RoguePundit

Different Smokes

Many of the folks who are campaigning against the burning of grass fields in Oregon highlight the fact that our neighbors in California, Idaho, and Washington have outlawed it.  Despite such legislation...

In California, straw burning was outlawed, unless there are specific problems such as stem rust. Because stem rust is a problem there, California continues to burn as much as in the past.

In Washington State, when burning grass seed fields was outlawed, but wheat wasn't, the growers just switched their crops to wheat and burn 150,000 acres each year.

Idaho faced lawsuits over burning fields, but has reached a deal that allows burning to continue.

In the '80s, grass farmers burned as many as 250,000 acres in Oregon.  Nowadays, the average is about 50,000 acres.  However, quite a bit of that burning is fairly near population centers, and it bothers some people.   

The Willamette Valley farmers had voluntarily promised not to burn their fields during the Olympic Track and Field trials so that athletes would have better air quality conditions.

Unfortunately, now these farmers will face even greater hurdles.

Instead of appreciating what the farmers offered, environmentalists are eagerly lining up lawyers to race after farmers to quit burning fields completely.

Most farmers don't start burning their grass fields until at least July, so this wasn't much of a sacrifice. 

During the Trials, smoke from forest fires in the region blew into the valley, making the air quality worse than it normally is when fields are burning (but better than the athletes can probably expect in China next month).  Unsurprisingly, several folks called the ODA to gripe about the smoke from burning fields.  When you see activists and politicians quoting statistics regarding the number of complaints about field burning, remember that those ignorant complaints count.  And if you're a smoker who's griping about the smoke, I know a great way of addressing that air quality problem...

"It's not fair to protect only elite athletes," Charlie Tebbutt, staff attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center in Eugene, said in an Associated Press story, when he demanded the burn ban year-round. "Those of us who live here the rest of the time deserve the same protection."

As I've said many times, there's no point in negotiating with zealots, because they have no interest in living with compromise.  

There aren't particularly good alternatives to field burning.  Most of them are involve more cost and the use of more chemicals, fertilizers, and fossil fuels.  It's a value judgment whether that's an improvement or not.  Same goes for if its preferable for those increased costs drive some of the grass farming out of the state.  But who needs to worry about the farmers because they can just switch crops, right?  That's obviously a wee simplistic.   

Opposition to field burning is NIMBYism that sometimes comes with a hypocritical twist.  If thousands of acres of fields burn, that's bad because it causes pollution.  However, if hundreds of thousands of acres of trees burn, that's okay because it's natural?  

State Rep. Paul Holvey (D-Eugene) has been trying to get field burning banned because of the health risks from the smoke.  He also claims that it contributes to global warming.  If he actually believes what he says, why isn't he jumping up and down about making our forests more fire-safe?  

After Wiping...

Amid all the catastrophism, it can be easy to overlook some of the areas where the U.S. excels on the environment.  One of them is sewage treatment.  We certainly still have plenty of room to improve, but thank goodness we're not like most of Canada (previous blog here) or for instance Taiwan...

The Environmental Protection Administration urged the public yesterday not to flush toilet paper.

Wang Yue-bin, a section chief with the Water Quality Protection division, made the remarks in response to a campaign launched by the Tainan City Government earlier this week encouraging the public to flush toilet paper as a way to cut disposal costs.

Flush the toilet paper as opposed to what?  Switching links...

“An old habit is to throw toilet paper in the trash can beside the toilet, which causes a major stink that’s bad for public sanitation,” city Environmental Protection Bureau Director Chang Hwang-jen told Reuters.

...

Toilet sitters in Taiwan and China customarily target trash bins instead of the porcelain because of pipe backup worries. Clogged pipes in Tainan are caused by the flushing of other objects, such as toothbrushes, Chang said.

To reduce the risk of clogged sewage lines, we use wider pipes and sweep elbows.  But if you don't flush toilet paper, the piping can be narrower, which is cheaper.  I still remember how many pipes we dug up during a deployment to a Jordanian air base in the mid-80s because our toilet paper clogged their pipes.  Most of them used their left hands to wipe and then rinsed them off. 

Returning to the original article...

As used toilet paper cannot be recycled, it must be disposed of through treatment that costs about NT$4,600 per tonne. This costs the nation about NT$600 million (US$20 million) per year, the bureau said.

In response, Wang said that although toilet paper does dissolve in water and that flushing it could cut the nation’s treatment costs, there were negative aspects that outweighed this argument.

Much of the public does not know which toilet papers can be flushed and which papers are too thick and could cause clogging, he said.

And if the toilet paper successfully navigates the piping, where does it go?

...only about 18 percent of toilets feed into sewage treatment systems. If toilet paper is flushed down the other 82 percent of toilets, it flows directly into rivers and other waterways and increases pollution, he said.

How Third World...but it's better than Victoria BC.

Timber Harvests Slowing Further

Today, there have been several news stories on Oregon's timber harvest last year.  Here's part of one article and some additional data and thoughts.

Oregon’s timber harvests continued their decline since 2004 with 3.80 billion board feet being harvested in 2007, a 12 percent decrease from 2006.

This is the smallest Oregon timber harvest since the recession-based record low recorded in 2001.

The harvest in 2001 was 3.44 billion board feet.  Last year's harvest also topped the ones in 1998 and 1999.  But before that, one has to go all the way back to 1938 to find a lower harvest (historical records here).  

The reduction in timber harvest volumes came from declining harvests from private forestland owners. An 11 percent, or 344 million board feet, decrease in volume from forest industry land owners was accompanied by a 43 percent decline in harvests on non-industrial private lands, which declined from 422 million board feet in 2006 to 240 million board feet in 2007. Federal harvests remained at historically low levels, accounting for less than 10 percent of the cut.

Timber harvests were down in both western Oregon and eastern Oregon. Harvests in all of western Oregon declined 11 percent from 2006 levels, driven primarily by the 44 percent decrease on non-industrial private lands, from 351 million board feet to 198 million board feet.

Klamath County straddles the Cascades, but its totals are included in--and easily lead--Eastern Oregon.  At 107 million board feet, its harvest is more than a quarter of the total from that side of the state.  However, its harvest only topped six counties in Western Oregon, which confusingly includes Hood River County from the other side of the Cascades.

Lane County continues to lead Oregon’s counties in harvesting, despite decreasing by 15 percent to 504 million board feet in 2007. Douglas County was second with 479 million board feet, while Clatsop and Coos were third and fourth with 338 and 303 million board feet respectively.

Overall, harvests decreased in all western Oregon counties except for Curry, Hood River, Linn, and Yamhill, resulting in the 11 percent decline in that region.

Curry County and Jackson County totaled 95 million and 74 million board feet, respectively.  And once again, Josephine County was next to last here in western Oregon, topping only Multnomah County (Portland).  Last year's harvest of 22.4 million board feet was the lowest here since 1939.  Our peak was in 1952 at 318 million board feet.  And note that none of last year's harvest here was from BLM or USFS land...none. 

Let's not forget with the BLM's former O&C lands...

Section 1181(a) of the 1937 O&C act reads that O&C lands "Shall be managed... for permanent forest production, and the timber thereon shall be sold, cut, and removed in conformity with the principal of sustained yield for the purpose of providing a permanent source of timber supply, protecting watersheds, regulating streamflow, and contributing to the economic stability of the local Communities and industries, and providing recreational facilities."

The feds don't have to backfill the reduction in timber fees due to decreased logging of the national forests, but they do owe us for the checkerboard of O&C lands (example map here).  With the success our Congressional delegation isn't having at extending the timber funds, why hasn't the State of Oregon sued the feds yet (previous blog here)?  

Meanwhile, here we sit...logging isn't generating much in the way of timber fees, Congress isn't replacing those timber fees, the majority of our county land isn't generating property taxes, and the fuels load and thus the fire risk continues to grow.  If we don't raise our property taxes this fall to replace the lost timber funds, our Sheriff's Office all-but-disappears.  And if we're burned out, it will be our fault for living near the forest.  

Green Bullying

After years of talking a great game but delivering almost nothing when it comes to climate change, Canada's Liberal Party is promoting a carbon tax to help discourage the use of fossil fuels.  It claims the Green Shift plan (here) is revenue-neutral, because "For every dollar raised in taxes there will be a dollar returned to Canadians in tax cuts."  As usual, that ignores the cost of the additional bureacracy to manage the process (previous blog here).  And then there's the unoriginal name of the plan...

Green Shift Inc., a Toronto-based environmental consulting firm, said yesterday it intends to sue the Liberal party over its Green Shift proposal because it has co-opted the name and damaged its reputation.

When the firm was approached two years ago to sell its name to another company, the "rebranding costs" were estimated at $2 million, according to a spokesman acting on its behalf. At that time, Green Shift Inc. had annual sales of about $300,000. Last fiscal year, the company brought in $1.5 million. Jennifer Wright, the head of Green Shift Inc., says that will likely boost the cost she will seek in damages against the Liberals.

"We're probably looking at a lot higher (this time)," she said in an interview, noting that more details will be released in a news conference tomorrow.

This is how Green Shift Inc. found out about the Green Shift plan.

Jennifer Wright, who has been running the small but successful environmental consulting company for nearly 10 years, said she was heading out to a Dave Matthews concert last week (mid-June) when a call came in from the House of Commons.

She grabbed the phone because her company has a contract with the Parliament Hill cafeterias, providing them with products such as recycled coffee cups.

Instead, Ms. Wright said the cheery caller was Katie Telford, the deputy chief of staff to Mr. Dion, the Liberal Leader, informing her that the Liberals were about to launch their own “green shift” plan.

Ms. Wright recalls being told by the senior Liberal aide: “I just want to let you know that you're going to be getting a lot of hits on the website.”

Green Shift Inc. doesn't want its name and trademark to be dragged into partisan politics.  The Liberal Party blew off the cease-and-desist order, so Green Shift Inc. sued.  Here's how the Liberal Party has reacted (returning to the original article).  

"We have been told that we have no problem to use this name," Dion said last night. "We'll talk with her and we'll see what will happen. I hope we'll have a solution for everyone."

Daniel Lauzon, a Liberal party spokesman, said an official response to the company is being reviewed by senior officials and legal counsel, and that it would be issued shortly.

But he said the Liberals own the domain name www.thegreenshift.ca and believes there is no confusion between the party and the company, nor a commercial threat to worry Green Shift Inc., whose website is www.greenshift.ca.

What about all the bad publicity the Liberal Party is getting for looking like a bully?  Talk about tone deaf... 

Import Coal, Export Oil

Kuwait generates 82 percent of its electricity from oil and the rest from natural gas.  However, some are trying to sell it on the benefits of a cheaper fossil fuel...coal.  It wouldn't be the only nation to find it more profitable to import coal and export oil.

At the end of April, for example, the state-owned Oman Oil Company signed a memorandum of understanding with two Korean companies on the construction and operation of several coal-fired power plants. Dubai, for its part, is initially planning to build at least four large facilities with a cumulative output of 4,000 megawatts. Abu Dhabi also wants to get into the act. Even Egypt is thinking of constructing its first coal-fired plant on the shores of the Red Sea.

Egypt clearly isn't in the same league financially with the other places mentioned above.  But, it does have 0.3 percent of the world's oil reserves and exports both oil and liquefied natural gas.  Also, note that both Dubai and Abu Dhabi are states within the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Other regions in the world are fuelling the trend as well. Oil-rich Russia is planning the construction of more than thirty new coal-fired power plants by 2011. In China a new facility is connected to the grid about once every 10 days. Greenpeace estimates that around five thousand coal-fired power plants will be in operation worldwide by 2030.

The economics behind the coal fad are clear. To produce a megawatt hour of electricity using Australian coal, it costs just €11. Using natural gas, on the other hand, ups that price to €26 while oil-fired power plants swallow up €50.50 per megawatt hour of electricity.

Fad? 

The article mentioned that the UAE's energy consumption per capita is one-third higher than ours.  But when one considers just electricity, the UAE is tenth per capita in the world, right behind the U.S.  Numbers one through eight are as follows:  Iceland, Norway, Finland, Canada, Qatar, Sweden, Luxembourg, and Kuwait.  You can look up their sources of electricity at this link.

Bovine Growth Hormone and Climate Change

A couple of months ago, I touched on the fact (here) that giving beef cattle growth hormones and antibiotics can lower their greenhouse gas emissions.  Faster growth reduces the amount of feed that the cattle require and thus the waste products that they produce.  Yes, there are also downsides to speeding the growth of cattle in this manner.  The subject makes for an interesting debate on the balancing of environmental concerns...at least when people aren't cowering from the debate. 

Over the weekend, a study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on how giving dairy cattle growth hormones can reduce the wastes produced per unit of milk.  The following article discusses the study and some of the reaction to it.  

Monsanto's somatotropin, sold under the trade name Posilac, stimulates cows to produce more milk, allowing farmers to get more from each herd. But use of the hormone is controversial.

Canada and some European countries have banned it on the grounds that it causes foot and fertility problems, as well as mastitis, in cows. It remains in use in the United States, but consumers are increasingly seeking out somatotropin-free milk.

Organic milk had a 2.7 percent share of the total milk market in the U.S. last year, well up from the 1.7 percent in 2006.  Several factors are impacting this growth beyond perceived health benefits, including increasing availability and a lower price premium. 

Yet farmers like to use the hormone because of the higher milk yields and lower costs. Animals on Posilac require 5% less energy to produce the same amount of milk and emit 7% less methane, a potent greenhouse gas, say researchers.

Those savings translate into significant environmental benefits, claims Judith Capper of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who produced the study with colleagues.

Switching a million cows onto somatotropin would lead to savings equivalent to removing 400,000 family cars from the US road, she says. "That's a major environmental gain."

Because a herd on somatotropin could produce the same amount of milk while requiring less space and food, use of the hormone produces energy savings too. According to the study, a conventional herd that produces that same amount of milk as a million-strong herd on somatotropin would consume an additional 156 million kWh of electricity every year.

And together with the fossil fuels required to grow and harvest the extra feed, this conventional herd would use enough extra energy to power around 15,000 homes and run 1,550 cars.

Some are upset that the one of the co-authors of the study is a Monsanto employee.  Yes that could be a concern...same as when environmentalists support or participate in studies that seem to prove what they're advocating, right?  So let's skip the messenger bashing and address the message...or at least try to.  

"It's a new form of greenwashing," says Doreen Stabinsky of Greenpeace based in Bar Harbor, Maine, US.

Dr. Doreen Stabinsky is a Professor of Global Environmental Politics and International Studies at the College of the Atlantic (in Bar Harbor) and a Greenpeace genetic engineering campaigner. 

Stabinsky says that Capper framed the issue too narrowly by comparing herds with and without somatotropin. The more important question is the environmental damage done by a range of farming systems, she argues.

That requires a detailed analysis of all the costs associated with many different techniques. Farms where cows are fed on grass rather than grain, for example, have reduced greenhouse gas emissions because the feed is not grown off-site and transported in.

If you hadn't guessed, Stabinsky is also a family farm advocate.  She's not disputing the findings of the study; rather, she's complaining that Capper didn't study more types of farms...smaller ones.  She's on the grass-fed bandwagon, not seeming to realize that when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions--methane in particular, it's preferable that cattle have grass-alfalfa pasture rather than grass-only.  

Let's try again when it comes to addressing the message. 

Michael Hansen, an expert on the somatotropin at the Consumers Union in New York, also questions Monsanto's claim about the efficiency of cows on the hormone.

He says that somatotropin is labelled as increasing milk production per cow, but that government regulators from the Food and Drug Administration in Washington, DC, did not agree with Monsanto's claim that the hormone makes animals use feed more efficiently. If the regulators are right, many of the environmental benefits disappear, he notes.

What's he referring to?  From this link...

FDA, in a letter to Monsanto dated April 3, 1988, noted that Monsanto’s data failed to show a statistically significant increase in feed efficiency. When Posilac was finally approved on November 5, 1993, the label claim for increased feed efficiency was not allowed: the FDA noted that Monsanto could not produce enough convincing data on this issue.

Okay, but why didn't Hansen didn't address the merits of Capper's study?  Maybe folks have learned something over the last 15 years.

I googled all the articles on the study and couldn't find a quote from a climate change activist anywhere.  Suddenly cow farts and burps don't matter?

Sockeye Surprise

Why does good news about salmon never get as much publicity as the bad news?  I know, stupid question.

The Columbia River sockeye run is already double the initial predictions and is on track to be the highest return since the 1950s. 

... 

The sockeye count at Bonneville Dam east of Portland was 157,486 fish through Thursday compared with 15,427 at the same time last year. Last year's entire run was 26,700 sockeye at Bonneville Dam.

Officials had originally predicted 75,600 but upgraded it this week to at least 210,000.

"It's never been over 100,000 this early in the year," said Joe Hymer, a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist.

The largest recorded dam count of Columbia River sockeye was 237,748 fish in 1955. The number has only topped 200,000 twice since counting began at Bonneville in 1938.

Lately, salmon predictions around here haven't a whole lot better than hurricane season forecasts.  However, officials did figure that sockeye numbers returning to Idaho would be really good...at least when compared with recent history.  Plus, the big snowpack and cooler weather have been good for the migrating salmon. 

The preseason prediction by state and federal biologists was 700 sockeye returning to the Snake River, and that number has not been updated to reflect the larger run.

... 

To reach their traditional spawning waters, Idaho sockeye must swim upstream through eight dams and reservoirs in the Columbia and Snake systems, then all the way to the Salmon River's headwaters, a trip of 900 miles and 6,500 vertical feet. It's the longest salmon migration in North America.

Time out...let's not forget Alaska.  The salmon that migrate up the Yukon River through Alaska into Canada can travel over 1,850 miles.  And there are lots of sockeye in Alaska.  The harvest there this year is expected to be 47 million, topping the average of 41.5 million.  However, the sockeye is listed as endangered in the Snake River system and threatened in Ozette Lake and tributaries (WA).   

If 700 sockeye reached the Stanley Basin, it would be the most since 1975, which is the first year salmon counting started at Lower Granite Dam.

The record sockeye count at Lower Granite was 531 in 1976.

This year's run would also be larger than the previous nine years combined at Lower Granite.

...

Since 1991, returns have ranged from small to zero. Last year, four fish returned to the Stanley Basin, and only 40 sockeye have returned in the last five years, mainly to Redfish Lake. The lake got its name from the once-abundant sockeye, which turn vivid red before spawning. During the 1955 run, 4,361 fish returned to Stanley.

...

In order for sockeye to be removed from the endangered species list, more than 2,000 adult fish would have to return to Stanley for several years. 

What are the odds the sockeye will ever make it off the endangered species list with a goal that size?  Job security...

Rainbows Rewarded for Not Seeking Permits

Later this month, about 1,000 Boy Scouts were going to gather in the Bridger-Teton National Forest to "restore, repair, rebuild, reclaim and refurbish miles of trails, acres and glens."  Not any more.

...the conflict arose with the Wyoming location and dates, because Rainbow Family participants announced they would meet in the same general location as the Scouting work was to take place. The Rainbow Family events are not organized, there is no official website, and the makeup of the assemblage varies. Their activities grow to a peak over the July 4th weekend and then taper off, but the cleanup from the estimated 25,000 people expected to invade Wyoming's Sublette County, population 6,000, is expected to take the time the Scouts otherwise would have been doing repairs.

Mary Cernicek, a spokeswoman for the Bridger-Teton National Forest, told the Casper Star-Tribune federal officials will look for other work in another location to substitute for the Scouts.

"We're heartbroken, but we're committed to giving the Boy Scouts a good experience and providing them with the education and leadership skills they're seeking," she told the newspaper.

Bousman said it's fairly simple: The Scouts applied for permission for their project, filled out forms, went through red tape, and got permission. Then came the announcement from Rainbow members they've chosen the same location.

Preparing and processing the necessary environmental permits alone takes several months.  However, the "organizers" of the Rainbow Family gatherings always wait until it's too late to properly coordinate their annual event.  When they finally announce the site, everyone knows that thousands of people will descend upon a rural area and overwhelm the local authorities.  As people start to arrive, a few gatherers will make a belated, token attempt to apply for the necessary permits.  And of course, the gatherers blame the Forest Service for any coordination problems. 

Mark Rey, the federal undersecretary supervising the U.S. Forest Service, met with Rainbow Family members recently in Pinedale, and urged them to move their gathering, the Star-Tribune said. They refused.

Rey told WND he thought the decision to move the Scouts to somewhere else and leave the Rainbow Family alone was the best under the circumstances. He said the government allows the Rainbow Family to bypass its regular permit requirements in favor of an "operating plan" but the bottom line was that the government didn't want to be arresting hundreds or thousands of people.

"They couldn't be expelled without a fairly significant amount of law enforcement activity," he told WND.

For years, USFS has been whining but essentially letting this happen.  Now it's pretending that there is a legitimate means to bypass the permit requirements.  Wrong.  Each time I think that Rey's record at USFS couldn't get any worse...

I've noted before that the BLM generates revenues from the Burning Man event in the Nevada Desert.  Its organizers make a tidy profit by charging admission.  Sure it helps that Burning Man is in the same place every year.  But why doesn't USFS, for instance, charge everyone attending the Rainbow Family gatherings a hefty fee for participating in an unapproved event?  That would at least cover the costs of enforcing the law.  

Heck, if the Rainbow Family gatherers don't have to obey the laws when using our national forests, why should the rest of us?  Believe me, I'm no big fan of the Boy Scouts either.  But, at least they're following the rules and doing something to help our national forests, neither of which the Rainbow gatherers can claim.

Soylent Green Energy

Landlocked Rwanda is trying to reduce the amount of fossil fuels it must import to generate electricity.  Lake Kivu offers it an unusual opportunity.

Rwanda hopes to exploit vast methane gas resources trapped under its western Lake Kivu to increase electricity production, the energy minister said.

The small east African nation is highly dependent on electricity from fossil fuels which account for 54 percent of production. The remainder is generated from hydroelectric dams.

"Methane will eventually take the lead," Rwandan Energy Minister Albert Butare told Reuters on Thursday.

"The only problem remaining is that it will be the first time to exploit methane from underwater globally, so it will take a bit of time to come up with appropriate technology."

First time?  When I blogged about the methane in the depths of Lake Kivu three years ago, the French and Swiss already had a test plant up and running.  A Belgian company first started doing gas extraction there in 1963.  Granted the Rwandan effort would be much larger in scale, but Reuters needed to fact check this article.

He said the government would launch a 5 megawatt pilot plant from the gas in a couple of months, and that authorities were in talks with an American investor to put up a 100 mw project.

The potential power output from the lake is 350 mw, he said.

Only 5 percent of Rwanda's 10 million people are connected to electricity, but the government targets access for 34 percent of the population by 2020.

From that earlier post...

...magma far underground releases carbon dioxide that eventually reaches the deep, colder waters in Lake Kivu.  But, there's more at work at the bottom of this lake.  Organic matter in the lake's sediments ferments and produces both carbon dioxide and methane.  Additionally, bacteria consume some of the carbon dioxide and produce methane as a waste product.  ...

Research has shown that about every thousand years, there is a massive extinction of the life in the lake.  Scientists think this relates to limnic eruptions.  The carbon dioxide levels in the depths of the lake are not nearly as high as they are in Cameroon's killer lakes, but the methane adds an interesting dimension.  Lava flows from Nyiragongo can reach the lake...a small amount did so in the 2002 eruption (which also destroyed the homes of 120,000 people, mostly in the city of Goma).  But, the methane concentrations are deep enough that there was no mixing with the lava. 

The fear is that a large eruption (possibly with the help of accompanying earthquakes) could disrupt the lake and cause a massive release of methane, which would then be ignited by the lava and explode.

Using unsustainable quantities of this renewable resource will reduce the risk of a catastrophic event.  Sadly, a small percentage of the organic matter in the lake came from all the bodies that were dumped there during the Rwandan genocide in the mid-90s. 

The methane power plant is only one facet of the Rwandan efforts to improve the nation's electrical production and distribution. 

Helping Black Flies

Just time for a quick post today. 

In large swaths of Maine, black flies are a huge pest.  As with mosquitoes, the female black flies feed upon blood.  However, these gnat-sized insects are daylight feeders.  And right now for most of them, life is good.

Residents and tourists have long steeled themselves against the flies' annual warm-weather onslaught, sometimes duct-taping pant legs and wearing screened hoods to keep the deceptively small bugs from delivering bloody bites or crawling into seemingly every body crevice.

But there are now more black flies in more places in Maine, and the reason may be surprising: It's the success of the environmental movement.

Many species of the gnat-sized insects are sticklers for cleanliness. When Maine's rivers were filled with contaminants from paper mills and other industries, only the hardiest black flies laid eggs in them. Now, rivers and streams are progressively cleaner, providing ideal breeding grounds for the annoying pests.

It's an unintended barometer of good ecological health, but Maine officials are adamant they will not mess with nature in any way to provide relief.

Fortunately the black flies in question aren't vectors for any human disease.  But in parts of tropical America, Africa, and Yemen, several black fly species are to blame for spreading the nematodes that cause river blindness. 

Some states, such as Pennsylvania, heavily control black flies. Officials there spend about $6 million a year treating 47 rivers and streams with a bacteria whose naturally occurring toxin kills black fly and mosquito larvae. Pennsylvania officials say the bacteria, called Bti, are not harmful to humans, mammals, birds, fish, plants, and most aquatic organisms.

Maine officials say they won't use it, however. The rivers were polluted enough in the past, and officials refuse to put anything else in them unless it's to solve a human health crisis. They say trout and birds feed on black flies, so killing fly larvae could have ripple effects on wildlife. And Bti kill other fly species that are part of a healthy ecosystem.

Bti is a subspecies of the soil bacteria Bacillus thuringiesis that's used as an organic pesticide.    

Meanwhile, I happened to stumble into this tongue-in-cheek Canadian article over the weekend.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has picked the place - now all he needs is a date.

June may be lovely in Ottawa, but we can't recommend it for the 2010 G8 summit in this charming little town at the north end of Ontario's cottage country.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police having to deal with people walking about with nylon nets pulled over their heads and spray cans raised and cocked is simply not on.

In fact, this has been the worst year ever for black flies and now mosquitoes. Next year will, of course, be even worse - it always is - and as for 2010, the PM, whoever that might be then, probably won't be able to find his applause in all the slapping.

Basically, spring breakup to school's out is impossible because of the bugs.

I spent a year of my youth in northern Maine (Loring AFB)...I can attest to the miseries of black flies.