Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Oczyszczanie Gazów Odlotowych Ze Spalania Odpadów Niebezpiecznych, Robert Oleniacz

Robert Oleniacz

Flue gas cleaning system is a very important part of each hazardous waste incineration plant. Air pollutant emission limit values permissible for this process in Member States of the European Union are so rigorous that the installation designers there are forced to use very effective and of course expensive solutions. In the paper a review of methods and systems used to the treatment of flue gases from hazardous waste incineration is presented. This can be particularly useful in the face of the adaptation of existing waste incineration plant operating in Poland with European Union requirements.

English title: Cleaning of flue …

Tackling The Iso 14000 Maze: Which Firms Adopt And Which Do Not?, Steven A. Melnyk, Robert Sroufe, Frank L. Montabon, Roger Calantone

Frank L. Montabon

ISO 14000 constitutes a major dilemma for most American firms in that they are not sure whether or not to actively pursue this new form of certification. This new standard is attractive as it holds the promise of helping firms become more efficient via better management of waste, yet this new standard deals with environmental performance, a potentially dangerous legal area. Both benefits and cost liabilities are very difficult to quantify and forecast. This leads to great uncertainty as to whether the benefits offered by improving environmental performance are sufficient to outweigh the costs incurred in obtaining certification. This study …

Environmentally Responsible Manufacturing: Assessing The Current State In American Industry, Steven A. Melnyk, Robert Sroufe, Frank L. Montabon, Roger Calantone

Frank L. Montabon

To some managers Environmentally Responsible Manufacturing (ERM) can be seen as an opportunity to better understand processes and reduce waste. To others, ERM is an unwarranted intrusion into their functional responsibilities. This paper explores the reasons for these two very different views of ERM. The paper begins by defining the concepts of ERM and Environmental Management Systems (EMS) and identifying the reasons for the increasing importance now associated with each of these concepts. Drawing on the results of a large-scale survey of American managers, a summary of current practices associated with EMS at the plant level is given. Additionally, analysis …

Ocena Zasięgu Istotnego Oddziaływania Emisji Zanieczyszczeń Z Huty Katowice Pod Kątem Likwidacji Strefy Ochronnej, Marian Mazur, Robert Oleniacz, Marek Bogacki

Robert Oleniacz

The paper presents the results of air quality impact assessment of Katowice Steelworks in Dąbrowa Górnicza (Poland) in the protective zone. On the basis of calculations, it was found that in terms of air pollution there is a reasonable possibility of complete elimination of existing protective zone around these industrial plants.

English title: Assessment of the extent of significant effects of pollutant emissions from the "Katowice" Steelworks in terms of liquidation of the environmental protection zone.

Wpływ Wprowadzenia Ciągłego Odlewania Stali Na Wielkość Emisji Zanieczyszczeń Z Huty Katowice, Marian Mazur, Marek Bogacki, Robert Oleniacz

Robert Oleniacz

The paper presents the results of research carried out in 1999 in the Department of Continuous Casting of Steel (CCS) Machines in "Katowice" Steelworks in Dąbrowa Górnicza (Poland), whose main objective was the identification of emission sources of dust and gaseous pollutants, determination of emission factors and assessment of environmental effects associated with the operation of this technology. Particular attention was paid for assessing the impact of the introduction the CCS technology to reduce total emissions from "Katowice" Steelworks.

English title: Impact of the introduction of continuous casting of steel on pollutant emissions from "Katowice" Steelworks.

Bezpośrednie I Pośrednie Efekty Wprowadzenia Ciągłego Odlewania Stali W Bilansie Emisji Zanieczyszczeń Z Huty Żelaza, Marian Mazur, Marek Bogacki, Robert Oleniacz

Robert Oleniacz

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the impact of continuous casting technology on emissions of air pollutants from "Katowice" Steelworks in Dąbrowa Górnicza (Poland). Sources of emissions occurring in the manufacturing process and emissions levels have been identified. Implementation of continuous casting of steel has increased the efficiency of production and brought substantial ecological effects.

English title: Direct and indirect effects of introduction of continuous casting of steel in the balance sheet of pollutant emissions from "Katowice" Steelworks.

Pesticide Waste Incineration In The Wet Process Cement Kiln, Marian Mazur, Robert Oleniacz, Marek Bogacki, Stanisław Słupek

Robert Oleniacz

The presentation discusses the problem of pesticide wastes in Poland that have been accumulated underground in concrete graveyards or bunkers. Their progressive unsealing poses a significant health risk to people due to groundwater, soil and air pollution. There are not many of professional hazardous waste incineration plants in Poland, therefore, the paper proposes the use of cement kiln for thermal treatment of such waste. Polish cement industry is interested in utilization of various wastes (e.g. in the capacity of alternative fuels) in the process connected with the cement clinker production in rotary kilns. High temperatures existing in cement kilns (ca. …

Struktura Emisji Związków Fluoru Z Hutnictwa Żelaza Na Przykładzie Huty Katowice, Marian Mazur, Robert Oleniacz, Marek Bogacki

Robert Oleniacz

As recently as a dozen or so years ago ferrous metallurgy was known as one of the biggest source of fluorine compound emissions to the atmosphere. Nevertheless production technology and raw material changes occurring in this industry cause continuous decreasing of their participation in the total fluorine emission. On the ground of investigations that have been carried out in the Katowice Steelworks (Poland) in the last few years, participation of particular technological processing in the water-soluble fluorine compound emissions (which are regarded as toxic) were presented in the paper, as well as a position of fuel combustion process (that take …

Analiza Możliwości Likwidacji Stref Ochronnych Wokół Wybranych Zakładów Przemysłu Hutniczego I Koksochemicznego, Marian Mazur, Robert Oleniacz, Marek Bogacki

Robert Oleniacz

Polish industrial plants with protective zones delimited in the past, have been faced with the necessity to liquidation of these zones before 2005. At the same time the plants must not cause any harmful influence over environment outside the area which they have title deed to. Determination of the current range of this impact is very important due to the high costs of a possible purchase of land exposed to the harmful effects. The study analyzes the possibility of verifying the course of borders two existing protective zones: around Katowice Steelworks and Coking Plant "Przyjaźń" in Dąbrowa Górnicza (the first …

Can We Protect Agricultural Land And The Scenic Rural Landscape? The Spatial Effects Of Three Land Protection Strategies In The Eastern United States, Elizabeth Brabec, Chip Smith

Elizabeth Brabec

In order to assess the efficacy of the three most common types of agricultural land conservation in the United States, this study analyzes the spatial and visual quality of a purchase of development rights program and two regulatory programs — cluster and the transfer of development rights. The study compares the effectiveness of programs that have been in place for periods of 6 to 18 years, surveying three different communities in the urban fringe: 1. the transfer of development rights program in Montgomery County, Maryland, in effect since 1981, 2. Riverhead, New York’s farmland development rights acquisition program, administered by …

Fragmentation, Impervious Surfaces And Water Quality: Quantifying The Effects Of Density And Spatial Arrangement, Elizabeth Brabec, Paul Richards, Stacey Schulte

Elizabeth Brabec

Impervious surfaces have for many years been recognized as an indicator of the intensity of the urban environment and, with the advent of urban sprawl, they have become a key issue in habitat health. In addition to the direct impacts to water quality, impervious surfaces fragment open space and habitat and are therefore a primary land use indicator of both water quality and ecological degradation. This paper develops an understanding of the land use planning implications of the interaction of impervious surfaces, water quality and the spatial form those surfaces take in a watershed. In order to clarify these relationships, …

Technologia Ciągłego Odlewania Stali I Jej Wpływ Na Ograniczenie Emisji Zanieczyszczeń Z Procesów Hutniczych, Marian Mazur, Marek Bogacki, Robert Oleniacz, Agnieszka Łopata, Anita Niedojadło

Robert Oleniacz

The paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the impact of continuous casting of steel technology on air pollutant emissions in one of the Polish steelworks - Huta Katowice S.A. in Dąbrowa Górnicza. Emission sources occurring in the production process and the levels of pollutant emissions into the air were described. Implementation of continuous casting of steel brought significant changes in the production cycle in steelworks and caused an increase in the efficiency of manufacture of products. Calculated environmental effects showed a significant reduction of all pollutant emissions in the whole plant.

English title: Technology of continuous casting of steel and …

Spopielanie Odpadów Medycznych W Systemie Purotherm-Pyrolise – Zmienność Składu Spalin I Emisji Zanieczyszczeń W Cyklu Załadowczym, Robert Oleniacz, Marian Mazur, Marek Bogacki

Robert Oleniacz

The paper presents selected effects of the cyclical nature of the two-stage process of medical waste incineration on the variation of concentrations of basic constituents and selected gaseous pollutants (NOx, CO, SO2, H2S and HCl) in flue gas discharged from the process. The study included the installation working in the Purotherm-Pyrolise system (waste gasification and gas afterburning) with actual yields of 100-150 kg/h. The phases of the process varied in dynamic and direction changes of the flue-gas composition and the levels of air pollutant emissions were separated and described for these phases. They can be very important for the organization …

A Buried Spruce Forest Provides Evidence At The Stand And Landscape Scale For The Effects Of Environment On Vegetation At The Pleistocene/Holocene Boundary, Douglas D. Stokke

Douglas D. Stokke

Due to a unique set of circumstances, we were able to excavate an entire spruce (Picea) forest in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, USA, which was buried in the early Holocene (9928 ± 133 uncalibrated 14C years bp). Trees ranged from < 5 cm to > 50 cm in diameter, and dominants were approximately 9 m tall. The stand was multi-aged, with a maximum tree age of 145 years. Well-preserved stem cross-sections (n = 140) were recovered and the entire stand was mapped. Stand reconstruction combined with pollen and sediment analysis revealed a pure spruce forest in the sandy lowlands surrounded by hills dominated by pine, oak …

Toward An Ecosystem Approach To Remediation In The Great Basin, Ted K. Raab

Ted K. Raab

We consider the web of interactions among geologic materials, soils, plants, and animals to ask, "If mining or other extractive energy technologies occur in desert regions, what do we need to know to return the land to productivity?" The Great Basin represents a formidable challenge in this regard, as winters in these cold deserts and seasonal lack of moisture during parts of the year severely constrain the growing season for vegetation. Due to the nature of current or proposed mining activities in this region, we have chosen to concentrate on two potential pollutants: the trace element selenium (Se) and nitrate …

A Computationally Based Identification Algorithm For Estrogen Receptor Ligands: Part 2. Evaluation Of A Herα Binding Affinity Model, Steven P. Bradbury, O. G. Mekenyan, V. Kamenska, P. K. Schmieder, G. T. Ankley

Steven P. Bradbury

The objective of this study was to evaluate the capability of an expert system described in the previous paper (S. Bradbury et al., Toxicol. Sci. 58, 253–269) to identify the potential for chemicals to act as ligands of mammalian estrogen receptors (ERs). The basis of the expert system was a structure activity relationship (SAR) model, based on relative binding affinity (RBA) values for steroidal and nonsteroidal chemicals derived from human ERa (hERa) competitive binding assays. The expert system enables categorization of chemicals into (RBA ranges of < 0.1, 0.1 to 1, 1 to 10, 10 to 100, and >150% relative to 17b-estradiol. In the current analysis, the algorithm was evaluated with respect …

A Computationally Based Identification Algorithm For Estrogen Receptor Ligands: Part 1. Predicting Herα Binding Affinity, Steven P. Bradbury, V. Kamenska, P. Schmieder, G. Ankley, O. Mekenyan

Steven P. Bradbury

The common reactivity pattern (COREPA) approach is a 3-dimensional, quantitative structure activity relationship (3-D QSAR) technique that permits identification and quantification of specific global and local stereoelectronic characteristics associated with a chemical’s biological activity. It goes beyond conventional 3-D QSAR approaches by incorporating dynamic chemical conformational flexibility in ligand-receptor interactions. The approach provides flexibility in screening chemical data sets in that it helps establish criteria for identifying false positives and false negatives, and is not dependent upon a predetermined and specified toxicophore or an alignment of conformers to a lead compound. The algorithm was recently used to screen chemical data …

Overview Of Transportation Impacts On Wildlife Movement And Populations, Scott D. Jackson

Scott D. Jackson

As long linear features on the landscape, railways, roads and highways have impacts on wildlife and wildlife habitat that are disproportionate to the area of land that they occupy. In addition to impacts on habitat, highways and railways are sources of road mortality that threaten wildlife populations. Indirect effects on wildlife include reduced access to habitat due to road avoidance and human exploitation. Transportation infrastructure also undermines ecological processes through the fragmentation of wildlife populations, restriction of wildlife movements, and the disruption of gene flow and metapopulation dynamics. A variety of techniques have been used to mitigate the impacts of …

A Strategy For Mitigating Highway Impacts On Wildlife, Scott D. Jackson, C. R. Griffin

Scott D. Jackson

Animal passage systems can be designed to facilitate movement of certain wildlife species across highways. Where the conservation of a particular species or group of species is concerned, specifically designed mitigation has proven successful for a number of species. However, the effectiveness of highway mitigation systems has not been evaluated with respect to the vast majority of wildlife. It is probable that some species do not require specific design features while others will require careful attention to factors such as placement, size, substrate, noise, temperature, light and moisture. In areas where road and highway density is high, conservation of particular …

Soil Gas Transport Above A Jet Fuel/Solvent Spill At Plattsburgh Air Force Base, David Ostendorf, Alan J. Lutenegger, Shawn P. Kelley, Erich S. Hinlein

David Ostendorf

We calibrate a stoichiometrically coupled soil gas diffusion model with spatially resolved observations of oxygen, carbon dioxide, total hydrocarbon, and trichloroethylene vapor concentrations in the unsaturated zone above a weathered jet fuel/solvent spill at Plattsburgh Air Force Base in upstate New York. The calibration suggests that aerobic microorganisms in the capillary fringe degrade jet fuel vapor at a steady rate of 9.5 μg hydrocarbons (m−2 s−1). The solvent does not degrade in the fringe, however, and the model and data estimate a steady evaporation rate of 1.2×10−2 μg TCE (m−2 s−1). Barometric pumping slightly alters the steady concentration profile at …

Behavior And Passage Of Silver-Phase American Eels, Anguilla Rostrata (Lesueur), At A Small Hydroelectric Facility, Alex Haro, Ted Castro-Santos, Jacques Boubee

Alexander Haro

Downstream migrant eels were monitored near a small (51 MW) hydroelectric facility on the Connecticut River (Massachusetts, USA) for two seasons using acoustic and radio telemetry. Eels frequently made several attempts over periods of one to several days to pass the station. Diel activity of eels was variable, although most movements occurred at night. Eels occupied a variety of depths in the forebay area, but spent the greater proportion of time at or near the bottom (10 m), occasionally venturing to the surface. Horizontal movements usually spanned across the entire width of the forebay. There was no significant relationship between …

New Isotopic Evidence For Chronic Lead Contamination In The San Francisco Bay Estuary System: Implications For The Persistence Of Past Industrial Lead Emissions In The Biosphere, Douglas J. Steding, Charles E. Dunlap, A. Russell Flegal

Charles Dunlap

Measurements of lead isotope compositions in unfiltered San Francisco Bay waters from 1989 to 1998 have brought new insights into the cycling of anthropogenic lead in estuaries. Isotopic com- positions of lead in the shallow (<2 m) southern reach were essentially invariant (~90% derived from 1960s–1970s leaded gasoline) during the study period because of limited hydraulic flushing and the remobilization of lead from bottom sediments. In contrast, in the northern reach freshwater flushing from the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers produced seasonal and decadal variations in lead isotope compositions. The seasonal shifts are attributed to advection of soils containing late 1980s gasoline lead into the bay during winter rains. Mass balance calculations indicate that only a small fraction (1–10%) of this leaded gasoline fallout from the late 1980s has been washed out of the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers’ drainage basin by 1995. Superimposed on this seasonal cycling was a long-term systematic shift in the component of gasoline lead expressed in the river systems, with a small (~5–10%) decrease in the amount of 1960s–1970s gasoline lead in river and North Bay waters. The retention of gasoline lead in the river systems draining into the bay as well as San Francisco Bay sediments indicates that historic gasoline deposits may remain in the combined riparian/estuarine system for decades. Such a persistence is in contraindication to recent reports of rapid (annual) decreases in lead contamination in other environments, and the link between climate and contaminant transport suggests local or global climate change will have an impact on contaminant distribution and fate.

Past Leaded Gasoline Emissions As A Nonpoint Source Tracer In Riparian Systems: A Study Of River Inputs To San Francisco Bay, Charles E. Dunlap, Robin Bouse, A. Russell Flegal

Charles Dunlap

Variations in the isotopic composition of lead in 1995- 1998 river waters flowing into San Francisco Bay trace the washout of lead deposited in the drainage basin from leaded gasoline combustion. At the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers where they enter the Bay, the isotopic compositions of lead in the waters define a linear trend away from the measured historical compositions of leaded gas in California. The river waters are shifted away from leaded gasoline values and toward an isotopic composition similar to Sierra Nevadan inputs which became the predominant source of sedimentation in San Francisco Bay …