Interrupted development. Even small concentrations — 1.5 parts per million — of a biocide used in cosmetics interrupted neurological development in tadpole brains. (Credit: Aizenman lab/Brown University)

ScienceDaily (Jan. 10, 2012) — A new study finds that low concentrations of the chemical methylisothiazolinone has subtle but measurable negative effects on the neural development of tadpoles. The chemical is found in some cosmetics, although the study does not provide any evidence that cosmetics are unsafe for humans.

Scientists, health officials, and manufacturers already know that a chemical preservative found in some products, including cosmetics, is harmful to people and animals in high concentrations, but a new Brown University study in tadpoles reports that it can also interrupt neurological development even in very low concentrations.

In the cosmetics industry, the biocide methylisothiazolinone or MIT, is considered safe at concentrations of less than 100 parts per million. Lab studies, however, have found that lower concentrations affected the growth of animal neurons. Picking up from there, the Brown researchers performed a series of experiments to investigate how 10 days of exposure at concentrations as low as 1.5 ppm would affect whole, living tadpoles as they develop. Their results appear in advance online in the journal Neuroscience.

“The lower concentrations we studied didn’t kill the animals or cause any big deformities or affect the behavior you’d see just by looking at them,” said Carlos Aizenman, associate professor of neuroscience and the study’s senior author. “But then we decided to do a series of functional tests and we found that exposure to this compound during a period of development that’s critical for the fine wiring of the nervous system disrupted this period of fine tuning.”

Aizenman emphasized that there is no evidence in the study that any products with MIT, such as shampoos or cosmetics, are harmful to consumers.

Neurotoxic effects

When Aizenman and lead author Ariana Spawn explored the consequences of exposing tadpoles to two nonlethal concentrations, 1.5 ppm and 7.6 ppm, they found some deficits both in behavior and in basic brain development.

In one experiment they shined moving patterns of light into one side of the tadpole tanks from below. As they expected, the unexposed tadpoles avoided the light patterns, swimming to the other side. Tadpoles that had been exposed to either concentration of MIT, however, were significantly less likely to avoid the signals.

In another experiment, Aizenman and Spawn, who was an undergraduate at the time and has since graduated, exposed the tadpoles to another chemical known to induce seizures. The tadpoles who were not exposed to MIT and those exposed to the lower concentration each had the same ability to hold off seizures, but the ones who had been exposed to the 7.6 ppm concentration succumbed to the seizures significantly more readily.

In these experiments, seizure susceptibility had nothing to do with epilepsy, Aizenman said, but was instead a measure of more general neural development.

After observing the two significant behavioral effects in the tadpoles, Aizenman and Spawn then sought the underlying physiological difference between exposed and unexposed tadpoles that might cause them. They performed an electrophysiological analysis of each tadpole’s optic tectum, a part of the brain responsible for processing visual information. They found evidence that the chemical seems to have stunted the process by which tadpoles prune and refine neural connections, a key developmental step.

“The neural circuits act like the neural circuits of a much more immature tadpole,” Aizenman said. “This is consistent with the previous findings in cell cultures.”

Aizenman said consumers should know about the study’s results and pay attention to the ingredients in the products they use, but should not become worried based on the basic science study.

Aizenman said one area where further studies may be warranted is in cases of repeated exposure in industrial or occupational settings, but the study’s broader message may be that chemical manufacturers and independent labs should test more for neurodevelopmental effects of even low concentrations of products. In the specific case of MIT in tadpoles, he noted, “It’s resulting in a non-obvious but real deficit in neural function.”

Brown University and the Whitehall Foundation funded the research.

This Tuesday, January 31, at 9 am, please come to support a County “freeze” on any new vineyard and orchard development in Sonoma County until June 1st of this year.  At that time, VESCO (Vineyard Erosion and Sediment Control Ordinance) will be updated to incorporate tree removal protection language.

This will be held in the Supervisors’ Chambers, 575 Administrative Drive, Room 100A, Santa Rosa.

Thank you.

Along one of the San Francisco Bay’s most valuable watersheds, healthy salmon runs will soon coexist, at last, with cabernet sauvignon.

The ambitious project to halt erosion in the heart of California’s premiere winegrowing region includes 40 landowners voluntarily giving up 135 acres of some of the most prized farmland in the nation, so riverbanks along the Napa River can be stabilized and salmon spawns restored.

“It’s valuable property, but we have to be stewards of the land and the environment,” said Regina Weinstein, of Honig Vineyard and Winery, which produces sauvignon blanc and cabernet sauvignon in the heart of the restoration area. “We want the land to be here and be healthy in the future, so we can pass on the business to future generations.”

Many stretches of the 55-mile-long Napa River have filled with silt over the years as floodwaters and non-native plants took a toll on the banks. The river drains into the San Francisco Bay and is considered the most important watershed in the region for steelhead and Chinook salmon spawning.

“Giving up a few rows of vines is a small thing to do to help the big picture,” said Weinstein, whose bottles can fetch up to $75 each.

The first of five phases of the project, begun on a 4 1/2-mile stretch south of Calistoga called the “Rutherford Reach,” involves removing some rows of vines and trees to reshape the riverbank into a wide V-shape to lessen erosion. Growers from the prestigious viticulture area — including Opus, Frog’s Leap, Cakebread Cellars, Nickel and Nickel and Sutter Home — began planning the project more than a decade ago as part of a broader land stewardship program under the auspices of the Rutherford Dust Society, a group of growers and vintners that promote cutting-edge practices in the region.

The project is seen as a model for private landowners initiating environmental improvements before they’re mandated by the government.

“It’s being initiated from the bottom up, not the top down,” said Gretchen Hayes, the Rutherford Reach project leader.

The Napa River historically supported a run of 8,000 steelhead. They dwindled to 2,000 in the 1960s and to just a few hundred today. Silt washed from steeply eroded banks — in places up to 30-feet high — has covered the gravel where the fish lay eggs.

“A big part of the project so far has been to clean it out and make a pathway for them to spawn,” said Hayes.

Stretches of the riverbank now have been shaved down to a gradual slope easing into the river. Grasses and willows have been planted to stabilize the banks, and burlap-covered berms are in place to keep sediment from washing into the river. Resting places have been developed for the fish to take cover during times of heavy flows.

A mountain of soil excavated last year might have been some of the most expensive fill dirt ever. Land in Napa County can go for as high as $235,000 an acre.

The wine industry in Napa Valley generates nearly $11 billion annually and is the region’s largest employer.

The voluntary program has been paid for by the landowners, a local sales tax to improve the river and state and federal sources. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency planned to announce Friday details of $3.3 million in new funding to continue work on the project that is expected to cost $22 million and take until 2017 to complete.

The project is one of many that area vintners are participating in to reduce the impact of farming on the scenic region. Napa growers were among the first to adopt sustainable farming practices, including a reduction in pesticides and tilling. Many have converted to solar power and plant cover crops to bring in beneficial insects.

“We have some of the most biodynamic and organic growers in Napa,” said Davie Pina, of Pina Vineyard Management. “We are close to nature and we wanted to do something positive.”

Now the river that many once viewed as a burden because of all of the government regulations that come with farming close to it is becoming a source of tranquility and inspiration for the growers.

“It’s not just a drainage ditch anymore,” Pina said. “It’s amazing how the animals are moving back in. We have three or four beaver dams and the river otters are waiting for our first rainstorm because they know the salmon will start coming up. It’s changing rapidly, quite rapidly.”

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.

Click here for orignal article

A lethal and highly contagious marine virus has been detected for the first time in wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest, researchers in British Columbia said on Monday, stirring concern that it could spread there, as it has in Chile, Scotland and elsewhere.

Farms hit by the virus, infectious salmon anemia, have lost 70 percent or more of their fish in recent decades. But until now, the virus, which does not affect humans, had never been confirmed on the West Coast of North America.

The researchers, from Simon Fraser University and elsewhere, said at a news conference in Vancouver that the virus had been found in 2 of 48 juvenile fish collected as part of a study of sockeye salmon in Rivers Inlet, on the central coast of British Columbia. The study was undertaken after scientists observed a decline in the number of young sockeye.

Richard Routledge, an environmental scientist at the university who leads the sockeye study, suggested that the virus had spread from the province’s aquaculture industry, which has imported millions of Atlantic salmon eggs over the last 25 years, primarily from Iceland and Scandinavia. He acknowledged that no direct evidence of that link existed, but noted that the two fish had tested positive for the European strain of infectious salmon anemia.

The virus could have “a devastating impact” not just on the region’s farmed and wild salmon but on the many species that depend on them in the food web, like grizzly bears, killer whales and wolves, Dr. Routledge said. “No country has ever gotten rid of it once it arrives,” he said in a statement.

The only barrier between the salmon farms and wild fish is a net, he noted at the news conference, opening the way for “pathogens sweeping in and out.” No vaccine or treatment exists for infectious salmon anemia.

Gary Marty, the fish pathologist for the province’s Ministry of Agriculture, said the Canadian Food Inspection Agency would seek fish samples from the researchers and run its own tests.

The British Columbia Salmon Farmers Association, an industry group, said fish health departments had regularly tested for the virus on the farms “and have never found a positive case.” Dr. Marty confirmed that no cases had been found in that testing.

Still, “if these results are valid, this could be a threat to our business and the communities that rely on our productive industry,” said Stewart Hawthorn, the managing director for Grieg Seafood, an association member.

At the news conference, the Simon Fraser researchers said Fred Kibenge, a researcher at Atlantic Veterinary College at the University of Prince Edward Island, the global center for tests detecting the virus, had confirmed its presence in the two fish. They called for widespread testing to determine where the virus exists in the region and in what fish.

Alexandra Morton, a researcher and activist who collected the sockeye samples and is an outspoken critic of salmon farming practices in British Columbia, called the virus “a cataclysmic threat” to both salmon and herring, which can also contract it.

“If we test five million fish and found two sick, O.K.,” she said. “But 48 in the middle of nowhere?” The inlet where the samples were taken is 60 miles from the nearest salmon farm, the researchers said.

Fishery experts with no connection to the study agreed that the threat was serious. James Winton, who leads the fish health research group at the Western Fisheries Research Center in Seattle, an arm of the United States Geological Survey, called it a “disease emergency” and urged that research begin at once to determine on how far the virus had spread.

According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, infectious salmon anemia virus morphed from a benign form in nature into a “novel virulent strain” when salmon stocks entered Norway’s densely packed salmon farms. Rather than getting picked off by a predator, a sick fish would undergo a slow death in a crowded pen, shedding virus particles.

Offshore saltwater pens supply most of the Atlantic salmon sold in the United States.

Read the original article here

A few years ago the banking industry, lead by giants Lehman, Goldman Sachs and others convinced regulators that the old rules didn’t matter and that many of the regulations in place to protect the public were irrelevant and should be repealed. Politicians and a gullible public, not wanting to be left behind by the “get rich quick” gravy train, eagerly hopped on board.

Today as the country struggles with the aftermath of the financial disaster that resulted from greedy bankers who manipulated the system, it’s hard to fathom how we ever fell for their Ponzi scheme in the first place.

Mortgages where the loan payments are less than the interest amount? Loans for more than the property’s value? Loaning money to people who had no records proving they could even afford the payments? These things all seem ridiculous to us now, yet we drank the Kool-Aid and bought the story the bankers told us because we wanted to believe it was true.

These same people are at it again, only this time instead of stealing our money, they are attempting to take something even more precious. Henry Cornell, of Goldman Sachs, is using the same type of smoke and mirrors tactics to convince regulators and Sonoma County planners that up is down and black is white, while he steals from all of Sonoma County a public trust resource, the water and habitat in Mark West Creek. This effort, ongoing since 2005, is about to return to the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors for their approval.

He has created quite a sales pitch. According to Cornell consultants his Winery project will benefit the watershed by “reducing demand from local aquifers”. How could we not like a project which will “create more water” for the watershed. Folks, really, if Henry Cornell has actually found a way to create water, he should get out of the banking industry. He could make a lot more money “creating water”, the most precious resource on the planet.

What he has really created is an elaborate ruse; a way to tell regulators that they do not need to enforce current regulations that would make him prove he has adequate water for his project. He will be adding water to the watershed because he says he will, and of course we can trust him because the numbers are all right there in the reports. There is no need for him to do the aquifer drawdown test, he says, he should be exempt!

Let’s take off the spin and look at the numbers for a minute. First of all, and most importantly, all of the water he discusses in the report is imaginary future water; much like the future appreciation in the housing market that the bankers told us would take care of any present discrepancies in the processing of the risky mortgages. We all know where that got us.

He is making the case that in the future a house will be taken offline which will provide a substantial water savings. The reality is that house is already “offline” and has been for many, many years. There has NEVER been a 5 bedroom house there, and if such a house were proposed to be developed it would be REQUIRED by Sonoma County to prove adequate water supply. Riparian rights to the already FULLY APPROPRIATED Mark West Creek would be subject to compliance with a very complicated set of laws designed to protect not only senior water rights holders but the public trust resource as well. The removal of the house will not result in any reduction in current water use, period. While it is theoretically possible that a 5 bedroom house could be built there it is also just as possible that no house would be built there and some conservation minded individual could buy the property and deed it to open space as has happened with numerous neighboring parcels. Furthermore, assuming for a moment there were an occupied 5 bedroom home built on the parcel, any water used by the home would be used in small amounts consistently throughout the year and would re-enter the aquifer consistently as purified septic effluent. No water would be permanently exported from the aquifer.

The report also claims that a substantial amount of theoretical water will be saved by not planting a vineyard on this parcel. Again there has NEVER been a vineyard on that parcel so there is no reduction in current water use. Even Henry Cornell’s consultants admit that the vast majority of the parcel in question is not suitable for vineyard. Certainly, it seems unlikely that a parcel mostly unsuited for vineyard would be purchased by anyone who wanted to develop a vineyard, when other more suitable parcels are abundant. Henry Cornell has over 100 acres of land surrounding the proposed winery site, with the majority in forest still awaiting conversion once the winery is approved. Giving up planting rights on a tiny parcel of unsuitable vineyard land is not a water savings, it is simply a smokescreen to dodge compliance with the County mandated testing for water scarce areas.

Logic dictates that if not planting a vineyard or not building a 5 bedroom house should be considered to be a benefit to the watershed, the inescapable conclusion is that not building the winery complex would provide the same benefit.

Once all the shiny wrapping paper has been removed from the package Cornell has handed us we are left with the same lump of coal we had when the project was first proposed seven years ago. No where do we hear how much water Henry Cornell is using on his existing vineyard. There is no comparison between how much water he is using now, how much MORE water he will be using, and how this ADDITIONAL use will impact the aquifer and springs that feed Mark West Creek. The only thing we do know is that ever since Henry Cornell planted his first vines, the water in Mark West Creek has been decreasing. This year despite the fact that we had an abundant water year, sections of Upper Mark West Creek near the vineyard and proposed winery stopped flowing for the first time and Steelhead were stranded and died.

Let’s not give Goldman Sachs executive Henry Cornell another chance to play outside the rules. Let’s prove we have learned not to blindly swallow everything the bankers tell us. The only thing that really matters here, is that before we decide to allow another water intensive project in the already development impaired Mark West Creek headwaters, we need to insist that the developer do the required tests to prove the proposed development will not harm the creek.

Its time to level the playing field and tell Cornell the rules apply to everyone, even him.

For more information on the proposed Cornell Winery project go to www.nowwe.org