Environment News Service: Alabama A&M University has become the first historically black college or university to be designated by the U.S. EPA as a Center of Excellence for Watershed Management. This is only the second Center of Excellence to be named in Alabama and the fifth in the Southeast. AAMU president Dr. Beverly Edmond signed a Memorandum of Understanding with officials from the EPA and the Alabama Department of Environmental Management during a ceremony Thursday at the university's Agricultural Research Center."Everyone lives in a watershed and at EPA we believe a watershed approach is the most effective framework to address today's water resource challenges," said EPA Acting Regional Administrator Stan Meiburg. "This designation will allow AAMU to continue developing the strong partnerships with other institutions, organization and agencies required to protect and restore watersheds in northern Alabama."
Some of the benefits of being a recognized Center of Excellence include receipt of EPA technical assistance where needed, such as instructors and speakers, EPA letters of support for grant opportunities, and identification of opportunities for Center of Excellence involvement in local and regional watershed issues.
Low water on the Flint River in northern Alabama (Photo credit unknown)
…Each EPA designated Center actively seeks out watershed-based stakeholder groups and local governments that need cost effective tools for watershed scientific studies, engineering designs and computer mapping, as well as assistance with legal issues, project management, public education and planning….
Alabama River, Montgomery train yard, around 1897
2 comments:
We have a few college students online from college of Alabama State University and we love your blog postings, so well add your rss or news feed for them, Thanks and please post us and leave a comment back and well link to you. Thanks Jen , Blog Manager Alabama State University
Please don't throw the Biochar baby out with Mantria's Snake Oil bath water.
http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2009/2009-247.htm
The thermal conversion technology that they got hold of nefariously, is a solid, important innovation for the capture of energy from waste and low cost sequestration of carbon in soils. http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/taxonomy/term/93
All political persuasions agree, building soil carbon is GOOD.
To Hard bitten Farmers, wary of carbon regulations that only increase their costs, Building soil carbon is a savory bone, to do well while doing good.
Biochar provides the tool powerful enough to cover Farming's carbon foot print while lowering cost simultaneously.
Another significant aspect of bichar is removal of BC aerosols by low cost ($3) Biomass cook stoves that produce char but no respiratory disease emissions. At Scale, replacing "Three Stone" stoves the health benefits would equal eradication of Malaria.
http://terrapretapot.org/ and village level systems http://biocharfund.org/
The Congo Basin Forest Fund (CBFF).recently funded The Biochar Fund $300K for these systems citing these priorities;
(1) Hunger amongst the world's poorest people, the subsistence farmers of Sub-Saharan Africa,
(2) Deforestation resulting from a reliance on slash-and-burn farming,
(3) Energy poverty and a lack of access to clean, renewable energy, and
(4) Climate change.
The Biochar Fund :
Exceptional results from biochar experiment in Cameroon
http://scitizen.com/screens/blogPage/viewBlog/sw_viewBlog.php?idTheme=14&idContribution=3011
The broad smiles of 1500 subsistence farmers say it all ( that , and the size of the Biochar corn root balls )
http://biocharfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=55&Itemid=75
Mark my words; Given the potential for Laurens Rademaker's programs to grow exponentialy, only a short time lies between This man's nomination for a Noble Prize.
This authoritative PNAS article should cause the recent Royal Society Report to rethink their criticism of Biochar systems of Soil carbon sequestration;
Reducing abrupt climate change risk using
the Montreal Protocol and other regulatory
actions to complement cuts in CO2 emissions
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/10/09/0902568106.full.pdf+html
There are dozens soil researchers on the subject now at USDA-ARS.
and many studies at The up coming ASA-CSSA-SSSA joint meeting;
http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2009am/webprogram/Session5675.html
Senator Baucus is co-sponsoring a bill along with Senator Tester (D-MT) called WE CHAR. Water Efficiency via Carbon Harvesting and Restoration Act! It focuses on promoting biochar technology to address invasive species and forest biomass. It includes grants and loans for biochar market research and development, biochar characterization and environmental analyses. It directs USDI and USDA to provide loan guarantees for biochar technologies and on-the-ground production with an emphasis on biomass from public lands. And the USGS is to do biomas availability assessments.
WashingtonWatch.com - S. 1713, The Water Efficiency via Carbon Harvesting and Restoration (WECHAR) Act of 2009
Individual and groups can show support for WECHAR by signing online at:
http://www.biocharmatters.org/
Al Gore got the CO2 absorption thing wrong, ( at NABC Vilsack did same), but his focus on Soil Carbon is right on;
http://www.newsweek.com/id/220552/page/3
Research:
The future of biochar - Project Rainbow Bee Eater
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/features/20090211-20142.html
Japan Biochar Association ;
http://www.geocities.jp/yasizato/pioneer.htm
Carbon to the Soil, the only ubiquitous and economic place to put it.
Cheers,
Erich
540 289 9750
Post a Comment