Restoration and compensation determination plan / environmental assessment for the Macalloy Corporation Site, Charleston,South Carolina

Under regulation guiding the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, Federal and state natural resource agencies are designated to act as Trustees for the public. The Trustees are responsible for recovering damages for injury to natural resources caused by a release of hazardous substances.This Draft RCDP/EA is to provide the public with information on the natural resources injuries and service losses associated with the Macalloy Corporation Site; the restoration objectives that have guided the Trustees in developing this plan; the restoration alternatives that have been considered; the process used by the Trustees to identify preferred restoration alternatives; and the rationale for their selection

Assessment of management to mitigate anthropogenic effects on large whales

Author Posting. © Society for Conservation Biology, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of John Wiley & Sons for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Conservation Biology 27 (2013): 121-133, doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2012.01934.x.United States and Canadian governments have responded to legal requirements to reduce human-induced whale mortality via vessel strikes and entanglement in fishing gear by implementing a suite of regulatory actions. We analyzed the spatial and temporal patterns of mortality of large whales in the Northwest Atlantic (23.5°N to 48.0°N), 1970 through 2009, in the context of management changes. We used a multinomial logistic model fitted by maximum likelihood to detect trends in cause-specific mortalities with time. We compared the number of human-caused mortalities with U.S. federally established levels of potential biological removal (i.e., species-specific sustainable human-caused mortality). From 1970 through 2009, 1762 mortalities (all known) and serious injuries (likely fatal) involved 8 species of large whales. We determined cause of death for 43% of all mortalities; of those, 67% (502) resulted from human interactions. Entanglement in fishing gear was the primary cause of death across all species (n= 323), followed by natural causes (n= 248) and vessel strikes (n= 171). Established sustainable levels of mortality were consistently exceeded in 2 species by up to 650%. Probabilities of entanglement and vessel-strike mortality increased significantly from 1990 through 2009. There was no significant change in the local intensity of all or vessel-strike mortalities before and after 2003, the year after which numerous mitigation efforts were enacted. So far, regulatory efforts have not reduced the lethal effects of human activities to large whales on a population-range basis, although we do not exclude the possibility of success of targeted measures for specific local habitats that were not within the resolution of our analyses. It is unclear how shortfalls in management design or compliance relate to our findings. Analyses such as the one we conducted are crucial in critically evaluating wildlife-management decisions. The results of these analyses can provide managers with direction for modifying regulated measures and can be applied globally to mortality-driven conservation issues.We thank S. and H. Simmons for funding for this project

Dataset NCEP-NAM-CONUS_20km-noaaport

NCEP North American Model : AWIPS 215(U) grid over the continental United States - Quadruple Resolution. Horizontal = 369 by 257 points, resolution 20.31 km, LambertConformal projection. Educational levels: Graduate or professional

Dataset NCEP-NAM-Alaska_45km-conduit

NCEP North American Model : AWIPS 216 (V) grid over Alaska. Model runs are made at 00Z, 06Z, 12Z, and 18Z with analysis and forecasts every 3 hours out to 84 hours (3.5 days). Horizontal = 139 by 107 points, resolution 45.0 km, Polar Stereographic projection. Vertical = 1000 to 50 hPa pressure levels. Educational levels: Graduate or professional

Dataset NCEP-NAM-CONUS_20km-selectsurface

NCEP North American Model : AWIPS 215(U) grid over the continental United States - Quadruple Resolution. Horizontal = 369 by 257 points, resolution 20.31 km, LambertConformal projection. Educational levels: Graduate or professional

Dataset NCEP-DGEX-CONUS_12km

NCEP Model output Grid 185 (C) horizontal = 491 by 303 points, resolution 12 km, LambertConformal projection. Model runs are made at 6 and 18Z, with forecasts starting at 84 hours, every 6 hours out to 192 hours Educational levels: Graduate or professional