From Environmental News Network:

Experts send a mixed message to consumers when it comes to eating fish: it’s good for your heart health but beware of the methylmercury. A new way of organizing and ranking the pollutant’s levels in fish and shellfish may help consumers navigate this apparent contradiction, according to the study’s author. Read more.

From the Great Lakes Echo:

Let’s face it—Chicagoans are a little cocky about their water supply. Forget the arctic winters, the ceaseless traffic jams, the political corruption—Chicagoans’ access to clean, fresh water makes them proud to have chosen this particular locale to call home. They get self-righteous when talking with friends in Phoenix or Los Angeles. Who in their right mind would move to a desert, anyway? It’s just impractical.

But a growing number of city officials, urban planners and environmental experts warn of a massive schism between Chicagoans’ perception of water abundance and the reality—a future of water scarcity if they don‘t begin making radical changes in the way we collect, distribute and consume this vital resource. Read more.

Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant’s Tracy Colin was named the University of Illinois Student Employee of the Year Runner Up. She has been an assistant for the communication and education components of the program for three years.

“During the time that she has worked in our program, Tracy has worked on a great variety of projects,” said Irene Miles, communication coordinator. “In every task that we assign, she asks intelligent questions to ensure that she will complete the job in a most efficient and effective manner. We are always impressed with Tracy’s attention to detail. She has also demonstrated a professional demeanor in her contact with people outside of our program, whether they be scientists, legislators, agency professionals, or the general public.”

As part of this honor, Colin was awarded a $200 scholarship and a $75 gift card to the University of Illinois Book Store. She will graduate this spring with a major in political science.

In most homes, children are kept out of medicine cabinets to protect them from the dangers of chemicals in medications. Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant’s (IISG) latest product, The Medicine Chest, invites high school students to metaphorically open up those doors and investigate what makes those chemicals harmful to people, pets, and the environment when improperly disposed.

“The new curriculum collection gives educators an instructional tool to create an innovative service-learning experience for their students, while tackling an important environmental and human health concern,” said IISG Associate Director for Education Robin Goettel, who, along with Terri Hallesy, IISG education specialist, helped design this resource. “Through involvement in this project, students serve as agents for change, educating their communities about action steps they can take to reduce harm to aquatic ecosystems from improper disposal of unwanted medicines.”

This resource is one of a handful of measures IISG is taking in response to the growing problem of pharmaceuticals ending up in local waterways. For example, a 2008 Associate Press investigation found low levels of pharmaceuticals in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas.

When medicines expire, people often flush them down the toilet, but wastewater treatment plants are not designed to treat these chemicals. In addition to showing up in drinking water, medications can harm fish and aquatic wildlife. On the other hand, disposing of medicines in the trash can risk leakage from poorly-designed landfills.

One way the curriculum seeks to get students involved in their communities is through active involvement with the Prescription Pill and Drug Disposal Program (P2D2)—a multidisciplinary, service-learning approach to the issue of unsafe disposal. “The P2D2 Program was the impetus and serves as the centerpiece for this curriculum collection,” Goettel said.

Created by Pontiac High School ecology teacher Paul Ritter, the program encourages teachers from various subject to involve their students with this issue and provides lesson plans for environmental science, civics, music, art, language arts, and foreign language.

According to Goettel, a wide range of student projects—billboards, eco-poems, songs, collection boxes, artwork, and student presentations—have sparked community interest, understanding, and action. The P2D2 program also encourages and provides tips for building community partnerships, organizing festivals, and planning collection events.

Many of these projects are described in The Medicine Chest, which also provides useful supplemental resources, including science-based research, fact sheets, and classroom activities.

By rallying students for the cause, Goettel hopes to address another problem—prescription drug abuse. According to the Drug Enforcement Agency, nearly one out of ten high school seniors admits to abusing powerful prescription painkillers and 40 percent of teens and an almost equal number of their parents [falsely] think abusing prescription painkillers is safer than abusing ‘street’ drugs.

“Through this multi-faceted, community-based service-learning program, youth will be empowered to take action that will serve as a catalyst to help reduce teenage drug abuse,” Goettel said. “The students have the capability to learn the content and put their knowledge into community action.”

Don’t be fooled by the name. Pests, such as insects and weeds, are not the only victims of pesticide application. Humans, especially children, are in danger of exposure to pesticides—linked to numerous diseases and adverse health conditions—from simply playing or walking barefoot on the lawn. These chemicals can also be tracked into homes and settle on carpets and furniture. Furthermore, pesticides pollute our air, water, and soil.

A new brochure, Natural Lawn Care for Homeowners, explains the advantages of natural lawn care and provides homeowners with the information necessary to maintain a healthy, aesthetically-pleasing lawn without the use of chemicals.

This publication provides step-by-step descriptions of the basic measures that help homeowners accomplish this, including soil testing, fertilizing, watering, and mowing. It also includes research-based explanations of how pesticides can be harmful to human and animal health, degrade soil, pollute water, and harm wildlife.

“Natural lawn care is easy and effective,” said Rachel Rosenberg, Safer Pest Control Project executive director. “You can have a healthy lawn simply by changing a few of your lawn care practices—like mowing higher, keeping your grass clippings on the lawn, watering deeply and infrequently and of course, stopping the use of herbicides and insecticides. A healthy and natural lawn will have the capacity to fight drought, disease and insects without the use of pesticides.”

IISG has two Knauss fellows. Here is a post from Priscilla Viana:

I was awarded a 2010 John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship through Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant; it started in February 2010. The purpose of this post is to share some of my experiences as a Sea Grant fellow in Washington DC.

The Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship is usually awarded to 40 – 50 students. The selection process comprises two steps. The first selection takes place through state Sea Grant offices. Then, eligible students compete for the fellowship at national level. Finalist students participate in the placement week. It was very interesting to be interviewed by approximately 15 different offices both in the legislative and executive branches. I concluded that working under the guidance of Dr. Phillip Taylor at the National Science Foundation (NSF) provided the best prospects.

Working at NSF has been a very rewarding experience. NSF provides funding for approximately 20 percent of all federally-supported basic research in U.S. I have contributed in the proposal reviewing process and in evaluating grant proposals based on the NSF merit-review criteria. Specifically, I am working on ecology of infectious diseases and I will work on ocean acidification in the near future.

This position offers me not only the experience of working in a federal agency with public policy, but also the benefit of exploring the important process of research funding in U.S. and understanding the necessary features of outstanding research projects. I am now more skilled to evaluate weaknesses and strengths of a research project and also better prepared to write grant proposals for my own research. Thus, it enhances my record of achievements in both academia and public policy. Fostering this knowledge will be helpful in either career I pursue.

This fellowship is very prestigious in Washington D.C. Fellows have the chance to network with researchers and government staff from many different offices, such as NOAA, EPA, USGS, Fish and Wildlife Services, Department of Energy and NSF. As a consequence, we are invited to participate in numerous conferences and receptions. Since February, I have participated in the Ocean Leadership 2010 Public Policy Forum at Capitol Hill and in a conference about ecology of infectious diseases at Atlantic City, NJ. In April, I will participate in a seminar about oceans and human health on Capitol Hill.

Being a Knauss Sea Grant fellow is a unique and gratifying experience. I am looking forward to share more of my experience in my next post!

(Priscilla Viana is finishing her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois – Chicago. Her research focuses on remediation of contaminated sediments. She can be reached at pviana@nsf.gov.)

My name is Mike Allen, and I am one of two Knauss Sea Grant fellows from Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant for the 2010 Fellowship class. I’ll be sharing DC experiences on the IISG blog occasionally over the course of my fellowship year to highlight the fellowship and what a “policy position” in the federal government is really like.

In this first post, I’ll share a little bit about my position. I am one of ~35 executive branch fellows in this year’s class. (There are also 10 fellows serving in members or committees in Congress.) We all met in DC in November for a week of interviews to decide where we would be placed in the federal government. Each of us had 12 – 15 half-hour interviews with various offices across NOAA, the Dept. of Energy, the Navy, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Dept. of State, the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies with an ocean, coast, or Great Lakes focus. I had an idea of what sounded interesting going into the week, but sitting down and talking with a variety of offices led me to the conclusion that working at NOAA’s Silver Spring complex would be the right fit for me. I subsequently chose to work with Dr. Mike Uhart, executive director of the Office of Laboratories and Cooperative Institutes in NOAA’s research office.

In this position, I act as the primary liaison between NOAA’s administrative headquarters and our three “wet labs” – the Pacific Marine Environmental Lab (PMEL), the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Lab (AOML), and the Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab (GLERL). As an aquatic ecologist with a degree from the University of Illinois, this is a fantastic fit for me, as a primary responsibility of my position is to know all about the ongoing research activities and needs of these nationally-renowned research institutions.

What I have learned is incredibly fascinating. For example, PMEL is the world leader in tsunami research and developed the buoy systems that monitor potential tsunamis like the one that occurred after the recent Chile earthquake. AOML is a leader in hurricane research and forecasting, and flies research missions into hurricanes using NOAA’s fleet of P-3 research aircraft. GLERL is the major center of research on the Great Lakes, and is at the forefront of our understanding of invasive zebra and quagga mussel invasions into the largest freshwater system in the world.

Over the course of the next year, I will share some of my perceptions and experiences from my fellowship year. Look for my next post on the Laboratory Review at the Earth Sciences Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado in the near future.

(Mike Allen recently completed his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology, where he focused on population and community ecology of freshwater zooplankton. He can be reached at Mike.Allen@noaa.gov.)

From the Executive Summary of Water 2050: Northeastern Illinois Regional Water Supply/Demand Plan:

The prosperity of the greater Chicago region and its status as a global center depend on water availability. Historically blessed with ample fresh water, the region can no longer assume that water supplies are infinite. While other parts of the country struggle to meet growing water demand and some cities are losing their economic competitiveness due to shortage or inadequate planning, the Chicago region must act now to carefully plan and manage its surface and groundwater resources in a coordinated fashion. Nothing less than economic development, environmental protection, and social equity is at stake. It is for these reasons that the region’s water supply plan is timely and important.

Water 2050: Northeastern Illinois Regional Water Supply/Demand Plan was unanimously approved by the Regional Water Supply Planning Group last month. The planning effort was led by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP). IISG Environmental Planning Specialist Marty Jaffe served as a member of the planning group and IISG Water Resource Economist Margaret Schneemann provided background and on water pricing for the plan. Ms. Schneemann will continue to assist CMAP in plan implementation going forward. You can download a copy of the plan and learn more about Water 2050 here.

From the Christian Science Monitor:

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley agrees that the Asian carp present an ecological and economic threat to the Great Lakes. But he disagrees with neighboring states that Illinois should lock down a historic canal that allows the fish to get to Lake Michigan.

In a letter published in the Washington Post this week, Mayor Daley argued that the invasive species – which experts say will destroy the lake ecosystem – is a “national problem that requires national solutions” and therefore Illinois alone should not have to foot the costs associated with addressing the problem. Read more.