Project Learning Tree® partnered with the North Carolina Division of Pollution Prevention and Environmental Assistance to present a two-day educational workshop for 22 teachers and solid waste professionals in Wilkesboro, Sept. 24 and 25. The workshop included educational activities to help bring lesson plans focusing on waste and recycling into the classroom, as well as tours of a local material recovery facility and landfill.

“With the plastic bottle ban that began on Oct. 1, this is a great time to help get teachers excited about recycling in their schools, as well as providing them tools and ideas to help that happen,” said Kelley Dennings, education and outreach project manager with DPPEA. “Every second, 100 plastic bottles are disposed of in North Carolina. Now they must be recycled, not thrown into landfills.”

For details on the conference location, hotel accommodations and registration, please visit our
Web site at www.bae.ncsu.edu/workshops/worms09/

For those science warriors who introduce new methods to control water pollution, it’s a battle of sorts out there, and it’s raging.

And a soil scientist in North Carolina State University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences is on the front lines.

Research shows that the top polluter of our state’s waterways is sediment -- any particles that water can move and eventually deposit -- and the resultant turbidity that wash down from construction sites, farms and eroding stream banks. Not phosphorus, not nitrogen, but sediment, which can contain both of those pollutants and many more.

“Our lakes and streams typically turn brown after rains, illustrating that sediment and turbidity pollution is the biggest challenge to water quality,” says Dr. Rich McLaughlin, associate professor and Extension specialist in the college’s Soil Science Department.

Read more in The Mountain Times

At first, it seemed that Wal-Mart might be running into substantial regulatory roadblocks to its plans for a new “Super Center” on U.S. Highway 64 in Nashville, N.C.

Due to anticipated adverse wetland and stream impacts, in 2007 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the state Division of Water Quality had rejected Wal-Mart’s original site plan, which didn’t include room to meet stormwater-control regulations and destroyed almost an acre of wetlands.

Stormwater runoff from the site eventually drains to the Tar River’s nutrient-sensitive waters, then into Pamlico Sound, part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Estuary Program.

The large cistern, pipes and related gutters were installed in July in Boone by a team led by Jason Wright, Extension associate with North Carolina State University’s Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department’s Stormwater Team in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Wendy Patoprsty, North
Carolina Cooperative Extension natural resources agent, helped choose the site.

“The Town of Boone actively supports water conservation and recycling,” says Andrea Gimlin, Boone’s Every Drop Counts water conservation program coordinator. “Our water conservation education program supports our philosophy of managing the environment in a manner that does not despoil, exhaust or extinguish water, our natural resource.”

Moore County community leaders visited NC State University’s Lake Wheeler Road Field Training Facility in Raleigh in October to learn about the importance of water-use and re-use technologies in community resource development.

Moore County Cooperative Extension Center personnel helped design the Moore County Leaders Decentralized Water and Wastewater Planning Forum at which U.S. and Canadian industry leaders shared their technologies and experiences.

Also speaking at the J. Edward Booth Field Learning Laboratory, NC State researchers and extension specialists from the College’s Soil Science and Biological and Agricultural Engineering departments covered these wastewater-related topics: centralized management of decentralized water-use technologies, including water re-use; preliminary soil and site assessments for on-site wastewater systems in developments, groundwater planning, water re-use standards and challenges of water reuse in affordable housing.

Those are the twin goals of a new 1,200-square-foot rain garden in front of Williston Middle School on South 10th Street in Wilmington.

Officials from several state and local agencies, including North Carolina Cooperative Extension, teamed with school officials on a wet and humid Wednesday morning to plant 85 trees, shrubs and other vegetation in a shallow hollow that had been excavated near Williston's main entrance.

Read more in the Wilmington StarNewsOnline

Several North Carolina State University presenters were among the 300 engineers, city, county and federal officials who attended a university-sponsored Low Impact Development summit in Asheville June 23 - 24.

The summit addressed planning, policy and financial aspects of making Low Impact Development (LID) principles a reality.

LID is an alternative to traditional site design, incorporating water treatment structures into the landscape and a building’s “footprint,” the amount of earth it covers. LID features are research-based stormwater best management practices (BMPs) constructed to mimic pre-development hydrologic conditions. The BMPs improve water quality by reducing surface runoff, erosion and pollution not from specifically identifiable sources, such as waste treatment or industrial sites.

Festival-goers, volunteers and vendors worked together to make this year's Eno Festival trash-free, and their efforts paid off. Of the 5,300 pounds of trash generated over the three-day event, 93 percent will never see a landfill. Instead, it will be composted or recycled.

The secret, according to Cooperative Extension's composting specialist, Rhonda Sherman, is for "everyone - vendors, event organizers and festival goers" to work together with a common goal in mind. Vendors signed a contract stipulating they would use compostable plates, cutlery and even straws and that they would avoid single condiment servings (those little foil packets)."

Festival organizers erected 12 trash recovery stations and staffed them with volunteers to help festival goers sort their trash into items they could compost or recycle and those that had to go into the trash. Those who attend the festival did their part by using the trash stations and even bringing litter they'd found on the way to the station.

As energy costs continue to rise, consumers are looking for ways to reduce energy consumption and save money. Through a program known as E-Conservation, North Carolina Cooperative Extension is helping consumers understand what they can do at home to conserve energy.

Through E-Conservation – on the Web at www.e-conservation.net -- Extension has partnered with the State Energy Office on an educational program that helps homeowners reduce their energy consumption and save money on their utility bills. This program is offered in 78 of the state’s 101 Cooperative Extension county centers across the state. The interdisciplinary program, which started in 2005, involves family and consumer sciences agents, as well as natural resources, agriculture and 4-H agents.

Energy conservation has become an important issue for consumers and communities for a number of reasons, according to Dr. Sarah Kirby, associate professor and Extension housing specialist in charge of E-Conservation.

Since the passage of the Schoolchildren’s Health Act in 2006, North Carolina public schools have been finding safer and more effective ways to reduce pests on school grounds, according to a report by school integrated pest management experts at North Carolina State University.

Based on a 2007 survey of state public school maintenance directors and facilities supervisors, 61 percent of school districts have adopted integrated pest management programs. Over 71 percent of North Carolina school districts apply pesticides only as needed for pest problems, and 80 percent notify parents, guardians and staff whenever a pesticide will be applied on school grounds.

Telephone surveys of public school maintenance directors and facilities supervisors were conducted in June and July 2007. Out of 115 school districts in North Carolina, 114 participated in the survey. The Center for Urban Affairs and Community Services at N.C. State University conducted the interviews.

Given the recent spring rainfall, some might think the worst of this past year’s drought is history. That’s understandable, since ponds on farms or in local parks are looking full again, and some days there’s even standing water in the roadside ditches.

Droughts, however, like everything in nature, are cyclical.

Meanwhile, the demand on North Carolina’s natural resources, including our finite water supplies, is increasing as rapidly as the commercial and residential development that triggers that demand.

Here are some examples:

• UNC-TV’s Almanac Gardener features drought-related segments during its 2008 25th anniversary season: www.unctv.org/gardener

• Rain barrel information, including how to make one: www.unctv.org/gardener/rainbarrel.html

• The College’s “Making a Difference” drought information page with CALS-generated stories and links, written and produced by the Communication Services Department: www.cals.ncsu.edu/agcomm/difference/drought