La Paz Loses Yakima Case

Little La Paz County, AZ, has failed at great cost in putting biosolids drier Yakima Company out of business. Jim Willett, owner, told me years ago about the bizarre goings on that precipitated his 2004 claim for damages of $20M, the amount he would lose over a 25 year period as a result of the County terminating its contract. The contract was for providing space for the drying operation, and to secure additional space for future expansion in exchange for a $/ton fee. The contract encouraged volume and, in hopes of generating County revenues as quickly as possible, the County allowed Jim to start operations on condition of working up a closure plan and bonding for the closure costs. Then something went sour, and the county stalled beyond reason their acceptance of first the plan and then the bonding. When they did accept, they didn't inform Jim.

It was a pretty simple business model: truck the solids in from LA, lay it out thin and dry it in the wind and sun, windrow it to finesse stabilization, pick it up and truck the now Class A fertilizer-esque material a few miles back to California to needy farmers. With the right combo of clients, farmers, and truckers, it was clean, simple, satisfying, and profitable in what can be a complex, and low margin business.

Last week a La Paz County jury awarded Jim $9.2M plus legal expenses. Jim regrets the process and takes no joy in the results. It is not the life, and not the legacy, that he wanted.

The local rag has posted several articles on the trial (1, 2, 3). The newspaper, which gamely supports comments on articles, was unprepared for the outpouring of vigorous support for the jurors courageous decision, and the level of outrage directed towards the County Board of Supervisors for their mismanagement of political power. The paper clearly slants its writing in support of the BoS, adding to the intensity of the backlash. The editor, John Gutekunst, selectively deletes comments but even at that the longest set of comments now prints out to 33 pages even when ported to Word in 10font.

According to comments, the County's $1.5 million in legal fees are not covered by insurance, and the County determined this early on in the process. Comments characterize the legal effort as a personal vendetta against Jim by Supervisor Gene Fisher. This vendetta included asking the sheriff to arrest Jim's clients at the drier site for trespassing on County property, and coaching employees against their better judgment to the point that one County employee quit their job. Word gets out fast on that type of work place abuse. Tossing aside the potential of $1-200K/yr in much needed tax free revenue for personal reasons has added to local dissatisfaction.

Despite a lack of public support, or financial capacity, it is clear that the County will appeal. A reinvigorated recall effort is mounting to pull the plug on this monster.

Soils and its role in a changing climate

Roger Pielke Sr., over at his research group's climate science blog, has been holding forth on land use change and its impacts on long-term near surface temperature. His position is that the role of land use must be further emphasized within the climate change framework. Search for "soil" and "land" for a long list of supporting posts.

This goes beyond deforestation and urban heat islands. Dust and alterations in atmospheric water content play unknown roles and interact with albedo in sometimes counterintuitive ways. For example, irrigation warms rather than cools the land. Evaporative cooling is insufficient to drive net cooling of irrigated regions. Soils darkened by moisture absorb more heat than dry soils and re-radiate more heat during the night. This results in warmer nights and warmer average temperatures.

Current climate models are not sensitive to changes in land use. Neither are they sensitive to the soil's role in affecting atmospheric carbon levels.

Soil organic matter, at roughly 1500 GtC, is the single largest compartment of carbon in the active biogeochemical cycle. At 60 GtC annual flux (in either direction), it is 10 times larger than the 5.5 GtC flux due to burning fossil fuel. Yet soil is the component of the carbon cycle that we know the least about.

Most soil scientists agree with the unvalidated concept that soil carbon levels will likely decline in step with temperature increases. Higher biological activity will result in more decomposition of organic matter. One certainly sees a similar relationship between soil carbon and temperature when comparing the effect of elevation, aspect and latitude. That we have yet to validate it is telling.

Current climate models mostly ignore the specific role that soil microbes play in the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The information they do include is often based on assumptions that have never been tested in the field, and may be wrong or overly simplistic.

Our climate models are telling us we need to become far more efficient and more conservative in managing our planet's carbon, soil-wise and fuel-wise. But our scientific understanding will never be adequate for crafting our full response to climate change.

The fact is that our climate is infinitely complex. The models climatologists use to predict the future are incredibly sophisticated, yet blunt instruments. Scientists can never account for all the variables involved - indeed, no one has successfully come up with a mathematical equation to describe the formation of a single cloud. And scientists are often woefully out of their depth in the real world. History is littered with lives and regimes that were wrecked when science was allowed to drive policy with no thought to humanity. Tearing down the global carbon-based economy to - in theory - replace it at a later date with unproven and undeveloped technologies would be a similar folly. It is only by tempering science with economics and the market, which is the most efficient arbiter of humanity's wants and needs, that smart climate policy can be made.

Science and the market are partners of longstanding. Economic necessity, as the mother of invention, has been driving the advance of science for as long as science has been an identifiable pursuit.

Distorted Vision
Originally uploaded by uaezlulu.

Technorati Tags: climate+change land irrigation soil+science research politics

New Soil Science Licensing Website

Renewed soil science licensing efforts are underway in Washington State. Supporting them is a new website. Titled Soil Science Licensing, the site is available to become a clearinghouse for all soil science licensing efforts. It links to the best available information, including the list of soil science licensing boards maintained by the Soil WikiProject.

For now, the Soil Science Licensing site effort is strictly focussed on Washington state's efforts. The latest revision (pdf) (December 7, 2006) has been posted and I have one concern with the new wording:

The practice of soil science does not include design work, such as would be carried out by either engineers, as defined in RCW 18.43.020 or architects, as defined in RCW 18.08.320.

We need something along these lines, but the term "design work" is not specifically defined in the cited sections, but is referred to somewhat broadly. Is this going to be a problem? Perhaps someone with experience in one of the licensed states can comment.

Carbon Coalition Against Global Warming

The Carbon Coalition Against Global Warming says that the best way to combat Global Warming is to encourage farmers to cultivate deep-rooted perennial grass species and crops that can lock vast amounts of carbon up in the soil.

A new farmers’ movement was launched this week in central western New South Wales. The Carbon Coalition was launched at the Central West Conservation Farmers Association Annual Conference in Wellington.

The Carbon Coalition aims to promote organic carbon contained in agricultural soils as a carbon sink to earn tradable credits on the greenhouse emissions market.

Farmers would then be paid up to AUS$3,000 per hectare for “sequestering” carbon in the soil. To date only forests have been recognised as tradable for carbon credits.

Maybe. I have a little heartburn over an expectation that the scientific community has promoted that leads us to believe that we can create a significant, persistent sink of carbon by using established farming and forestry approaches. The signal-to-noise ratio in applicable soil carbon sequestration data seems quite high low, especially in regards to a convincing ability to actually "lock in" the soil carbon sunk in the sink. I wouldn't feel so uncomfortable if there wasn't so much money at stake. Governments and carbon generating industries seem very eager to act with little in the way of verification. Landowners, ever strapped by a system seemingly stacked against the food and fiber producer, see a key tool for economic survival. Fundamental soil science and biology get relegated to the back seat while folks work out the international carbon credit and payment mechanisms.

At the front end, soil will naturally sequester more carbon as atmospheric carbon increases. Yet no one seems to talk about measuring performance against this moving baseline. At the back end, considering the millenial timescale relevant to climate change, persistence is a very real issue.

As mentioned, I have a little heartbun about carbon credit mechanisms, but not a huge amount at this point. Work in the area of ammending soil with bio-char and, separately or in combination with bio-char, promoting mycorrhyzal fungi to produce glomalin seem both very promising in terms of the fundamental science. Both are fairly recent discoveries with huge implications. Hopefully we have a few more rabbits to pull out of the living soil hat.

Tech Tags: soil science biology carbon sequestration climate_change global_warming

Georgia acts to honor their red clay

Most states have recognized official soils. Georgia may be the first in designating an official state dirt:

HB 1443 - Red clay; Georgia's official dirt; designate

A BILL to be entitled an Act to amend Article 3 of Chapter 3 of Title 50 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, relating to state symbols, so as to designate Georgia red clay as Georgia's official dirt; to repeal conflicting laws; and for other purposes.

It is tempting to poke fun at this diversion but many others (Improbable Research, No1ofConsequence and Scribal Terror.), all faster on the draw than me, have already developed this fertile territory.

Let me instead point out the obvious positives, if this passes. First, no taxes will be increased. Second, no rights will be diminished. Third, no pockets will be lined. In any state, not just Georgia, any one of these legislative feats is a noteworthy accomplishment. Fourth, it is an opportunity to engage in self-deprecating humour, which, in my opinion is one of the essential ingredients for preserving mental health. That Georgia would do this greatly increases my confidence in this legislative body.

Before I give my fifth reason, I offer these excerpts describing red clay:

"I curse the red clay,'' says Santiago. "They have it in Florida but it's not as bad. And I've been to Texas with the [baseball] teams I've worked with but it's not as bad as anything around here.'' Other parts of the country do have red clay. But it dominates the landscape of no other region as it does the Piedmont, that rolling plain between the mountains and the sea - extending from Alabama to New York.

"It is a striking fact of the landscape,'' says Al Stuart, professor of geography at UNC Charlotte.

It is even more than that.

Red clay is the ground of our being, the material that has shaped, nurtured and sustained us. So different from the dark gumbo soil of the Mississippi Delta or the yellow sands of the Carolinas coast, it has produced crops, provided building material for schools, houses, churches and factories and shaped our sense of ourselves in ways large and small.

Embedded in our history, it is the soil "as red as blood'' described by John Lawson, who in 1700 was one of the first Europeans to explore the land; the stuff Catawba Indian women fashioned into their distinctive stamped pottery; the material spit from the wheels of the first race drivers' cars on the sport's earliest dirt tracks; gluey enough when wet to pull the shoe off your foot.

Thomas Wolfe's character Oliver Gant takes a train from Pennsylvania to Altamont, Wolfe's fictionalized hometown of Asheville. Gant stares out from the train window at "the fallow unworked earth, the great raw lift of the Piedmont, the muddy red clay roads and the slattern people.'' The novelist drew a parallel between the raw land and the untidy people, seeing the prospects dim for each. But Wolfe was wrong.

The Piedmont became prosperous, an ironic result of the poor growing qualities of red clay. "Because the soil wasn't very forgiving there's always been a sense among Piedmonters that we had to try harder ..."

In some places it goes down 100 feet before bedrock. Geologists and soil experts call it an "ultisol,'' soil formed over billions of years.

Piedmont red clay truly deserves to be recognized as the implacable force that it is. A state government seems like the perfect size jurisdiction to act on this responsibility. Thank you Georgia.

Side note. Georgia red clay soil characteristics have quite a bit in common with Amazonian oxisols and ultisols. They are acidic and low in fertility. The Piedmont soils in Georgia would benefit from a innovative Amazonian soil ammendment, bio-char, mentioned earlier. It is fortuitous that Eprida, a biomass processing concern, has its bio-char pilot plant in Georgia.

Tech Tags: politics legislation soil science terra_preta bio-char

Dept of Licensing Surveys Soil Science Practice, Recommends Regulation

The Washington State Department of Licensing (DOL) has submitted a requested Sunrise Review of Soil Scientists to the State House Commerce & Labor Committee. The report recommends that the practice of soil science be regulated.

Members of the Washington Society of Professional Soil Scientists (WSPSS) can find much to be proud of as well as cause for renewed vigilance in DOL's report. Soil science has been in DOL's sights before but the current set of events that led to the sunrise report started in 2001. That was the year that soil scientists became concerned that under the Geologists Licensing Act, practicing soil science would require being a registered geologist. Timely action by WSPSS resulted in an exclusion for the practice of soil. It also reignited WSPSS' interest in licensing.

Renewed efforts followed shortly in 2002 when soil reports prepared by a soil scientist were rejected by the Pierce County Planning Department. The planning department required a licensed geologist, consistent with a draft model Critical Area's Ordinance (CAO) being prepared by the State Department of Community, Trade & Economic Development (CTED). Subsequent effort by WSPSS to revise CTED's Model CAO to include soil scientists as qualified to submit soil reports were initially successful but, for reasons that have not been determined, the soil science profession was not included in the final draft.

Without licensing, soil scientists are failing in their efforts to maintain their professional standing with county planning departments, health districts and permitting agencies in Washingtonm State. Draft legislation to license the practice of soil science was submitted to both State Senate and House committees during the 2004/2005 legislative session. Lobbying efforts resulted in the House Commerce & Labor Committee request to the Department of Licensing to prepare a “sunrise� report that would define the reasoning and metrics underlying the request to be regulated.

An excerpt from that report:

Considerable evidence compiled in this report, through out-of-court settlements and litigation, show harm to property, health, safety and welfare of the public. Public health endangered by improper soil analysis ... has led to contaminated wells and groundwater; septic system failures; and compromised wetlands. Harm to the public exists when [action] is approved without a comprehensive soil analysis conducted by a soil expert to support decision[s] taken. Public harm occurs when ordinances excludes a professional group that hold an expertise through education and experience. Exclusion of a qualified group to practice diminishes choice. A significant number of court settlements indicate that there are professionals [who] practice soil science beyond the scope of their expertise. In view of the findings regarding the practice of soil science, the following recommendations [are] made for consideration by the Legislature:

1. That Soil Scientists be regulated; and
2. expertise should be defined to minimize overlap of work to be performed.
   

The sunrise report goes on to indicate that defining what is soil science, and identifying who is a soil scientist is a challenge. Furthermore, without a commercial yellow pages heading for the profession, consumer access to soil scientists is limited to an informal referral system. Professional soil science societies are viewed in the report as ineffective in protecting the public from unprofessional acts by soil scientists or purported soil scientists. Specific examples of damage are provided in the report, including at least $3,000,000 in damage claims due to septic system problems in Cowlitz County in western Washington. Also cited were 20 cases in eastern Washington, provided to DOL by the Washington Department of Ecology, where earlier or more competent soil science consultation could have saved resources and protected human health.

Now that the sunrise report has been submitted, the legislature can move forward during the 2006/2007 legislative session to act on the previous draft. Prospects look good for passage, but regardless of the outcome, Washington soil scientists cannot help but be lifted up by the findings of the sunrise report: Practitioners of soil science are needed in Washington State to a degree that individual practitioners could not have been aware of. While it is extremely disturbing to learn of several instances of unprofessional work by purported soil scientists, it is good to read that quality work is highly valued and recognized as critical to protecting health and resources. Washington soil scientists already know that we are in some demand: once a soil scientist establishes a niche, it is rare to find that individual idle. DOL's survey offers us a unique glimpse into the bigger picture as to why that is.

1997 photo of sprayfield with soil problem.
Olympia Cheese. Lacey, WA.

Technorati Tag: Soil science Licensing