AUEI annouced winners for Environmental Sciences scholarship program

The Auburn University Environmental Institute is pleased to announce six winners for its annual Excellence in Environmental Sciences scholarship program. The scholarships were selected by the Institute’s Scholarship Selection Committee, whose members include representation from AU staff and faculty. Scholarships were awarded based on academic excellence, relevance of applicant’s coursework to the mission of the Institute (see www.auei.auburn.edu), extracurricular environmental activities, and environmental career interests.

Amber Dunn was awarded Guy V. Bullock Excellence in Environmental Sciences Scholarship.
Anne-Marie Hodge, Sarah Hamilton, Natalie Glynn, Julie Young, and Brittany Way were awarded Emory O. and Jeanne L. Cunningham Excellence in Environmental Sciences Scholarship.

AWRRI Awards FY 2008 AL Water Resources Grants

Alabama Water Resources Research Institute recently announced the award of four FY-2008 AL Water Resources Grants. The object of this program is to facilitate research faculty in the state in making significant advances, and increasing regional and national competitiveness, in the water resources arena. For the purpose of this competition, “water resources arena” is defined in the broadest possible terms. Proposals are invited from all permanent full time tenured, tenure-track and non-tenured faculty from any university or college in Alabama.

The FY-2008 grants were awarded to the following faculties:

• William Deutsch, “On-Farm and Watershed Approaches to Community-Based nutrient and Pathogen Management”, Department of Fisheries and Allied Aquacultures (FAA), Alabama Cooperative Extension System, Auburn University.


• Geoffrey R. Tick, “Groundwater-Surface Water Contributions of Nitrate Contamination and Discharge to Coastal Surface Waters, Baldwin County, Alabama”, Department of Geological Sciences, The University of Alabama.


• Mark Dougherty, “Evaluating Bioretention Contaminant Uptake and Removal in an Experimental Rain Garden Study”, Department of Biosystems Engineering, Auburn University.


• Luke J. Marzen, “Estimating Regional and Local Scale Surface Moisture as an Indicator of Drought and Crop Yield Using Thermal IR Remote Sensing”, Geology and Geography, Auburn University.

Details are available at http://awrri.auburn.edu/grants08.php

2008 Alabama Water Resources Conference

The 22nd Annual Alabama Water Resources Conference will be held Thursday & Friday, Sept. 4-5, 2008, at the Perdido Beach Resort Hotel and Convention Center in Orange Beach, Alabama. The conference as well as the Alabama Section of the American Water Resources Association Symposium on Wednesday, Sept. 3, will provide an excellent forum for stimulating discussion regarding the many multi-disciplinary aspects of current and future water use, management, and conservation issues. Please visit http://auei.auburn.edu/conference/ for details.

“Conserving America’s Wetlands” 2008 Report Available

On Earth Day 2004 the Council on Environmental Quality established a national wetland initiative which included: restoring or creating at least one million wetland acres, improving or enhancing at least one million wetland acres, and protecting at least one million wetland acres. All of these goals were set to be accomplished by Earth Day 2009; however, on Earth Day 2008 the council reported each goal had already been surpassed with approximately 1,197,000 acres restored or created, 1,079,000 acres improved, and 1,324,000 acres protected.

>>Details

Final Rule on Water Transfers

EPA is publishing a final rule that clarifies water transfers are excluded from regulation under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting program. The rule defines a water transfer as an activity that conveys or connects waters of the United States without subjecting the transferred water to intervening industrial, municipal, or commercial use. This exclusion does not apply to pollutants introduced by the water transfer activity itself to the water being transferred.

>>Details

Call for Papers: Applications of Material Flow Analysis

EPA’s National Center for Environmental Research (NCER) is cosponsoring a special issue of the Journal of Industrial Ecology on Applications of Material Flow Analysis (MFA).

Material flow analysis (MFA), the tracking and analysis of materials through the environment and the economy, is divided into two categories: economy-wide MFA (EW-MFA) and substance flow analysis (SFA). EW-MFA quantifies the flow of all materials in and out of a geographic area over time and SFA traces the flow of selected chemicals or goods. MFA may provide a valuable addition to the toolkit available to environmental analysts. This special issue will relay examples of environmental analysis where MFA has been used and will assess its potential impact on environmental decision making.

We encourage you to submit papers describing how MFA, (including EW-MFA and SFA), have successfully been used to inform environmental decision-makers at a policy or business level.

More information is available at: http://www.yale.edu/jie/cfpAMFA.htm

For additional information about EPA’s role in this call for papers please contact: Diana Bauer at bauer.diana@epa.gov or 202-343-9759.