For the third year in a row, Bakersfield, California ranks as the nation’s second smoggiest city in America. Coming in just behind Los Angeles, Bakersfield is also the second most ozone-polluted cities.

But, that’s not all. Bakersfield has now moved into first place as the city with the most fine particulate pollution. According to an annual American Lung Association (ALA) report, which ranks America’s cities with the unhealthiest air, Bakersfield was third behind Pittsburgh and Los Angeles last year.

The ALA reports that, while America’s air has gotten somewhat better over the last 10 years, many cities still suffer from severe air pollution problems. In fact, despite progress in cutting air pollutants and a booming “green” movement, almost every major metropolitan area is fraught with considerable air pollution.

The ALA rates cities on three primary criteria: ozone, short-term particle spikes and long-term particle averages. Each group of ratings is based on statistics collected from the years 2005 through 2007 at monitoring stations maintained by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Los Angeles, Fresno and Bakersfield, all in California, had the dubious distinction of being on the top 10 list of all three categories.

Air pollution has become a major threat to human health. This is especially evident when you consider that roughly 60 percent of Americans are currently breathing air dirty enough to send people to emergency rooms across the country, to shape how children’s lungs develop and to kill through the development of serious respiratory illnesses.

The ALA’s annual report states that of the 25 cities with the worst ozone pollution problems, 16 recorded higher ozone levels when compared with last year. A dozen of the 25 cities with the worst average particle problems, which include microscopic soot, diesel exhaust, various chemicals, metals and aerosols, experienced a spike in these pollutants.

Another four cities showed no change and, thankfully, nine cities actually showed some improvement. And, of the 25 worst, 13 cities recorded more days of severe spikes in particle pollution than they had last year.

But, what contributes to the pollution problems in these 25 cities with the worst air pollution? Let’s look at Bakersfield.

It has been over a decade since the first reports of the growing air pollution that is still threatening the United State’s most diverse and productive farm counties in California’s Central Valley. The reasons for the advances in air pollution are manifold and include mist from fertilizers and pesticides and dust from tractors that help grow half of our nation’s produce.



Bakersfield photo: A Polluted Sunset by andy castro, via Creative Commons

However, other factors also contribute to the rising air pollution. The meteorological conditions and topography of the region only make matters worse, and they also make the problem very difficult to solve.

Bakersfield is boxed in on three sides by mountains. Inversion layers, which act as a lid on the air and hold the pollution close to the ground, are present in both winter and summer. There is little or no wind to take the pollution elsewhere, so it just sits over the city.

Bakersfield’s Kern County also ranks as the worst county in average annual particulate pollution. However, some efforts to reduce the toxic air pollution have been made.

According to the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, the county has been able to reduce stationary sources of pollution by 80 percent since 1980. This has been accomplished through various measures, including regulations on oil processing and, in 2003, restrictions on wood-fueled fires. Additional farming regulations, which reduce the number of harvesting machines as well as the number of trips made through the fields, have also helped.

Despite these accomplishments, county officials now say they need state and federal assistance in controlling the heavy-duty trucks that pass through on Interstate 5 and Highway 99. These semi-trucks, cut east to west hauling produce from farms to packaging facilities, fall outside the county’s regulatory authority.

To date, air pollution controls have cost Kern County businesses approximately $40 billion. This $40 billion is split between to important plans – one aimed at reducing particulate matter by 2015 and another plan aimed at reducing ozone by 2023.

However, the financial cost of noncompliance with federal pollution standards may be much more. Being out of compliance with federal Environment Protection Agency standards costs Kern County $2 billion in forfeited federal highway funding and puts a dent in its ability to attract more businesses to the area.

There are other intangible costs that are just as important as the strictly financial costs. The ALA emphasizes the poor and deteriorating lung capacities of the young people who are growing up in such dirty, polluted environments. A University of California Fullerton Study estimated the economic cost of not meeting EPA air standards for the southern California region, which includes all of Los Angeles, at $6 billion per year in health-related costs as well as premature deaths.

So, while it does require huge amounts of money to clean up the air, massive amounts of money are already being paid out for the declining health of young people, increased medication usage, and shortened lives. The ALA is working with local governments and promoting partnerships between the county, state and federal authorities, but much more needs to be done.

This year, 12 more California counties received failing grades than did last year in terms of air quality. This reflects, in part, the tighter national ozone standards adopted in 2008. The ALA’s State of the Air 2009 Report also found that six out of every 10 Americans live in areas where pollution levels actually endanger their lives.

This means that despite an ever-growing “green” movement that is sweeping across the United States, the ALA’s report indicates that the air in many American cities became even dirtier since last year’s report.

THE REAL COST

There is now data and research that indicates that ozone is more destructive than originally believed. Because of this, in March 2008, the EPA lowered the standard needed for ozone levels to trigger an unhealthy rating.

Ozone, the gas that forms a major component of smog, is created by tailpipe emissions that are cooked by the sun, heat up and form triple molecules of oxygen. These molecules are much less stable than conventional oxygen and are much more damaging to our respiratory systems.

Respiratory problems are a very natural and scientifically established result of air pollution. Polluting particles in the air can especially cause health problems in children, the elderly and the infirm. Additionally, air pollution can aggravate asthma symptoms and worsen allergies.

However, respiratory problems are not the only health issues that can be brought on or aggravated by breathing polluted air. If the pollution is heavy enough and if a person is chronically exposed to the polluted air, serious health problems, including cancer and heart disease, can result from the toxins constantly breathed in through the air.

Look at Los Angeles, which has a lethal combination of heavy traffic, sunshine and heat. Last year, the city had 195 days where the ozone levels were high enough to be unhealthy for sensitive members of the population. On another 55 days, the ozone level was unhealthy for everyone, and on 11 days, the ozone in the air was rated “very unhealthy.”

Particle emission pollution is generated primarily by diesel engines, coal-fired power plants and the burning of wood and other combustible fuels. For California’s coastal cities, much of their pollutants come from ships coming into port. In fact, sea-fairing vessels contribute significantly to both particle and ozone emission air pollution.

Whatever the source, some states are taking very aggressive action in an attempt to combat the problem of air pollution. New York and Washington have been successful in reducing air pollution drastically over the past 10 years, and California is introducing cleaner diesel fuel for everything from semi-trucks to large ships.

There has been some criticism of the ALA’s air quality report because the findings are based on where the EPA monitoring stations are located. In Pittsburgh, for example, one monitoring station sits close to the largest coke plant in the United States. Coke is an important ingredient in the steel manufacturing process and is made by baking coal, which produces large amounts of ash and other toxic particles.

It is not a surprise then that Pittsburgh had the highest recorded number of particle pollution spikes, which are jumps in the number of particles in the air that can last for many hours or even days.

However, it is important to note that the findings are supposed to capture the worst cases of air pollution for each metropolitan area because that is what will have the most negative impact on a population’s health. So, it is actually appropriate to locate monitoring stations where the air pollution problems are most acute and potentially damaging.

While air pollution is a chronic problem across the United States, there are still some places where a taking a fresh breath is just that…a fresh breath.

The healthiest cities list mostly consists of cities in the vast-open spaces of the nation’s heartland. These areas are typically far from heavy industry and massive traffic jams. Cheyenne, Wyoming has the lowest long-term particle average, followed closely by Santa Fe, Honolulu and Great Falls, Montana.

The lowest, in fact almost non-existent, ozone levels were discovered in Billings, Montana, Carson City, Nevada and Fargo, North Dakota. Interestingly, only two eastern cities were on any of the three least-polluted lists. Portland, Maine had among the lowest spikes in particle emissions, and Port St. Lucie, Florida had among the lowest ozone levels.

However, the fact remains, many of us are still not breathing clean air. According to the ALA, six out of every 10 Americans, or 186 million people, currently live in communities where the air they breathe endangers their lives. As a nation, we obviously still have a long way to go.

But, the vast reservoir was built for far more than recreation. In fact, the massive Hoover Dam, which was completed in 1935, provides this desert region and surrounding states with a reliable water supply from the Colorado River as well as an excellent and inexpensive source of electricity.

Covering the state lines of Arizona and Nevada, Lake Mead stores water from the vast Colorado River, which runs through a whopping seven states – Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. So, to say that Lake Mead and the irreplaceable Colorado River are important to the citizens of the western states, would be a huge understatement.

However, for the past decade Lake Mead has been battling the worst 10-year drought in recorded history along the Colorado River, which feeds the 110-mile-long reservoir.

Since 1999, Lake Mead has dropped about 1 percent a year. It is estimated that by 2012, the lake’s surface could fall below the existing pipe that delivers 40 percent of Las Vegas’s water.

In 2000, the water level at Lake Mead was 1,214 feet, close to its all-time high, but it has been dropping ever since. When Lake Mead was built during the 1920s and 1930s, the western United States was experiencing one of the wettest periods of the past 1,200 years.

Even today, our so-called drought is still wetter than the average precipitation for the area averaged over centuries. In other words, for the past 75 years, we’ve had more moisture than we ever realized. And, we definitely took it for granted.

Farmers have been growing rice by flooding arid farmland with water from Lake Mead,  desert community residents have been maintaining lush front lawns, and avid golfers depend on green, healthy courses in areas where temperatures typically exceeds 100 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer.

A combination of a solid demand for Lake Mead’s thirst-quenching water and an ever-changing climate has resulted in a 100 foot drop in Mead’s water level since 2000. While that might not look like a great deal of water loss because it is just 10 percent under the lake’s 1983 high water mark, we have to remember that Lake Mead is like a martini glass.

The vast reservoir is wide at the top but narrow at the bottom. So that 10 percent loss of water actually represents a loss of half of Lake Mead’s water supply. This huge loss happened in just nine years – The lake went form 96 percent capacity to roughly 43 percent.

Amazingly, when full, Lake Mead can hold an astonishing 9.3 trillion gallons of water. This is an amount equal to the water that flows through the Colorado River in a two-year period.

And, this is water that is put to good use. Lake Mead’s life-sustaining water is used for many things. It irrigates a million acres of crops throughout the western United States and Mexico, and the reservoir supplies water to tens of millions of people.

The massive and mighty Hoover Dam generates enough electricity to power approximately a half-million homes. But that’s not all. The power from Hoover Dam is also used to transport water up and across the Sierra Nevada Mountains on its way to Southern California.

But, however, the lake continues to shrink. Lake Mead’s water level fell 14 feet last year, and the Bureau of Reclamation has projected the level will drop 14 more feet this summer. That will bring it perilously close to 1,075 feet, the point at which the federal government can step in and declare a drought condition, forcing a reduction of 400,000 acre-feet drawn from Lake Mead per year.

A typical Las Vegas home uses a half acre-foot of water per year, so such a reduction would be equal to turning the tap off for 800,000 households.
Going beyond the implications for residents living in areas supplied by Lake Mead, the water loss has ramifications for the local economy too. It was recently estimated that Lake Mead National Recreation Area, along with affiliated marine operators, were losing some where in the neighborhood of three million dollars for every ten foot of lake lost to this devastating drought.

Currently, Lake Mead’s water level is hanging close to 1095.26 feet above sea level. The end-of-year projection is now predicting that Lake Mead will drop several more feet below its current level. This is a huge loss considering the lake is considered full at 1,219 feet.

The year 2009 started out well as officials projected that Lake Mead could receive an additional one million acre-feet of water based on the snowpack in the Rocky Mountains. Unfortunatly, however, the thaw did not translate into the expected runoff, and Lake Mead and the Colorado River’s water shortage problem marched on.

In 2008, the Scripps Institute of Oceanography issued their “When Will Lake Mead Go Dry?” report. The report said there is a 50 percent chance that Lake Mead will dry up by the year 2021. If this happens, it could mean no more water, no more pumping and no more electricity for many, many people.

There is, however, some good news. Strong conservation efforts are helping this serious condition. For example, Southern Nevada has significantly reduced its water draw from 325,000 acre-feet a year in 2000 to 265,000 acre-feet in 2009. Even with this reduction, the grand Colorado River still remains over utilized.

This is easy to see when you consider that millions of acre-feet of H20 are rushed to California, Nevada, and Mexico each year. This continually drains and strains both Lake Mead and neighboring Lake Powell faster than either lake can be replenished.

Some of the conservation solutions and suggestions include “grass buyback” programs to convince residents of the benefits of installing drought-tolerant landscaping, tax incentives for swimming pool-covers as well as the inevitable water rate hikes.

One of the more radical ideas involves pumping water from the eastern United States, where many regions’ rivers have been inundated with extensive flooding, over the Rockies to the western, sweltering states. Another interesting proposal lies beyond the shores of California, where there is a vast, open ocean of water available for desalinization.
While these are possibly viable alternatives, the power and financial requirements for either proposal would be enormous.

Whatever the solution to the Lake Mead water crisis is, it is likely not going to be a simple one. If the drought-like conditions continue, action will likely need to be taken sooner rather than later in order to save the reservoir.

It might be discovered that the money and time it will take to quench the western United States’ thirst are like the water supply. They are all running short.

In the 1920s, farmers succeeded in conquering The Great Prairie Plains of the Midwest. The plains were then transformed into the “amber waves of grain” we know today. However, this transformation came with a heavy price.

In fact, the agricultural triumph over The Plains was the tipping point that changed a typical La Nina-type drought cycle into an enormous environmental disaster that we now know as the Dust Bowl.

Depending on where you are in the world, a drought can have different meanings. According to the United States Weather Bureau, a drought is a period of 21 or more days during which rainfall is no more than 30 percent of the average rainfall for a specific geographical area at a designated time of year. 

The Dust Bowl was an area in the United States that experienced an extended and intense period of drought, which lasted from 1931 until 1939. The states that made up the Dust Bowl were Kansas, southeastern Colorado, northeastern and southeastern New Mexico, and the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma. 

Throughout the Dust Bowl, soil from roughly 150,000 square miles of farmland was blown by the wind into huge dust storms. Immense clouds of dust filled the sky as far east as New York City, New York and Baltimore, Maryland.

While the Dust Bowl occurred during a period of drought, researchers know that the Dust Bowl drought, while much hotter and drier than a typical drought, did not fit the profile of the periodic droughts that generally hit farther to the south. Actually, while regular climate oscillations may have triggered the initial drying, the contribution of human land degradation played a big part in this atypical disaster.

In the absence of modern agricultural techniques, large-scale crop failures at the drought’s onset reduced vegetation cover, which only exacerbated the heat. Then, the resulting dust storms brought on by the badly eroded croplands also affected the atmospheric moisture content enough to further intensify drought conditions.

In 1931, dust from the seriously over-plowed and over-grazed prairie lands began to blow. And, it continued to blow for eight long, dry years.

As the storms blew across the plains, it came in a yellowish-brown haze from the South and in rolling walls of black from the North. This just wasn’t any wind, this dust-filled wind made even the simplest acts of life difficult. Taking a walk, eating a meal and breathing were no longer easy and they couldn’t be taken for granted.

Most children wore dust masks to and from school, people started hanging damp sheets over windows in feeble attempts at stopping the dirt and farmers could only watch as their valuable crops were blown away. The agricultural devastation that resulted from the Dust Bowl windstorms helped to lengthen The Great Depression, whose effects were already being felt worldwide. 

During the years of normal rainfall, the grasslands in the Dust Bowl states had been deeply plowed and the land had produced bountiful crops of wheat. However, as the drought of the early 1930s worsened, farmers continued plowing and planting, even thought very little could thrive in the parched soil.

The ground cover that once held the soil in place was now gone. The winds had whipped across the fields pulling billowing clouds of dust and dirt into the skies often reducing visibility to just a few feet. The skies would be darkened for days, and it became common for even the most well-sealed homes to have a thick layer of dust on the furniture. In some of the hardest hit areas, dust drifted like snow and covered whatever was in its path, including farmsteads, cars and city streets.

In 1932, there were 14 reported dust storms, also referred to as “black blizzards” or “black rollers.” As conditions worsened, in 1933, the number of black blizzards jumped to 38. These devastating dust storms spread from the Dust Bowl area and affected the entire country. The extensive drought that accompanied the dust storms is said to be the worst drought in United States history because it covered over 75 percent of the country and severely affected 27 states.

The Yearbook of Agriculture for 1934 says, Approximately 35 million acres of formerly cultivated land have essentially been destroyed for crop production; 100 million acres now in crops have lost all or most of the topsoil; 125 million acres of land now in crops are rapidly losing topsoil.

Because this ecological and human disaster caused millions of acres of farmland to become useless, hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes. These people became known as “Okies” because so many of them came from Oklahoma. Countless Okies migrated to California and other states in hopes of better living conditions and jobs.

However, what they found were economic conditions little better than those they had left behind in the Dust Bowl. Because they didn’t own land and had no home, many people traveled from farm to farm picking fruit and working in the fields for only starvation wages.

With no rain clouds in sight, the drought continued and so did the Dust Bowl storms. On Sunday, April 14, 1935, the worst black blizzard occurred, causing extensive devastation and turning the day to night.

Shortly after Black Sunday, the United States Congress declared soil erosion “a national menace” and established the Soil Conservation Service in the Department of Agriculture. The SCS developed extensive conservation programs, which helped to retain topsoil and prevent irreparable damage to the land.

Farming techniques, including strip cropping, terracing, contour plowing, crop rotation and cover crops were promoted. Farmers were now paid to practice soil-conserving farming techniques.

The SCS and these new land-friendly farming techniques was a great step in the right direction, but the storm was not over yet. By the end the year, experts estimated that about 850,000,000 tons of topsoil had blown off the Southern Plains during 1935 alone. The fear was that if the drought continued, the total area affected would increase from 4,350,000 acres to 5,350,000 acres by the spring of 1936.

Because the Dust Bowl black blizzards raged on and the drought continued, President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated the Shelterbelt Project in 1937, which called for large-scale planting of trees across The Great Plains, stretching in a 100-mile wide zone from Canada to northern Texas. The goal was to protect and preserve the land from erosion.

Native trees, including green ash and red cedar, were planted along fence rows separating properties, and the farmers were paid by the government to plant and cultivate these trees. Ultimately, the project cost roughly 75 million dollars over 12 years, and had somewhat limited success.

However, as time passed, even thought the drought continued, further land conservation efforts began to make progress. The extensive work re-plowing the land into furrows, planting trees in shelterbelts and other conservation methods had finally resulted in a 65 percent reduction for soil blowing.

In the fall of 1939, after nearly a decade of drought, the rain finally came. This brought an end to the black blizzards of the Dust Bowl and allowed The Plains to recover and once again become golden with wheat.

In today’s ever-changing world, in areas where vegetation loss often leads to increased wind erosion, it appears that history could repeat itself and we could experience Dust Bowl-type droughts again in the future.

Researchers with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center report that, although it is not possible to predict the exact time, history suggests that another great drought could certainly occur in the future.

The first step for anyone wanting to predict the risk of a future catastrophic climate event is to look at past occurrences. Unfortunately, however, good rainfall records only go back about 100 years, and accurate atmospheric records only exist for the last 50 years.

With that said, historical measurements do suggest that droughts have been a fairly regular event in this country. North America experienced a dry spell during the 1950s and another in the late 1980s. NASA’s research suggests that there was almost a drought in the 1970s, but for some reason it did not happen.

On a much longer timetable, sediment records, tree rings and other alternative evidence of climate change suggest that The Great Plains has actually weathered multiple droughts, which lasted significantly longer than the Dust Bowl.

These severe droughts appear to have happened once or twice a century over the last 400 years. Some evidence even points to droughts lasting over a decade during the late 13th and 16th centuries, which were much more devastating than the droughts of the 20th century.

It seems that history indicates that we can expect much worse than the 1930s Dust Bowl in the future, but knowing when and where remains anyone’s guess.

From the evening of June 6 to the morning of June 7 2008, Central Indiana was pounded by severe thunderstorms and heavy rain. Amounts of nearly 11 inches were recorded in some areas. This rain quickly led to record-breaking flooding in some areas during the week after.

These storms were produced when strong winds above the ground interacted with an outflow boundary left over from the storms that produced severe weather earlier in the day of June 6. This left the region with too much water, mud and debris, which ultimately resulted in catastrophic damage, destruction and devastation around Columbus, Indiana and its surrounding counties.

Across the nation, people learned about the City of Columbus, possibly for the first time. While many didn’t realize there was a Columbus, Indiana, those who live there were experiencing flooding that had not been seen in about 100 years. Travelers stranded by rising, swift-moving floodwaters learned of Columbus as they became stranded on Interstate 65 and roads leading to and from the city.

Photo: American Red Cross

With all of the national coverage, however, nothing did the flood’s power justice. Nothing can quite prepare you for the sight of such devastation. Areas never known to flood were suddenly submerged in several feet of water and once quaint neighborhood streets and avenues were reduced to boat-only travel.

It wasn’t until the flood waters began receding that Mother Nature’s true force and devastation could be seen. What was left in the wake of this flood made many areas of the town virtually unrecognizable. Driving or walking through neighborhoods that had been completely saturated and submerged under tons of fast-moving, dirty river water was like moving into another time or place into what looked like a battle zone.

As I-65 South became passable again, major water trouble became apparent quickly. Excessively high levels of all the creeks and rivers leading into Columbus were found. Farmer’s fields were soggy with standing water. For many of these farmers, their livelihoods were drenched and showed no signs of drying out. Many of these crops were completely or partially lost.

Mud, dirt and river debris covered virtually every road and highway affected by the flood. Remnants of the flood were everywhere. Random objects sat in fields, including propane tanks from a local fuel company. Cars and trucks floated away during the flood and got scattered in fields waiting to be discovered by their owners.

Photo: American Red Cross

Life’s everyday-items were strewn about. Laundry baskets, grills, furniture and trash bags littered the county’s waterlogged corn and soybean fields. 

As the water continued to recede, many businesses were considered a total loss and too-numerous-to-count homes were completely destroyed. Business, like Burger King, McDonalds and several gas stations were closed and had their inventory in their parking lots to see what, if anything, could be salvaged.

But the most sobering sight, by far, was traveling through the streets of Columbus and surrounding communities severely affected by the unforgiving, record-breaking flood waters. In some neighborhoods, piles of debris began appearing in front of every home.

The amount of ruined personal possession was staggering. It was an eerie sight to see peoples’ lives destroyed and piled up, just waiting to be hauled off the to the landfill. Photographs, cloths, toys, tables, chairs, beds, computers were everywhere. Just about anything found in a typical American home was lining the streets of Columbus following this epic flood. The devastation was overwhelming.

As it turned out, the June 2008 Midwestern United Stated floods were part of an on-going flooding event that had profound affects on a large portion of the Midwest. After several months of heavy rainfall, a number of rivers and creeks crested and overflowed their banks for numerous weeks at a time. Levees were broken at several locations and flooding continued into July.

The midwestern states affected by the flooding included Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Missouri. During this flooding crisis, the American Red Cross came to the aid of tornado and flood victims and the National Guard was mobilized to assist in disaster relief and evacuation efforts.

In Columbus, as the food waters rose, marines temporarily stationed at Camp Atterbury were called to assist in rescue and evacuation efforts.

During this period, flooding continued for about two weeks with central Iowa and Cedar Rapids hardest hit. In Missouri and Illinois, estuaries drained massive amounts of floodwater into the river. This devastating flood left 13 dead and damage region-wide, which was estimated to be in the tens of billions of dollars.

As for Indiana, central and southwestern Indiana was particularly hard hit with damage costs expected to make the flood of June 2008 the costliest disaster in the history of the state. Commencing on June 4, rain saturated parts of south-central Indiana leading to initial floods in and around Bloomington.

On June 7, additional rain brought the worst of the flooding to larger portions of south-central and western Indiana. The highest recorded rainfall amount was in the small town of Edinburgh, which saw 10.94 inches (278 mm) of rain in a short seven hour period. Another Indiana town, Paragon, saw 10 inches (250 mm) of rain in just a few hours, which left 90% of the town underwater.

Not only were the East Fork of the White, the Driftwood and the Flat Rock Rivers rapidly rising above their banks, all creeks and streams were also on the rise. Haw Creek, which snakes through the city rose so rapidly and unexpectedly that the only hospital in town was flooded and had to be evacuated. 

In fact, the major flooding in Columbus came from Haw Creek, which overflowed its banks following the torrential downpour encompassing central Indiana. Columbus, isolated by floodwaters, was shutdown because many city streets were under water.

During this flash flood along Hawcreek as well as the steady rise of all local rivers and streams, many people had roughly 15 minutes to evacuate from their homes and businesses. Most people had no time to gather their belongings and had to wade through rapidly rising, murky water and debris.

Many Indiana counties saw flood levels exceeding the records set in 1913. On June 9, President George W. Bush declared 29 counties in central Indiana a major disaster area opening up the region to receive federal aid and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) assistance.

IMPACT

At this time, the county hospital remains closed and many businesses and homeowners are still in the process of recovering from this disaster. It will be months before many people can move back into their homes and before business will reopen. Some homes and business, however, have been condemned and will likely be bulldozed.

Governor Mitch Daniels estimates and expects total damages to top $1 billion.

Surprisingly, only two deaths were reported as a direct result of the flooding in Columbus, Indiana.

Apparently, it is true that desperate times call for desperate measures. Reportedly, Beijing’s 17 million residents are now under very limited and restrictive driving, manufacturing and constructing guidelines. These restrictions are all being imposed in an attempt to clean up one very polluted city.

It is reported that major construction is to stop, factories are to be shut down and half the automobiles are to be grounded every day until after the Olympics.

While the Beijing Environmental Bureau said that the air “will be safe, everyone can be at ease,” many athletes, environmentalists as well as authorities from numerous countries attending the Olympics have significant concerns.

Chinese officials, however, contend that safety is of the utmost importance. Officials seem to have a lot of confidence that they can effectively control the country’s air pollution problem, even if that means trying to control Mother Nature herself.

By using possibly the world’s most sophisticated computer system, Chinese authorities are not only watching the weather and wind patterns surrounding Beijing, they are prepared to attempt to try to change what Mother Nature dishes out.

By tracking pollution from as far away as India, China is focusing heavily on surrounding provinces and their big pollution sources. At one steel plant located 300 miles from Beijing, the boss is poised to close the plant if high winds start blowing this distant, but dangerous, faraway pollution into or near Beijing where it would likely be trapped by mountains.

Once the pollution is entrapped by the mountains, the only viable solution would be rain. And, according to Chinese authorities, scientists are prepared to try that too. How would they do this? Simple. Artillery shells filled with a chemical thought to trigger rain showers would be shot into the sky with hopes of rain.

No one, however, can adequately control the weather. So, with apparent good reason, regardless if China says it’s a good-air-quality-day or not, there are many doubters in the crowd.

Consider this. Some pollution monitors have been relocated to the suburbs, where cleaner air can twist daily pollution results and make the overall contamination numbers look better than they really are.

Legitimate concerns for the health of the Olympic athletes and visitors, not to mention the Chinese citizens, remain. While the government has recently spent millions to clean up the city, the pollution problem in China simply cannot be fixed with a few quick, and possibly temporary, fixes.

The City of Beijing has undergone numerous improvements for the games. In fact, the government spent approximately $57 million to renovate more than 5,000 public restrooms. Also, thousands of Olympic volunteers are learning English and the ABCs of interacting with foreigners.

Chinese officials have also taken environmental actions aimed at dissipating Beijing’s air pollution before the games by spending more than $15 billion on drastic antipollution measures, including relocating 200 factories and steel mills outside the city limits.

According to a recent Mother Jones article, China has spent $3.6 billion and taken some extreme steps to clean up the capitol before the summer games. One of the changes China has made is building four new subways in order to encourage more public transportation and cut down on traffic. One million vehicles will also be banned during the Olympics.

However, the truth is that no amount of vitamins, regimens or athletic stamina will prepare many of the world-class competitors for the sort of severe air pollution they will face in Beijing. Numerous health and athletic experts have long been concerned whether athletes’ lungs will be able to adjust to all the smog and chemicals that plague the entire Chinese environment.

While these actions are a great step in the right environmental direction, China needs more than a quick-fix for its crippling environmental issues. According to FinancialNirvana.com, many environmental experts believe China’s problems may be attributed to a weak legal system and corruption, poverty, government policies that put job growth ahead of having a healthy environment as well as two decades of double-digit industrial growth.

In addition to this, Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World 2006 report notes that acidification has spread to approximately 30% of China’s cropland. The Report also states that China has 16 cities with the worst air pollution in the world.

Even more remarkable and astonishing is the fact that China’s Ministry of Science and Technology estimated that roughly 50,000 of the country’s newborn babies die every year due to the unhealthy consequences of air pollution.

Sometimes it’s the little things that say the most

Consider the latest news of a keel-crippling algae bloom that covered about a third of the Olympic sailing course in Qingdao, China. This algae overgrowth resulted in the deployment of a small army of workers, a large fleet of boats and a full brigade of dump trucks and bulldozers that have been desperately trying to clear up this embarrassing, yet expected, component to China’s assertion of hosting a ‘green games’ Olympics.

What this means is that numerous international competitors desperate for practice have been forced to stay in dry dock until this dangerous mess is cleaned up. While this kind of environmental roadblock may be foreign to many Olympic competitors, it is far from atypical in the world’s most polluted nation.

Today, fully 70% of China’s seven major rivers are severely and dangerously polluted. In addition, 80% of its rivers fail to meet standards for fishing and 90% of China’s cities suffer from some degree of significant water pollution. What this means for those who live in China is that over 700 million Chinese drink fetid water of a quality well below World Health Organization’s standards.

Meanwhile, liver and stomach cancers related to water pollution are among the leading causes of death in the Chinese countryside. And, 21 cities along the Yellow River are now characterized by the highest measurable levels of deadly pollution.

As for this particularly extensive algal bloom in Qingdao, the cause is clear — a massive misuse of agricultural fertilizer. A not-so-well-known-fact is that China is the world’s largest fertilizer user, consuming more than 50 million tons each year.

This problem is exacerbated by untrained peasants applying far too much fertilizer to their meager plots with the false hopes and dreams of boosting their already scanty yields. The obvious result has been a new kind of flooding crisis — a flood of excess and unneeded fertilizer runoff that ultimately ends up flooding into neighboring rivers and streams.

With this toxic runoff mixture, fertilizer nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphates have triggered an explosion of algal blooms as part of a broader process of eutrophication. This eutrophication process quite literally sucks the oxygen out of the water and kills all of the plant, fish and aquatic life.

The obvious catastrophic environmental result is an extremely foul-smelling and murky body of water incapable of sustaining life.

Another perfect example of this algal bloom epidemic is the blooms that keep pounding China’s third-largest lake, Lake Tai. This notable lake has long been famous for its classic beauty and is considered a favorite tourist attraction. Lake Tai also supplies water to approximately 30 million people.

The cost of cleaning up of the lake alone is estimated at more than $14 billion. In addition to this expense, many Chinese citizens have been buying bottled water at a feverish pace as a result of Lake Tai’s repeated algal blooms. This increased demand for fresh drinking water has driven up the price of bottled water.

China’s algal bloom epidemic is not restricted to its rivers and lakes. China’s coastal shorelines are also suffering severely from a growing occurrence of red tides, an oceangoing version of eutrophication.

This problem is particularly relentless in the relatively shallow Yellow and Bohai Seas off northern China where Qingdao is located and where there is less tidal exchange. The red tides are rapidly destroying fish and devastating valuable marine life. China has seen an astonishing 40-fold increase in the incidence of red tides in the past few years.

The overall picture being painted by China’s pollution woes is one of a large country choking to death and drowning on a wide variety of deadly pollutants. Because of the country’s toxic environment, many Olympic athletes have chosen to train in adjacent countries, like Japan and South Korea, and will only fly into China for brief stopovers during their specific sporting events.

What that says about today’s China speaks volumes. This country’s need to deal with its very real pollution crisis is obvious and is emerging as one of the most far-reaching and irresponsible environmental disasters the world has ever seen.

Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, is an inactive stratovolcano, which peaks at 19,340 feet. It is located on the edge of the great Rift Valley, in the nation of Tanzania. The ice on the mountain has been there for about 11,000 years, but the quantity has been reduced by 82% in the last century. According to Ohio State University Professor Lonnie Thompson, who published his findings four years ago, in the journal Science, this is a particularly troubling fact; given that several prior global climate changes failed to cause a significant reduction in the quantity of ice on the mountain. In other words, something has changed. That something, according to scientists, is called global warming — and not the kind nature occasionally bestows upon us.

The evidence of glacial retreat, documented over the past several decades, is causing scientists to become more and more concerned about the global warming they attribute to manmade causes: specifically, the release of heat trapping gases into the atmosphere by corporate polluters, gas guzzling vehicles and the generation of electricity. In 2001, scientists at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, projected that if the current rate of ice deterioration were to continue, most of Kilimanjaro’s glaciers would disappear within just 15 years and the summit would be completely free of ice by the year 2020.

The dwindling quantity of ice on Kilimanjaro may be an abstract issue for most of us, but experts believe that tropical glaciers like those on Kilimanjaro are highly sensitive to climate change and, therefore, are good indicators of more serious global warming trends. If they’re correct, the melting ice on Kilimanjaro is just one in a series of events that will be triggered by climate change–and they’re not all taking place in Africa. In Peru, “the rate of glacier shrinkage is increasing exponentially — one glacier is racing uphill at 155 metres each year, 33 times the rate between 1963 and 1978.”

So what does all this mean? According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), it means that we are seeing the inevitable effects of our failure to curtail the introduction of harmful pollutants into our atmosphere: “With our industries billowing a relentless stream of gases into the atmosphere, trapping heat, we’re decimating our natural ecosystems, exacting an incalculable toll on our planet and future health.”

So why is it so hard to convince people to cut back on the practices that cause such disturbing trends? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the evidence to support the damage that will result from global warming includes so many hypotheticals–many of which are not expected to take place for many years. The challenge, it appears, is convincing people to act, now, on a problem that may not manifest, in undeniable and serious ways, for years to come.

But what about Hurricane Katrina, you may ask? Didn’t that prove global warming is problematic? Didn’t the entire scientific community agree that the degree of devastation left in her wake was attributable, at least in part, to global warming? Well, actually, no.

If you visit the web site for the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, you will see a collection of quotes from scientists debunking the idea that Hurricane Katrina was the result of global warming. But notice the phraseology. Even here they are not saying the intensity of the storm was unaffected by global warming; they are simply saying they can’t prove that the storm was more intense as a result of global warming — nobody can:

“. . . attribution of the 30-year trends [in hurricane intensity] to global warming would require a longer global data record and, especially, a deeper understanding of the role of hurricanes in the general circulation of the atmosphere and ocean, even in the present climate state.”

This is the essence of the current debate between those who insist global warming is already affecting our planet in adverse ways and those who insist on pointing out that we if can’t prove it, we shouldn’t legislate the pollutants that we believe cause it. If we continue to go back and forth regarding how much we know, or can’t know, or merely suppose, we will argue indefinitely and never really get to the heart of the problem; which is that we simply don’t have the renewable, clean energy technology we need to sustain our current usage. Or do we?

According to Mark Jaccard, author of Sustainable Fossil Fuels: The Unusual Suspect in the Quest for Clean and Enduring Energy, we should stop insisting on eliminating fossil fuels as a way of saving the environment and instead focus on modifying our fossil fuel use. Jaccard believes we have the technological capability to use fossil fuels without emitting climate-threatening greenhouse gases or other pollutants. In fact, several well-respected scientists have reviewed his book and agree with him.

Among them is Professor John Weyant, from the Department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University:

Mark Jaccard skillfully makes the case that those who leave modifying the way we use fossil fuels out of any plan to achieve ‘sustainability’ in our energy systems surely confuse means with ends. If our objectives are to improve energy security and protect the environment at reasonable cost, he makes clear that, with a little bit of ingenuity and resolve, our extensive fossil fuel resources could well be our best friend rather than our worst enemy.

In fact, NRDC’s Climate Center Director, David Hawkins agrees: “Jaccard makes a strong case that significant fossil fuel use and climate protection can co-exist, without harming economic growth.”

Let’s hope he’s right.

The land that we saw in Nebraska was flat. The farm houses had clusters of trees around them for windbreaks, and a lot of the fields had a border of trees as a wind break. As a desert-raised Arizonan, I was fascinated by the irrigation pipe systems on wheels that they use to water large fields. Jeff’s father, a farmer, has one of these irrigation pipe systems, which draws water from a nearby well.

I asked about the water table — it’s a big concern. They depend on rain mostly to water their crops and only irrigate when necessary, but the water table has fallen, and there may come a time when their irrigation systems won’t work. Nebraska needs some other industries. But they have a significant natural resource that could boost their economy and be a benefit to the whole country. Wind.

After investigating, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that there are already several windpower generators in Nebraska, just not very many. The Nebraska Energy Office lists several wind power generation projects, one of which is the MEAN Wind Project at Kimball. Kimball’s site shows pictures of seven wind turbines and of horses contentedly drinking with two wind turbines in the background. The project was created to provide reliable, economical, environmentally friendly energy to participating utilities and their customers. Currently it provides energy to communities in Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming.

According to the American Wind Energy Association, Nebraska is ranked sixth in the nation in potential energy from wind power. In 2004 Nebraska had 12 operational wind turbines in Nebraska whose average annual output could power about 2,880 homes.

However, a 36-turbine wind farm near Ainsworth began commercial operation in October 2005, their average annual output can power 19,000 homes. From 2880 to 21,880 is a significant increase, but there still is a long way to go.

According to Encarta, in the year 2000 sixty four percent of Nebraska’s electricity came from thermal power plants burning fossil fuels, while another 32% was generated by nuclear power plants. Nebraska’s small amount of hydroelectric power came from Bureau of Reclamation’s dams on the Missouri River and hydroelectric plants in Colorado and Wyoming.

The nice thing about wind power is that after the initial installation cost, it is virtually free, with no expensive oil or coal to pay for, no smelly refineries, and with minimal pollution. You can turn windpower into electricity and sell it locally or on the national power grid. I noticed that there are some people are concerned about wind power possibly hurting some birds, personally I am more concerned about fossil fuel and nuclear power’s waste products hurting birds, fish, animals, and people.

But wind power does have an inherent problem. Wind speed is not constant and, as we said earlier, wind power output varies as the cube (third power) of the wind speed, a 26% increase in wind speed will result in twice as much output power. My wife, a super shopper, loves to find bargains. Getting double output for 26% additional input is a bargain she would love.

On the down side, a drop of 26 per cent in wind speed will cut output power to 40% — check the math yourself if you don’t believe it. So it makes sense to put the windmills where the wind is highest. In order to do this, the Nebraska Wind Energy Monitoring Program, a consortium of power companies, the state government, and concerned citizens groups, is measuring and recording the wind at several points around the state. Using this information to locate and configure future wind power plants could lead to a clean power industry for Nebraska.

When talking about wind power benefits, they use “average” a lot. That’s because there are times when windpower is almost zero, and other times when it is huge. Currently, by selling windpower on the national power grid, the grid itself can supply the power needed during low wind times. In order to be able to supply peak demands, the national power grid must have a large and readily available surplus capacity.

When wind power does become a significant contributor, there will be times when the grid doesn’t need all the windpower, so unless stored the wind power will be wasted. Also, as wind power provides more power on the national power grid, there may be times when the grid will have difficulty meeting the demands of the wind power customers during no-wind conditions. So an economical way to store excess wind-power energy is key for it to become a major provider of our nation’s power.

Following are several possible wind power storage techniques. If you think these ideas are far out, remember that in the 19th century, a German scientist proved mathematically that heavier than air flight was impossible.

Chemical Batteries

The most obvious solution is to use excess windpower to generate electric current to charge batteries. But, the most economical batteries do not work well at cold temperatures and gradually lose their charge over time. Your car battery gets recharged frequently. If you let your car sit for a few months without turning it on, the battery runs down. To store a lot of power efficiently over time would require large batteries, which will probably be pretty expensive. However, since the new hybrid cars are now a reality, the race is on to find economical, safe, and efficient batteries. If they do, batteries may turn out to be the winning solution.

Hydrogen

Another solution to wind power’s energy storage problem is to use the excess windpower to generate hydrogen gas. The hydrogen gas can be stored for later use to generate electricity. Hydrogen can be generated directly from water using wind power, but there is a much less fancy way to store wind energy using water along with another universal resource.

Water and Gravity

Excess windpower can be used to pump water to a higher location where the water can then be used to run hydroelectric generators when needed. Windpower could be used to enhance the capacity of existing hydroelectric plants or a marriage of wind power and hydropower could make both of them more efficient. This power storage technique does not require any high-tech breakthroughs and could be used to get more power out of existing hydroelectric plants, such as along the Platte river, where hydropower plants generate more than half of Nebraska’s hydroelectric power according to a 1997 report.

However, it turns out that the Platte River is one of several endangered rivers due to water scarcity according to American Rivers. A lawsuit between Nebraska and Wyoming over the Platte River was settled in 2001, but as the water becomes more and more scarce, there may be more litigation.

Water squabbles can be very serious. I remember as a boy in school in Arizona reading that in 1921 the Governor of Arizona called up the National Guard to fight California over Colorado river water. The quarrel was settled peacefully, but people go to war over water.

Everyone would like to get more benefit from the water they do have. Reusing the water that we have by using wind power to pump it uphill or upstream may be a partial solution to the growing water shortage problem. If one postulates a large water tank on a tower, with a catch basin or tank at the bottom, the falling water could be used to power a hydroelectric generator and then, using wind power, pumped back uphill into the storage tank for reuse. This idea uses purely conventional technology, and I think it could work. Some experiments will be required.

Wind Is Free

Windmills are inherently pollution free and relatively risk free. If a wind power generator has a problem or the operator makes a mistake, it is not likely to hurt anyone, or if it does, it is not likely to hurt more than a few people. There are no dangerous emissions from wind power. More and more, wind power will be part of the future of Nebraska.