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Sorry for the Double post. I got about half of what I wanted but seems to be a good buy again. I just have to run with what I have It's probably nothing compared to what your holding but Its still a nice chunk
Posts: 598 | From: San Jose, CA USA | Registered: Nov 2003
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Ya i just read the rb board what a bunch of knuckle heads Ya I hoped it would pull back to the 3's as well it just doesn't look like it's going to get back there especially when you trying to buy what the block that Im trying to get that's why Im going to wait and see what happens but if I miss it I still have a big chunk of what I wanted so either way Im good just not as good as I would have been if I just held them all.
Posts: 598 | From: San Jose, CA USA | Registered: Nov 2003
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FEMA Chief Says Contracts for Katrina Recovery Efforts Will Be Rebid to Prevent Waste, Abuse
Acting Federal Emergency Management Agency Director David Paulison testifies before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill Thursday, Oct. 6, 2005. The committee is studying disaster relief and response efforts following Hurricane Katrina. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook) 10-06-2005 11:46 AM By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON -- Millions of dollars in federal contracts for Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts that were handed out with little or no competition will be rebid to prevent any waste or abuse, FEMA chief R. David Paulison said Thursday.
"I've been a public servant for a long time, and I've never been a fan of no-bid contracts," Paulison told a Senate panel investigating the Federal Emergency Management Agency's response to the hurricane. "Sometimes you have to do them because of the expediency of getting things done. And I can assure that you we are going to look at all of those contracts very carefully."
"All of those no-bid contracts, we are going to go back and rebid," he said of pacts that were worth millions of dollars.
Paulison said after the hearing that he did not have a total figure for no-bid contracts that have been given, but said they include four agreements for $100 million each for housing and construction services awarded immediately after the storm hit. The government has been accused of overpaying for some contracts that were awarded with unusual haste in an effort to speed assistance to Katrina's victims.
In the weeks after the storm, more than 80 percent of at least $1.5 billion in FEMA contracts were awarded with little or no competition, or had open-ended or vague terms that previous audits have cited as being highly prone to abuse.
Inspector General Richard Skinner of the Department of Homeland Security told a House subcommittee that 90 percent of the contracts awarded for debris removal in Mississippi were not put out for competitive bids. He said the Army Corps of Engineers had four pre-existing contracts for debris removal, but those four could not handle the overwhelming devastation of the storm.
He said reviewing those no-bid contracts is "high on our priority list."
Skinner also said that investigators are not seeing the kinds of problems in Louisiana and Mississippi that FEMA was criticized for in responding to hurricanes that hit Florida last year, particularly providing aid to individuals in counties that had little or no damage.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, questioned whether FEMA should look at having contracts for services _ including housing and supplies _ already in place before a disaster strikes.
"It sure looks with hindsight that FEMA would have been in a much better position if it had had a lot of contracts in place that had been bid that were standby contracts to provide exactly the kind of services that FEMA rushed in to provide on a no-bid basis _ and which we fear the taxpayers may have ended up paying more money for than they should have," said Lieberman, D-Conn.
"Hopefully we can put things in place for the future where we won't have to depend on no-bid contracts for future use," Paulison said.
The FEMA chief was one of a bevy of Bush administration officials appearing before a half-dozen hearings to update Congress about the government's long- and short-term concerns in Katrina's aftermath. Housing assistance is a top priority as the administration grapples with finding homes for evacuated victims,
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, noted that hundreds of thousands of hurricane victims remain in hotel rooms and emergency shelters _ despite more than $2 billion already spent by FEMA for 120,000 temporary trailers and mobile homes. Only 109 Louisiana families have been put in those homes, while tens of thousands of state residents remain in shelters, she said.
"More than a month after Katrina's landfall, frustration, concerns and questions about FEMA's responsiveness and planning persist as Gulf Coast residents work to put their lives and communities back together," said Collins, who chaired the Senate hearing.
FEMA estimates that just over 68,200 refugees remain in shelters, down from a high of 300,000 after Katrina hit Aug. 29 and Hurricane Rita's Sept. 17 arrival.
Last month, FEMA launched a $2 billion program to pay three months of upfront rental costs for homeowners or renters whose residences were destroyed by Katrina. Eligible victims can receive $2,358 per family to rent anywhere in the country, and could continue to get assistance for up to 18 months as FEMA works with state and local authorities to rebuild the devastated communities.
So far, FEMA has spent $1.3 billion to help Katrina victims find homes, and 600,000 have registered for the rental program.
But victims still in shelters face an Oct. 15 deadline, set by President Bush, to find more stable housing _ including apartments, trailers and in some cases, hotels. Meanwhile, FEMA is weighing whether to extend a program that reimburses the American Red Cross for the cost of hotel rooms for victims.
That program is set to expire Oct. 24. The Red Cross has spent $112 million on hotel rooms for 464,560 people since Sept. 3, said spokeswoman Carrie Martin.
In another development, Treasury Secretary John Snow, describing the administration's plans to use tax incentives to rebuild the Gulf Coast economy, told senators the department opposes any proposal to have the credit of the federal government extended to state and local bonds.
"That would be a serious mistake," he said.
The leaders of the Senate Finance Committee told Snow to carry a message back to the White House that they're frustrated with the administration for fighting their effort to expand Medicaid health benefits for hurricane victims.
"Unfortunately, the White House is working against me behind the scenes, and I resent that considering how I've delivered for the White House so much over the last five years," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.
"It's six weeks now. Where is the administration?" asked Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, the panel's top Democrat. "It is slow-walking, it is opposing, it is obfuscating, it is delaying."
-------------------- Buy Low. Sell High. Posts: 10750 | From: The Land Of The Giants | Registered: Feb 2005
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is now in the beginning of its best chance for revenue growth since I've owned the stock{about 2 years}. I've averaged down from .19 to .037. Bought lots in the low 2's. Brehm talks a good game and as of yet, his results do not match his promises. Bio-remediation is the fastest growing segment of the environmental clean-up field. If we find an area, like Mexico, that sees we can clean up its oil problems, streams,etc. at greatly reduced prices then we have gotten over our first hurdle. A large problem and a country that is excited about the results. I also like the business plan. We provide the engineering and technology and they provide the labor to get the job done, while we supervise. The application for our bugs is endless.
I am not a day trader, and am not interested in a 10 or 20 cent increase in share price. I've noticed somebody was hoping for .25 so they could get out, I feel a .25 is just the beginning. Brehm said it may be possible to be profitable in a year. I am planning staying in at least 2 more years and see what BUGS looks like at that time. I probably will sell 50000 at .75 if we reach that amount to get my original investment back. The rest I will ride out until the end of '07. I definitely will not be selling at .10 or .15 or .20, I expect that soon.
2)(in regards to owning SSWM shares)I've always preferred
owning the parent instead of the child especially in these young companys. I know BUGS has been around forever, but I see now as the real beginning. I believe BUGS has 5 wholly-owned subsidiaries and 3 majority owned subs. As the company grows many of these subs will be profitable in their own right. I believe SSWM will be the most profitable, but doesn't 85% roll up to BUGS? I don't remember BUGS ownership percentage. BUGS share price growth may be slower than SSWM because at first BUGS will have expenses from the non-profitable subsidiaries. As the company grows, the subs grow and the income is rolled to the parent. I do not own any SSWM. Good Luck All!
-------------------- Buy Low. Sell High. Posts: 10750 | From: The Land Of The Giants | Registered: Feb 2005
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Thanks lmm98, I didn't write the original, but thought it was good enough to bring over here. It looks like a slow holding day today for us. Might see a little activity later this afternoon. If a contract PR comes out, we'll see a lot of activity.
-------------------- Buy Low. Sell High. Posts: 10750 | From: The Land Of The Giants | Registered: Feb 2005
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good morning I'm glad I got in yesterday It doesn't seem like it's going to drop much but if it does I'll fill the rest of my order. Posts: 598 | From: San Jose, CA USA | Registered: Nov 2003
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Well It looks like I was early yesterday should have had more patience I know better not to buy on a news day looks like its headed back to the .036 range I will try and refill somewhere around there hopefully we will see
Posts: 598 | From: San Jose, CA USA | Registered: Nov 2003
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By Katharine Mieszkowski and Mark Benjamin in Meraux, Louisiana
The United States Environmental Protection Agency is failing to protect the Gulf Coast's homebound citizens from Katrina's poisons.
REUTERS A woman removes crucifixes from the wall of a home in New Orleans destroyed by Katrina. "On behalf of Mayor C. Ray Nagin and the city of New Orleans, welcome home!" the mayor announced Sept. 25 in a public statement. "You are entering the city of New Orleans at your own risk. Standing water and soil may be seriously contaminated; avoid contact." Limit your exposure, the mayor continued, "to airborne mold and wear gloves, masks and other protective materials to protect yourself. You must supply your own protective equipment."
"I'll give you 10 bucks for your boots," says Donna Harney, a fourth-grade teacher, to a reporter wearing knee-high black waders. Harney is standing on the oil-caked driveway of her best friend's house on Jacob Drive in Meraux, just southeast of New Orleans. A headache-inducing stench fills the air. A faint waterline rings the house, just inches below the top of the front doors. A chocolate-brown line covers the bottom quarter of the house. That's the oil line.
It forms a bathtub ring around a row of 20 or so modest brick houses that stretch up and down the street. Most look salvageable from the outside, but that illusion is dispelled the moment you step inside. Behind every front door is a toxic junkyard, where the remains of each family's possessions, rearranged by floodwaters into garbled piles -- and infested by weeks of mold and rot -- are coated in a putrid mud, thick with crude.
"Oil is everywhere," says Harney with disgust. "It's encrusted on the vehicles. It's on the houses." It's also on Harney's blue-and-white sneakers. She says that every store within 100 miles is sold out of rubber boots. Driving to Meraux, Harney says, "I cried on my way in, I'm not ashamed to say."
An umbrella of environmental laws, including the Superfund law, gives the Environmental Protection Agency considerable authority -- and in some cases the responsibility -- to ensure messes get cleaned up right. And the mess in southern Louisiana, as EPA administrator Stephen L. Johnson himself admits, is "the largest natural disaster we've faced."
Salon.com This article has been provided by Salon.com as part of a special agreement with SPIEGEL INTERNATIONAL. In return, our colleagues in San Francisco will publish selected articles from Der Spiegel on their Web site at: www.salon.com But Louisiana environmentalists, who for decades have battled oil companies and government agencies to improve the human and natural health of their polluted state, say EPA's tests are insufficient and its health warnings inadequate. "They read like 'Hints From Heloise,'" says Rick Hind, legislative director of the Greenpeace Toxics Campaign. National critics stress that EPA failed to comprehend the pollution that arose after the fall of the Twin Towers on 9/11 and may be repeating the same mistakes in the Gulf Coast.
"That entire area has to be cleaned up before people move back in," says Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y. "You could have tens of thousands of people getting seriously ill."
To describe the EPA's response to Katrina, "the two adjectives I would use are 'understaffed' and 'overwhelmed,'" says Oliver Houck, who runs the environment program at the Tulane University Law School. In past years, Houck says, federal and state agencies have been "primordial" in their failure to monitor pollution released from industrial facilities along "Cancer Alley," the swath of the Mississippi River that winds from Baton Rouge to New Orleans, dotted with 136 petrochemical plants and six refineries, all belching dense airborne toxins.
The oil spill in Meraux spouted from Murphy Oil Corp. Located in the working-class St. Bernard Parish, it's bordered by a farm of giant white circular tanks, where oil is stored for processing. During Katrina, one of the tanks ruptured, dumping raw crude into floodwaters, sewers and swimming pools. Murphy Oil says the spill is between 10,000 and 20,000 barrels. The U.S. Coast Guard puts it at 19,500 barrels, or 800,000 gallons. Today the oil and mud have dried and formed a cracked black layer of frosting on lawns and driveways.
Katrina caused at least 40 oil spills from Gulf Coast refineries and storage tanks, dumping more than 8 million gallons of crude into southern Louisiana towns, wetlands and shorelines. The Murphy spill is not the biggest. That honor goes to the one in Plaquemines Parish, where 3.7 million gallons of crude leaked from tanks.
The Exxon Valdez polluted Alaska's Prince William Sound with 11 million gallons of oil. But mopping up crude in the variegated Louisiana landscape will be far more difficult than it was in Alaska, where the oil was confined to one place. To date, according to the Coast Guard, 70,000 barrels of oil have dispersed into marshes and evaporated, while 55,000 barrels remain to be cleaned up. The fate of 2,000 underground tanks of petroleum products remains unknown.
Oil is not the only toxin that saturates Louisiana and threatens the health of residents returning to New Orleans and adjacent parishes. The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality reports that muck covering the area is contaminated with human waste and bacteria, including E.coli, a fecal bacterium. It estimates that between 1,000 and 5,000 railroad cars have been damaged by Katrina, including some carrying chlorine or sulfuric acid. The EPA says water may be polluted by arsenic and lead from paint and the batteries of 350,000 submerged cars. Shattered homes and businesses are contaminated with asbestos and mold.
Currently, with the EPA at the helm, state and local crews are trolling Louisiana's streets and waterways in trucks and boats, conducting water, soil and air tests. The EPA is posting the results on its Web site, accompanied by guidelines for returning citizens. It advises them to wear gloves, goggles and respiratory protection. It tells them to open windows to avoid explosive gases and possible carbon monoxide poisoning. Remove and discard wet material that may have mold or bacteria, it says, and avoid mixing household cleaners that can produce toxic fumes.
But environmentalists and EPA staffers say that environmental agencies are not conducting adequate and comprehensive tests, meaning that people are returning to the Gulf Coast without sufficient information about health hazards. Ultimately, the decision to allow people to return to the Gulf Coast resides with state and local authorities like Mayor Nagin. On its Web site, the EPA defines its role as merely helping decision makers make an informed decision. EPA deputy administrator Marcus Peacock told a House panel Sept. 29 that the EPA was responsible for "preventing, minimizing or mitigating threats to public health, welfare, or the environment."
But critics say the agency should be more active in preventing people from returning to the Gulf Coast. "The EPA has not done a thorough assessment of the contamination of [St. Bernard] parish or any other parishes that have been contaminated," says Hugh Kaufman, an EPA senior policy analyst at the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response. On Sept. 12, EPA Science Advisory Board member Richard Gilbert stated that the EPA's current plan of sampling 24 affected areas was "very limited in scope" and didn't address the full spectrum of contamination throughout the area. "I expect that questions will be asked about whether the data are applicable to non-sampled flooded parts of Louisiana that are close to chemical plants or other potential sources of pollution," he said.
Appearing Sept. 29 before a House subcommittee on the environment, Erik D. Olson, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said it was the EPA's moral and legal obligation to warn and protect the nation's citizens. Yet based on NRDC's research in the Gulf Coast, he said, he was concerned that EPA was both delaying its test results and doing a poor job of communicating the results to people who didn't have Internet access. "Unfortunately, EPA apparently has decided to 'punt' to local authorities the responsibility to protect citizens' health in the wake of the massive Katrina-related oil and hazardous chemical releases," he said.
Long-term risks from the pollutants now being found in and around New Orleans include cancer, birth defects, spontaneous abortions and asthma. The EPA has also underplayed the threat of mold. Health experts say trillions of mold spores, exacerbated by the late summer heat, could sicken a large population of children, people with asthma, older residents, and people with weakened immune systems, the New York Times reports.
Houck says some illnesses might not show up for years or may never be identified by health authorities. Katrina wiped out many impoverished communities in southern Louisiana, and often indigent people cannot afford to go to doctors. "They are going to get sick and they are not going to know why," Houck says.
Despite the destruction and health dangers, the EPA has not taken measures to prevent people from returning to southern Louisiana. And Nagin seems intent on bringing people back fast. "There is a huge tension between redevelopment as soon as possible and cleanup as well as possible," Houck says. Jean Kelly, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, says the agency would like to proceed with more caution, but allowing people to return to their homes "is not really our decision. We can advise the mayor, but it is his decision whether or not he wants to bring people back in. That is not something we have control over."
The EPA is sending mixed messages. It recently issued a press release stating that levels of benzene, a known carcinogen, are "slightly elevated" around Murphy's Oil USA. But the actual test results, buried in fine print, reveal that benzene levels are 45 times higher than the state standard. Some of the EPA data has confused Nagin himself. At a Sept. 19 press conference, Nagin said an EPA report to him on the danger of returning to some neighborhoods was confusing. "We also looked at the [EPA] report as it relates to flooded areas," Nagin said. "And it was a very clever attorney who wrote the report. So it basically bounced on both sides of the issue and didn't really tell you much."
While the mayor may be prematurely opening the gates to New Orleans to get business humming again, people are driving past the grime and gunk -- and health warnings -- for the simple reason that they want to see their homes again and save what they can. "In America, your home is your castle, and now it's a contaminated castle," says Darryl Malek-Wiley, Louisiana environmental justice organizer for the Sierra Club. "People deal with that in all sorts of different ways. Some go into denial." And some, like Harney, who uses roofing tiles that have flown off her friend's house as steppingstones across the sludge on the driveway, go into shock.
Harney looks disgusted as she steps through the front door. The duplex is rented by Edie Labarriere, a single mother and Harney's best friend, who lived here with her two sons, ages 12 and 9, before Katrina. Since the hurricane, the family has been living with Harney at her house in Harahan, La. Just now, the Labarrieres are on their way here to salvage what's left of their things.
From the outside, the duplex doesn't look too bad. A yellow X is spraypainted on each of the two front windows, indicating that it's been checked out by search-and-rescue. The number 0 on both X's indicate that no one's been found, dead or alive.
Inside, three wooden kitchen chairs are lodged at crazy angles. They are stuck in a tar pit of thick, black, rancid goo, which is peppered with random household items: a clothes hanger, stray pieces of paper, and what was once a maroon raincoat. There's nowhere to step that isn't black mire, which holds everything within its oily grasp.
In the backyard, the children's bikes sit encrusted in filth. "I guess we won't have to take their bicycles home," she sighs. A hammock, ripped from its tree, lies plastered to the backyard fence, which now leans into the neighbor's yard. Near the back door, the muck on the ground grows smoky gray, then a sickly green. "Ewww," she says. "I gotta go in there, people. God, this stuff stinks. Am I a good friend or am I a good friend?"
Soon after Katrina, St. Bernard Parish president Henry Rodriguez dubbed the area "another Love Canal." A few weeks later, says parish spokesman Steve Cannizaro, Rodriguez consulted with the EPA, "and they told us the area was not toxic, and we decided everyone has a right to see their home, and so we let them back in."
Many citizens and activists in St. Bernard Parish, also home to a ExxonMobil refinery, wanted to return home but didn't trust the EPA. In late September, 180 residents of the parish met at a Holiday Inn in Baton Rouge, seeking information about pollution in their neighborhood. Everyone was full of questions: "What is EPA doing?" "How big was the spill?" "What is Murphy going to do?" In fact, St. Bernard residents are so suspicious of the local oil companies that over a year ago they persuaded the parish to hire an independent environmental engineer.
But today, says Kenneth Ford, president of St. Bernard Citizens for Environmental Quality, the engineer is nowhere to be found. "We're disappointed," says Ford. "Without his scientific proof that the parish is not contaminated, no one should be allowed in right now."
Cannizaro replies that the parish is comfortable with the EPA's advice to allow people to return. What's more, he says, the parish of 68,000 residents "is one step away from being financially destroyed; businesses are flat on their ass." People need to return and start buying and building again. "You can't operate a government without taxes," he says.
Canvassing the parish in late September is a four-man crew from Greenpeace. They have spent weeks living in a Cruise America R.V. with an aluminum boat strapped on top, documenting the environmental destruction on the Gulf Coast. They have taped the letters "TV" on the windshield of their Jeep to make passing military and police security checkpoints easier. In weeks of surveying the damage from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Greenpeace guys attest that they've seen some hideous sights, like an offshore oil rig in the Gulf that's been ripped from its moorings and turned upside down, leaving a five-mile-long oil slick in its wake.
John Hocevar, a marine biologist for Greenpeace, says that 40 percent of the coastal wetlands in Mississippi have been so damaged they're no longer able to perform their ecological function as a natural water filter and habitat to birds and wildlife. In Port Arthur, Texas, they saw a refinery so damaged by Hurricane Rita that two of its storage tanks had imploded. But the neighborhood surrounding Murphy Oil is by far the worst that they've encountered.
"This community could have rebuilt but Murphy Oil killed it," says Mark Floegel, a toxics campaigner for Greenpeace. "It would have been bad. But the oil spill makes it so much worse."
Currently, the company is working with the Coast Guard and the EPA to mop up the spill. Dump trucks, steam shovels and hydraulic pumps scoop up contaminated soil around the tank and pump the oil into tankers. The workmen are dressed in heavy boots and yellow hazard pants. One tells the Greenpeace crew flatly: "Nobody here is going to answer any of your questions."
The Murphy spill was such a direct hit to the neighborhood that the company is already facing two class-action lawsuits brought by lawyers on behalf of St. Bernard residents. Another suit is being brought by the owners of the Paris Palms Shopping Center in Chalmette for the damages it suffered. In response, Murphy has announced that it will give $5 million to hurricane relief to the area through the United Way, the local school system and the parish itself.
The oil spill is clearly the final indignity after a brutal storm. But environmentalists fear that the real story isn't getting out.
"So far, from what we've seen, we don't really have any reason to believe that what we're being told is really the whole story," says Hocevar. "If you don't look, there's nothing to see," he continues. "We have an administration that has been cutting back on the EPA investigative enforcement." According to a 2004 report by the Environmental Integrity Project, the number of civil lawsuits filed by the federal government under the Bush administration dropped 75 percent from the number in the last three years of the Clinton reign. Eric Schaeffer, the former head of the EPA enforcement office, who oversaw the project, told the Los Angeles Times, "If you're a big energy company, you're basically on holiday from enforcement."
Greenpeace isn't conducting independent testing of the air or groundwater, but other groups are. Under normal circumstances, a small nonprofit, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, distributes air-sampling kits to residents who live near refineries and petrochemical plants so that they can independently monitor what's being spewed into the air around them. But post-Katrina, the group sent a professional sampling team from Dynamac Corp. into St. Bernard Parish to take 10 soil samples. The results are due soon. NRDC also plans to work with local environmental groups to conduct a battery of independent tests.
Senate Republicans, led by Environment and Public Works Committee chairman James Inhofe -- who has declared that global warming is a hoax -- have introduced a bill that would allow EPA to waive clean water and air laws during the cleanup. The EPA itself is drafting a plan that would allow the agency to waive state regulations on smog emissions or pollutants pouring out of coal plants. In response, Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said: "It's bad enough that big polluters want to exploit the tragedy to pollute more, but it's even worse that Washington Republicans want to help them do it."
A draft for the EPA plan states that for the agency to act there must be "an Act of God or another event that could not have reasonably been foreseen or prevented." "They call it an act of God," says Malek-Wiley of Louisiana's Sierra Club. "But I was just in St. Bernard Parish and it was heartbreaking to see that people's lives are now coated with a film of oil from Murphy. God didn't put the oil tanks in those people's backyards."
At a Sept. 14 press conference, EPA administrator Johnson defensively stated, "Everyone is looking to EPA for what are the results and are these done in a scientifically appropriate and sound way? We're doing that. We're not trying to be bureaucratic. We want to make sure the results are ones that we can all stand by."
Critics say they don't believe the EPA is trying to cover up the widespread destruction and health hazards in southern Louisiana. But they have little faith in the federal agency's ability to assess the grievous problems and be forthright with the public. As we know, it's not first time the EPA has faced this issue.
The collapse of the Twin Towers four years ago blanketed lower Manhattan in a dust of asbestos, lead, glass fibers and concrete. Within days, then-EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman was assuring New Yorkers that the air was safe and encouraged them to go back to work at Wall Street. "I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C., that their air is safe to breathe," Whitman said in an EPA press release a week after the towers fell.
But an EPA inspector general's report in August 2003 concluded that Whitman did not have sufficient data to support her calming tone. The report says the White House "convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones" about the environment at Ground Zero. Critics have long speculated that the White House wanted to get New York's financial motor, Wall Street, up and running again -- pollution be damned.
To date, nobody knows what the environmental impact has been on the thousands of people, including pregnant women, who lived and worked near Ground Zero. A study by the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York showed that nearly 80 percent of 9,000 first responders may have suffered some lung ailments and half still had those problems a year after the attacks. Several studies are under way on the possible long-term effects on pregnant women and infants living near Ground Zero.
Twelve Manhattan residents sued EPA last year alleging that the agency may have endangered the health of tens of thousands of workers and residents in lower Manhattan. That case is pending.
Pressure to open New Orleans, says Kaufman of EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, is as intense today as it was on Wall Street soon after Sept. 11. "The appearance of 'back-to-normal' gets local industry going, then real estate, and so on," he says. "It's the same issue today, except that the locations and contaminants are different, and people talk with a different accent."
A week after the attacks in New York, the EPA instructed citizens to use a wet rag or wet mop to clean their apartments, though in some cases the dust may have been contaminated by asbestos. On Sept. 14, 2005, the EPA instructed citizens returning to New Orleans to "wear gloves, goggles" and use "respiratory protection" when handling material that may contain asbestos, a known carcinogen.
The two messages are "eerily similar," New York Democrat Rep. Nadler wrote in a letter to President Bush on Sept. 21. "I am deeply concerned that many of the same mistakes made by EPA in response to 9/11 are being repeated on the Gulf Coast."
"This is a potential catastrophe," Nadler says today. "We don't want two catastrophes. We had maybe a thousand killed from the hurricane. You want another thousand killed because of the environment? Maybe five thousand?" Nadler wants to see the EPA conduct a more thorough environmental assessment of the city, rather than just through its spot samples. He also wants EPA to ensure that private companies are held liable for contamination.
That wish, according to environmentalists, shows few signs of coming true. Both the EPA and the Louisiana DEQ have signaled that they will rely on regulated industries to police themselves and tell the government if there has been some major spill. The EPA administrator during the Clinton administration, Carol M. Browner, once announced an initiative to crack down on illegal pollution along the Mississippi River because some companies could not be trusted. Browner at the time said there was an "unprecedented amount of illegal pollution in the Mississippi River drainage." Asked at the Sept. 14 press conference about leaks or damage from companies that line the drainage, or Cancer Alley -- Johnson said he was "not aware" of any problems. "The companies are going to do their own assessments, so we're all working very cooperatively to try to do an assessment."
Today, more than a month after Katrina's wrath, taking inventory of the wholesale environmental destruction remains premature -- for both the EPA and the activists. "We are still in the assessment stage in a lot of this," says Kelly of the Louisiana DEQ. "The problem is so monumental that nobody has dealt with anything like this before."
As she steps gingerly through the muck in the Labarrieres' backyard, Harney is cheered when she finds a crocheted picture that spells "Labarriere." The hanging is a gift she'd bought for the family and promised Edie's 9-year-old, Andrew, she'd try to recover. She carefully extracts the cream-colored crochet from its glass frame, thinks about trying to salvage the smudged pane, and decides against it. She folds up the crochet carefully and puts it in her pocket. Taking a long, panoramic look at the surrounding debris, her cheer vanishes. "You can't live in this place," she says. "You can't live down here."
Posts: 10729 | From: oregon | Registered: Feb 2005
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Microbial Genomics and Ecology research in the Environmental Sciences Division, of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) focuses on a diverse set of research areas including bioremediation. Information on these activities can be accessed from the Environmental Sciences Division home page and below.
Statement of Purpose Microbial Genomics and Ecology research in the Environmental Sciences Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory focuses on microbial ecology and genomics of environmental organisms. The research is concerned with the basic science underlying bioremediation efforts, carbon cycling and sequestration, as well as other uses of biotechnology. The research couples molecular biology, DNA technology, genomics, and bioreporter techniques with traditional microbiological methods to investigate microbial communities and the processes by which microorganisms transform materials and energy. The goal of these investigations is to increase the understanding of microbial ecology, nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration, and microbial degradation of hazardous contaminants; to demonstrate application of innovative microbial techniques and bioremediation approaches in solving the U. S. Department of Energy's (DOE) and the nation's sediment, soil, surface water, and ground water contamination problems; and to transfer new technology to industry. Much of the funding for the group is provided by the DOE Office of Biological and Environmental Research (OBER), and by the DOE Office of Fossil Energy.
Research Directions: Evaluate the effectiveness of and factors controlling carbon seqeustration in terrestrial and aquatic systems Develop and apply molecular biological techniques, including microarrays, bioluminescence or fluorescence based bioreporters, DNA probes in environmental microbiology, and analysis of 16s rRNA, as tools for monitoring microbial processes in basic ecology, carbon sequestration, applied remediation, and identification of bacteria and their activities.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anthony V. Palumbo, Environmental Sciences Division, P. O. Box 2008, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831-6038 Phone: (865)576-8002, Fax: (865)576-8646, E-mail: palumboav*ornl.gov
Warnings and disclaimer Revised May 23, 2005
Posts: 10729 | From: oregon | Registered: Feb 2005
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$1/share: Did you know that BUGS was shipping product to the East Coast for dairy applications? And how about that rocket fuel cleanup contract in Southern California? It's getting mighty close! And how about 'several' Mexican contracts with some extremely nice numbers involved? And that is just the beginning. BUGS will be working in Mexico for many years to come. And don't forget the rest of Central and South America. Did you see the new website in English, Spanish, and Portuguese
------------------------------------------------- The above is from another board. Things are starting to heat up again..
I know I read like a pumper, but hey, I am really getting excited about making some serious dough on this stock!
Posts: 10729 | From: oregon | Registered: Feb 2005
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Ion exchange filters water A resin removes a rocket fuel component that has been making its way into Lake Mead. By Keith Rogers Review-Journal
In tanks filled with material that looks like fish eggs, Kerr-McGee Chemical Corp. is cleaning up one of Southern Nevada's most serious water-pollution problems -- decades worth of contamination from perchlorate used to propel American rockets and missiles. Since November, at a spot downstream of the Black Mountain Industrial Center near Henderson, the company has been diverting a stream where the highly soluble rocket-fuel ingredient has seeped. Pipes channel the tainted water to a pair of tanks holding the blond, caviarlike resin that absorbs the pollutant, trading its negative ions for those in the resin. What's left is harmless chloride and clean water, which is returned to the stream. Once the resin has absorbed all the perchlorate it can handle, it is sucked from the tank by a vacuum machine, packaged and hauled to an incinerator in Nebraska for destruction. In all, 40 tons of perchlorate has been collected in this expensive ion-exchange process. That's 40 tons that otherwise would have wound up in Las Vegas Wash and ultimately Lake Mead, which supplies drinking water to millions of people in the Southwest. The discovery of perchlorate in the lake in 1997 at levels around 10 parts per billion prompted Nevada environmental officials to search for the source at Kerr-McGee and the Pacific Engineering & Production Company of Nevada, where the compound was produced. The Pacific Engineering plant, known as PEPCON, was destroyed by a series of explosions in 1988. Two years ago, after sampling groundwater around the Kerr-McGee facility, company officials decided to construct an 11-acre, plastic-lined, evaporation pond to hold perchlorate-tainted water until an effective treatment process could be developed. "It wasn't too long after that it was discovered we had a seep going into Las Vegas Wash," said Pat Corbett, Kerr-McGee's director of environmental affairs and remediation. "We've in essence cut it off at the source and treated the surface water," he said. "Now we're working on a technology, a biological process, using bacteria to consume perchlorate." If the company decides to proceed with the biological process, water from the current treatment site would be pumped to near the holding pond, where the water would be contained and treated with bacteria. After treatment, the clean water would be returned downstream. The bio-remediation method promises to be more efficient. The microscopic "bugs," Corbett said, "don't absorb the perchlorate. They consume it. They break it down." Because the biomass that's left after the bacteria die is nontoxic, it can be disposed at a cheaper cost than spent resin, which requires incineration. The Environmental Protection Agency hasn't set a cleanup standard yet for perchlorate, a chemical that in high concentrations can affect human thyroid glands. Kerr-McGee officials believe a standard will be set based on ongoing studies. Until then, Corbett said, "We're essentially getting all the perchlorate out." Kerr-McGee officials decided to impound perchlorate in the 11-acre pond because the water already was being diverted for cleanup of another chemical toxin, chromium-6. Chromium-6 had been left at the site by Western Electrochemical, a forerunner of Kerr-McGee that used chromium for a chemical production process in the 1940s. In the mid-1980s, Kerr-McGee installed a system to capture and treat groundwater containing chromium-6. Then, after perchlorate contamination was discovered, the company began holding the perchlorate-tainted water for evaporation after chromium-6 had been extracted from it. Corbett said Kerr-McGee is on the cutting edge of perchlorate cleanup technology that could be used elsewhere in the country. "This is a new and emerging issue," he said, noting that some type of cleanup process at the site "is going to be a fixture for a number of years."
-------------------- Buy Low. Sell High. Posts: 10750 | From: The Land Of The Giants | Registered: Feb 2005
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Glad thet you were able to get your e-mail address approved mastermind. I am running the InvestorsHub BUGS board as well. I just took it over a few weeks ago, and changed it around completely. It's much nicer to look at now.
-------------------- Buy Low. Sell High. Posts: 10750 | From: The Land Of The Giants | Registered: Feb 2005
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Energy Department awards $92 million WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Department of Energy today announced research awards totaling $92 million for six projects to better understand microbes and microbial communities. The microbial world and biotechnology promise solutions to major Energy Department challenges in: energy, including the production of ethanol and hydrogen; cleanup of pollution at former nuclear weapons production sites; and minimizing global warming by controlling the cycling of atmospheric carbon dioxide. "Unique microbial biochemistries amassed over eons in every niche on the planet now offer a virtually limitless resource that can be applied to develop biology-based solutions to these challenges," said Dr. Raymond L. Orbach, Director of DOE's Office of Science.
The six projects involve 75 senior scientists at 21 institutions: four DOE national laboratories, 15 universities or research institutes, one federal laboratory and one private company.
The grants are part of the Office of Science's Genomics: GTL research program. "The GTL program's goal is to understand microbes so well that their diverse capabilities can be harnessed for DOE and other national energy and environmental needs," Orbach said.
DOE investments in genomics research over the past 20 years now help allow scientists rapidly decode and interpret the complete DNA sequence of any organism. Because genomics reveals the blueprint for life, it is the starting point to understand biological functions as well as a link between biological research and the development of biotechnology solutions. With genomics data as a starting point, the GTL program uses a "systems biology" approach to transform the way scientists conduct biological investigations and describe living systems.
In systems biology, researchers study the interaction and relationship between various parts of a biological system ¡V for example, a cell or an organism -- in order to develop a model of the whole system. A key GTL research challenge is to understand how microbes and communities of microbes carry out their diverse and useful functions. Researchers need to understand living microbial systems, not just DNA sequences or proteins or cell by-products. Thus, GTL program researchers are studying critical microbial properties and processes on three systems levels ¡V molecular, cellular and community.
Over the next five years, the six new research projects will:
help scientists understand how microbial communities function in their natural habitats and respond to changes in their environments. This information is essential to be able to take advantage of the diverse capabilities of microbes and microbial communities;
develop new approaches to identify and characterize the proteins being produced within a complex microbial community;
develop new strategies to look inside microbes at the molecular machines they use to carry out their functions, to isolate those machines and to understand their functions. These capabilities are needed to be able to use or modify microbial molecular machines to address DOE energy and environmental mission needs; and
develop new computational tools to allow scientists to better find, organize and use the complex and rapidly growing types and amounts of information generated in the GTL program.
The six projects, their funding, lead institutions, lead investigators and collaborating institutions are:
Genome-Based Models to Optimize In Situ Bioremediation of Uranium and Harvesting Electrical Energy from Waste Organic Matter ($21.8 million over five years). University of Massachussetts, Amherst. Derek Lovley, Principal Investigator. Collaborating institutions: The Institute for Genomic Research, Rockville, Md.; University of Tennessee, Memphis, Tenn.; University of Indiana, Bloomington, Ind.; University of California at San Diego; Genomatica, San Diego, Calif.; Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Ill.
Proteogenomic Approaches for the Molecular Characterization of Natural Microbial Communities ($10.5 million over five years). University of California, Berkeley. Jillian Banfield, Principal Investigator. Collaborating institutions: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tenn.; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, Calif.; U.S. Geological Survey, Boulder, Colo.
Dynamic Spatial Organization of Multi-Protein Complexes Controlling Microbial Polar Organization, Chromosome Replication, and Cytokinesis ($17.9 million over five years). Stanford University. Harley McAdams, Principal Investigator. Collaborating institutions: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio; Princeton University, Princeton, N.J.; University of California at San Diego; University of California at San Francisco; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA.
High Throughput Identification and Structural Characterization of Multi-Protein Complexes During Stress Response in Desulfovibrio vulgaris. ($25.8 million over five years). Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Mark Biggin, Principal Investigator. Collaborating institutions: University of California at Berkeley; University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo.; University of California at San Francisco.
Molecular Assemblies, Genes, and Genomics Integrated Efficiently ($12.9 million over five years). Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. John Tainer, Principal Investigator. Collaborating institutions: The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, Calif.; University of California at Berkeley; The Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, Wash.; University of Georgia, Athens, Ga.; The Burnham Institute, La Jolla, Calif.
An Integrated Knowledge Resource for the Shewanella Federation ($3 million over three years). Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Edward Uberbacher, Principal Investigator.
-------------------- I'm a genius at 16. Believe it. Posts: 224 | From: NJ | Registered: Oct 2005
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Dang there taking it down that's what I get for not being patient. well hopefully I can pick up more shares looks like a wallat .035 at least
Posts: 598 | From: San Jose, CA USA | Registered: Nov 2003
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California Orange Grower Using BUGS to Increase Crop Yield
By BusinessWire Last Update: 10/10/2005 11:14:01 AM Data provided by
CARLSBAD, Calif., Oct 10, 2005 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- U.S. Microbics, Inc. (BUGS), announced today that Bio-Con Microbes, Inc., a majority owned subsidiary specializing in agricultural products and services, has supplied Bi-Agra(TM), a proprietary blend of natural microbes, to a California orange grower to increase crop yield on low yielding areas. Preliminary projections suggest that the microbe treated area will out-produce other similar areas by ten percent or more and validate the product's use for much larger areas. These results are typical of past performances of the product on strawberries, tomatoes, sugar cane and other food products produced in the U.S. and Mexico.
Robert Brehm, CEO, shared his enthusiasm for the product by saying, "The Bi-Agra(TM) product line has shown extraordinary results over the past twenty years they have been used in the U.S. and Mexico. Many products such as strawberries, squash, tomatoes, and sugar cane have already shown dramatic yield improvements in both quantity and weight per acre and hectare with a reduction in water and fertilizer requirements. These improvements not only yield lower cost production for the grower, but safer, more natural fruit and vegetables for the consumer because of the reduction in chemical fertilizers needed."
Brehm added, "Our corporate strategy for the microbial technology is to use Sub-Surface Waste Management (SSWM), to clean up the soil and groundwater in developing nations which export food products to the U.S. and then have the growers use our Bi-Agra(TM) products to grow these products, better, faster, cheaper and safer for the consumers of the world. As SSWM gains traction in Mexico environmental clean-up projects and we start to commercially roll-out our Bio-Con products and services, BUGS' strategic plan for cleaning up the world's messes and feeding the masses will start to become a reality for our loyal shareholders and management team."
About U.S. Microbics Inc.
U.S. Microbics is a business development and holding company that acquires, develops and deploys innovative environmental technologies for soil, groundwater and carbon remediation, air pollution reduction, modular drinking water systems, and agriculture enhancement. For more information on the company or its Strategic Partner Program, contact Robert Brehm at 760-918-1860 x102 or visit the website at http://www.bugsatwork.com.
SOURCE: U.S. Microbics, Inc.
Posts: 10729 | From: oregon | Registered: Feb 2005
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Dang why couldn't they wait till tommorrow my order wasn't full picked up another 44898 ha what a number but i'll take em anyway I can getem at .036
Posts: 598 | From: San Jose, CA USA | Registered: Nov 2003
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Some interesting trading going on right now last trade 3000 at .041 what the heck is that about Posts: 598 | From: San Jose, CA USA | Registered: Nov 2003
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Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.......Those gaps on the ask are trying to tell us something...
Posts: 10729 | From: oregon | Registered: Feb 2005
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I sure hope so. I was wondering where you were yesterday I think peaserman was on vacation too.
Posts: 598 | From: San Jose, CA USA | Registered: Nov 2003
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