers deep under ground in stable rock formations, where vaults are built to hold the waste.

            http://ccrs-gad1.cgdi.ca/resources/EngNRAtlas.html

1.) Total U.S. energy use increased around sixty-seven quadrillions from 1949 to 2000.

2.) 9,600 billion dollars was the increase during that time.

3.) 73% change in energy, where money increased by 98%. A possibility is that money levels increase, we experience price inflation.

4.) The four ports in the US are Everett, Massachusetts; Lake Charles, LA; Elba Island Georgia; and Cove Point, Maryland.

5.) This is important because a lot of environmental disruption occurs at these sites.

6.) Our prices were considerably lower, increasing the incentive to use them.  It put a price on the use of them so conservation was put on the back burner.

7.) United States, Central and South America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the former USSR, China, Australia, Africa.

8.) The US ranks number one.

9.) More than 60 percent are thought to be in the United States.

10.) The United States come in second to China and close to Russia.

11.) The US, Venezuela, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Quatar, Saudi Arabia, and Algeria.

12.) 3% is held by the US.

13.) We consume about 23% of the total.

14.) The countries with the highest oil reserves are US, Venezuela, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emerites.

15.) 3% is held by the US.

16.) 25% is consumed by the US.

17.) We are the gluttons of the energy in the globe, we take what we surely cant replenish.

2.)    Eight major categories of water pollutants are infectious agents(bacteria, viruses), organic chemicals (pesticides, plastics), inorganic chemicals (acids, caustics), radioactive materials production (uranium, thorium), sediment (soil, silt), plant nutrients (nitrates, phosphates), oxygen demanding wastes (animal manure and plant residues), and thermal (heat).

3.)    Sources for water pollution are human and animal excreta, industrial, farm and house use, industrial effluents, mining and processing of ores, power plants and weapons, land erosion, agricultural and urban fertilizers, paper mills, and industrial cooling.

4.)    Pfiesteria is an extraordinarily poisonous dinoflagellate that only recently has been recognized as a killer of finfish and shellfish in polluted rivers and estuaries such as North Carolina’s Pamlico Sound. Under the right conditions, a population explosion can produce a dense bloom of these cells.

5.)    Eutrophication is the increase in biological productivity and ecosystem succession caused by human activities.

6.)    The origins of siltation are the runoff of sediment that build up and block normal flow of water.  It is a literal roadblock for many natural processes.

7.)    Primary treatment removes, strains, and settles out solids. Secondary treatment, including aeration, digestion, and chlorination, removes pathogens and organic material. Tertiary treatment removes inorganic nutrients and oxidizes remaining organics. 

8.)    Combining storm and sewer system is a problem because waste will be introduced into the environment condensed and will deteriorate that area rapidly; if these wastes are put through a treatment facility, clean water that is from the storm pipes will be cleaned, that means unnecessary energy was used.  Whereas it is also a problem that they be separated, the amount of pipes for this digs into the natural environment twice as much as before.

9.)    The Clean Water Act works to get specific “point” sources of pollution such as industrial discharge pipes or sewage outfalls, the act requires discharge permits and best practicable control technology.

10.) End to all dumping of industrial wastes, plastic trash and tank washing effluents into the ocean, designation of places to put toxic substances.  Also the rules are to be tightened, they have been too lax.

            Mark Newman and Michael Gastner have developed a means of mapmaking that perfectly distorts images.  They use a variable, such as cancer in New York State and depending on how many people in a given area have cancer, their area in the state grow proportionally.  Their maps are ones in which there are minimal local distortion, lines stay very true to their original form.  The uses are endless for this type of technology once it is produced efficiently.

1.)    Name one function that having a map like this could facilitate? Explain

2.)    The presidential race of Gore vs. Bush total votes per state were put into this algorithm and worked out.  If a conventional map showing states votes was used it would heavily favor Bush, however what factors led this altered map being very much equal between red and blue territories.

3.)    The functions of this technology is not limited to the previous, name and describe an environmental use of this mapmaking and how it would be beneficial?

Save the Gulf of Mexico

            In the Gulf of Mexico, plant nutrients, especially nitrate, have created coastal dead zones.  They fertilize algae growth and then cycle to oxygen depletion.  The reason for this is far north, in the great plains where the overuse of fertilizers is causing this massive flow.  Fertilizer applied to crops is the greatest contributor to the pollution that has created the dead zone.  Because antipollution practice usually fails, organizations like the Sand County Foundation of Madison Wisconsin is setting performance goals that need to be met by local farmers.  This is the answer, but who pays for all of these new regulations?  Should the farmers or should a government agency pick up the tab.  If this continues without extensive action what may the result be on the environment?

Seminal Discovery

            It has become evident from Harvard researchers that a gene responsible for semen viscosity has evolved more rapidly in primate species the promiscuous females than in monogamous females.  To test this, nine primates were tested representing the major mating systems.  Gorillas have one partner, chimps have a multitude and humans fall somewhere in between.  Accordingly chimps are evolving at the fastest rate.  Do you think the same goes for humans around the board.  The more a female is sexually active, the more likely their kin will be sexually prepared?  Will this development lead to a Darwin type of evolution, a survival of the fittest?

Color at Night

            Geckos have the ability see colors at night, where humans go color blind.  We, like most vertebrates use two systems of light sensitive cells in our eyes.  Lizards lack one of our mechanisms the rods and therefore are more apt to using their cones.  Can the same thing be said about deep sea fish?  May use of color vision help them to distinguish a predator from prey?

2.)    Mineral is a naturally occurring, inorganic, solid element or compound with a definite chemical composition and regular internal crystal structure.  A rock is a solid, cohesive, aggregate or one or more minerals.

3.)    Tectonic plates are the parts of the Earth, the big blocks of the Earths crust that form into a large mosaic.  They are important because we live on them.  We live on the lifts of the continental plates and the oceans are the basin above the sunk parts of the plates.

4.)    The reason that there are a lot of Earthquakes and Volcanoes on the Ring of Fire because of all the faults in the area(planes of weakness.) The more faults there are the more likely earthquakes and volcanoes are to occur.

5.)    The rock cycle is the creation, destruction and metamorphosis of rocks.  The three types of rocks are igneous rocks; made from magma extruded from the surface from volcanic vents.  Sedimentary rocks are rocks made from compacted material; sandstone, tuff, and conglomerates.

6.) Some of the worlds most important metals are aluminum, nickel, iron ore, zinc, copper, mercury, lead and tin. The bulk of them are found in the USA, Canada, Russia, Australia, and South East Asia(China).
7.) Silicates, sand, gravel, salts, limestone, and soil. The majority of these are used in construction of roads or buildings. They come from surface pits and have been deposited by glaciers.
8.) Some ways we recycles metals are things like soda can deposits, two thirds of all soda cans are recycled in the US saving twenty times the amount of energy used in the production of new cans. Another way is platinum in a cars catalytic converter. It is highly reusable from old cars.
9.) Some hazards associated with mineral extraction are; most obviously the removal of the surface. Other effects are air and water pollution, lastly dangerous things like cyanide and mercury are released into the atmosphere from metal extraction processes.
10.) Some of the leading geologic hazards are earthquakes, volcanoes, floods and landslides. These things displace land, ruin fragile ecosystems, interfere with habitats and increases the pace of mass wasting.

2.)Pollution and noise from snowmobiles put wildlife, vegetation, and park workers at risk.  They also leak gas and oil. Off road vehicles compact soil and cause erosion.  Air pollution and acid rain damage all ecosystems.

3.) The reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone makes neighbors of the park nervous that their are these dangerous predators around even though they stablize prey populations.

4.) Areas protected have been growing on a global basis for 50 years.   The areas where growth is most prevolent are Asia, North America, and Latin America.

5.) The ideal MAB must have a core zone where their is limited human interference. A buffering zone around that where a couple human influences can exist and then a multiple use area on the outer ring.

6.) Wilderness is an area of undeveloped land affected primarily by the forces of nature, where a man is a visitor who does not remain, it contains ecological, geological, or other features of scientific or historical value.

7.) Wetlands provide food and a habitat for a lot of species, at least a third of endangered species spend some time in these wetlands.  They are threatened by our discharge and dumping into them.  The Clean Water Act was developed to stop this.

8.) The tropical forest and the grassland have been most effected by humans.  We have cut done billions of trees in these forests and lost numerous species because of it.  Overgrazing takes place in our grasslands.

9.) A landscape is the factors that make up a geographic area such as grade, materials, location.  I live on an island, it is a big rock that sticks out of the water, this is evident because my house is on a rock.

10.) Restoration means to bring something back to a former condition(the forests in our country)

Rehabilitation refers to attempts to rebuild elements of structure or function in an ecological system without necessarily achieving restoration(florida everglades)

Remediation is a process of cleaning chemical contaminants from a polluted area by physical or biologal methods(St. Lawerence River)

Reclamation describes chemical or physical manipulations carried out in severely degraded sites such as open pit mines or large scale constructions(SMCRA)

Recreation attempts to construct a new biological community on a site so severly disturbed that there is virtually nothing left to restore(ponds in the clean water act of 1977)