Daniel Salzler No. 1264
EnviroInsight.org Five Items July 26, 2024
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1.What’s The Greenest Way To Protect Outdoor Furniture? Turning the tables on toxic tips and brands.
Finding nontoxic outdoor furniture protection can be as tough as the sun, rain, and snow on that furniture. Outdoor furniture sold as “waterproof” or “stain resistant” is often coated with toxic PFAS or other chemicals unless it has a certificate proving it’s free of fluorine or a certificate from GOTS 7.0 (GLOBAL ORGANIC TEXTILE STANDARD) or higher. When PFAS-containing textiles are washed, PFAS gets in water and can contaminate drinking water. And low or zero-VOC products like wood finishes can have chemicals like ammonia (that “new paint smell” that bothers some people). The good news is you don’t need those chemicals to make sure your outdoor chairs, tables, and umbrellas last. or a certificate from GLOBAL ORGANIC TEXTILE STANDARD. When PFAS-containing textiles are washed, PFAS gets in water and can contaminate drinking water. And low or zero-VOC products like wood finishes can have chemicals like ammonia (that “new paint smell” that bothers some people). The good news is you don’t need those chemicals to make sure your outdoor chairs, tables, and umbrellas last.
Location location location!
The best location for outdoor furniture is in a cool, shaded, dry place like under a covered porch or shade sail, or behind curtains. The second best thing is to move dry furniture to a cool, dark, dry place when you’re not using it. If you can’t do that, here are options for covering furniture.
Weatherproof furniture covers
Luckily, there’s a new textile in town. Renegade Plastics waterproof tarps are tear- and UV-resistant without toxic PFAS, BPA, and PVC. They’re still made of new polypropylene plastic, but sometimes the least worst option is the only one available. At the end of the tarp’s life, mail it for free with its storage bag for Renegade to recycle it all.
Sunshade sails and curtains
Shade sails and curtains can block UV rays. The catch is many are made of new plastic. So I uncovered ones without new plastic.
Shade sails and curtains can block UV rays. The catch is many are made of new plastic. So I uncovered ones without new plastic.
Shade sails and curtains can block UV rays. The catch is many are made of new plastic. So I uncovered ones without new plastic.
Reclaimed sailboat sails are free, green-ish options. You can get them for free from local sail shops or buy them online, such as from Dvelas. Some are waterproof. So they might have PFAS unless they’re North Sails Skylte fabrics. If your sail wears out, Re-sails can repurpose it into all kinds of products.
If you can splurge and just want to shade your furniture, the only all-natural curtains and shade sails I could find are made of jute or coconut fiber. The most affordable ones that ship to the USA are from La Scouritinerie. When you’re not using them, store them in a cool, dry place. At the end of their life, put them on soil to limit evaporation.
If those options don’t work for you, try ShadeSails, the only company I found that uses recycled plastic. Its website doesn’t say if it’s all post-consumer recycled plastic though.
Protect wood furniture
First, prevent wood from rotting and breaking off. Keep the feet of the furniture dry. For example, if you need to put furniture on grass, put its legs on top of stone slabs.
Here’s how to tell if you need to refinish wood furniture. If wood is soft, spongy, cracked, or crumbly, it might have wood rot. So you might need to hire a professional. If painted wood flakes or looks worn, repaint it. If you put a drop of water on unpainted wood and water absorbs instead of forming a bead, reoil, restain, or reseal it.
If you need to repaint or reoil, the greenest options I could find are by Bioshield, one of the few companies that discloses all ingredients. Those products are zero-VOC without ammonia. Before repainting or reoiling, here are less-toxic prep methods. “If wood is gray, your best bet might be to sand it,” Peter Colburn, “resident geek” at Bioshield, told me. “For mildew and mold, use hydrogen peroxide.” To clean dirt off sealed wood, mix equal parts of white vinegar and water per these directions.
Reoil with Bioshield Koloranti Furniture Oil for teak (and other hardwood and boat decks). It’s not intended for soft wood, such as cedar, fir, hemlock, pine, spruce, or yew. It’s made of flax (linseed) oil. “It doesn’t have polyurethane. Polyurethane doesn’t let wood breathe. Wood needs to breathe to prevent deterioration, flaking, or peeling,” Colburn said. After you prepped the wood, apply the oil, including under the feet. Two to three coats can last at least several years, according to Colburn. To repaint, try Bioshield Interior/Exterior Trim and Furniture Paint.
Any oil can combust and start a fire. Here’s what to do after oil gets on rags, steel wool, paper, cardboard, sanding dust, and other soaked waste. Put all that in a sealed, water-filled metal container. Then spread out and dry oil-soaked materials in open air. Contact your waste management agency for safe disposal.
If you can’t try tips above, ask a green exterior wood preserving and maintenance company to do that. Or at least ask them to roll and brush wood treatments because aerosol sprays require lots of plastic to protect windows and plants. source: Sierra Club July 21, 2024
2. U.S.B bureau Of Reclamation Begins Experimental Water Releases To control Smallmouth Bass In Grand Canyon. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has begun water releases from Glen Canyon Dam to cool the temperature of the Colorado River and slow the reproduction of an unwanted fish. The exotic and predatory smallmouth bass poses a threat to
native species like the threatened humpback chub. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny spoke with Reclamation’s Bill Stewart about the experimental program.
So how often do you anticipate having to do these cool water releases?
native species like the threatened humpback chub. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny spoke with Reclamation’s Bill Stewart about the experimental program.
So how often do you anticipate having to do these cool water releases?
We’re in the really early phases of the implementation…and we anticipate\ intermittently continuing flows are needed to maintain that daily average water temperature below that target of 15.5 degrees Celsius. We’re doing this at locations where we know or suspect smallmouth bass to reside below the dam
How are you going to find out if it’s successful?
We’re working closely with our partners to monitor and evaluate these flows, particularly with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, also the U.S. Geological Survey, to monitor the populations of warm water nonnative predatory fish like the smallmouth bass in the river below the dam.
What does that involve? Fish counts—you have to go scoop them up and count them?
A whole suite of methods—so yeah, we set nets, there’s electrofishing that goes on, we can use genetic techniques…. We can actually use the age of fish to understand dates of when they hatch. There’s a lot of different techniques that are being used to assess the effectiveness of these flows.
Do you have a sense of how—are you going to be able to figure out pretty quickly if it’s working, or is it going to take a year or two to understand?
It’ll take a little while to understand. There are aspects of this that we’ll learn pretty quickly. The flows are now going. Are we going to see spawning this year? We don’t know. We haven’t seen young of year yet. …. The other thing, is, when you keep the water cold, bass do not grow as fast when it’s cold, and sometimes have a difficult time overwintering into the next year. So we’re also looking at a longer term: do we see a year class that were born in 2024 surviving into 2025? So this will be short and long observations to tell us whether this is working or not.
What are other solutions to this problem of the smallmouth bass are being considered for the future?
Reclamation continues to work with its partners to develop and implement additional preventative actions to combat nonnative species in the Colorado River. It includes supporting the National Park Service in chemical and mechanical treatments, possible modifications to a shallow slough area that is a known prime spawning location for smallmouth bass and other invasive predatory fish. And we’re also considering other methods for preventing or limiting future passage of fish through the dam from Lake Powell.
Is the barrier to doing some kind of physical barrier primarily cost, or is it that this technology is new and we don’t really know how to do it?
I think it’s a combination of really understanding the efficacy…. You know, it’s a unique place, Lake Powell and the forebay above the dam, and so we want to make sure that what we’re putting in there is going to work, should we decide to do something along those lines. So that’s kind of where we’re at. We’re looking at these different options and seeing what’s going to be effective. Source: KNAU
3. Yavapai County Candidates Tap Into Voters At Water Forum. The Citizens Water Advocacy Group, a nonprofit advocating water conservation, held an online joint forum for the Yavapai County supervisor District 2 and 3 candidates on Friday, June 28.
“The purpose of these forums is to put water issues into the electoral dialogue,” event moderator Gary Beverly subsequently said. “I think we’ve got the strongest group of candidates that I’ve ever seen running. So I’m optimistic that the new board … will do a better job with water resource planning.”
Water Protection
“For the first time ever, we’ve been able to form a coalition with three other counties to develop a rural county coalition to address the disequities that we face in rural Arizona regarding water protection,” Michaels said. “In fact, we started out with [the] board unanimously approving a proclamation or simply a request to our governor to ‘please don’t forget that water security is essential for all of our rural counties.’”
- Michaels also cited her opposition for Senate Bill 1221, which did not make it out of the state House of Representatives, and would have created basin management areas to restrict private water use. Gregory also voiced support against the bill.
Beverley said CWAG viewed SB 1221 as a poor bill that was in the interests of big agriculture and had lobbied against it, although “we didn’t have an official position written out.”
Check voiced support for reforming the Yavapai County Water Advisory Committee, which was dissolved in 2014 but had been intended to create a sustainable regional water plan.
“What’s essential is that we start to distill our[water] conflicts into places of consensus,” Check said. “It’s a difficult process. But if we don’t do it, water policy is going to be coming from above. And we really want it to be coming from our rural voices.”
Drake focused on the need to coordinate water efforts with the Arizona Department of Water Resources and said that she would not be in favor of creating an additional department inYavapai County.
Instead, she called for working “together to create a better conservation and efficiencies for our community.”
Regional Goals
Candidates were asked what the goals of regional water planning should be, whether those plans should include ground and surface water regulation and the role of non-governmental organizations in the planning process.
Michaels and Gregory said that they would prefer that state legislation prioritize groundwater conservation, whereas Check stated that there should be three main goals:
ㅁ Ensuring that the Verde River remains perennial.
ㅁ Securing the “water future” for ground and surface water for users.
ㅁ Continuing the role of agriculture in the county.
The Republican candidates called for a unified management plan for the county as a whole because the Verde River flows on both sides of Mingus Mountain, while Michaels preferred separate regional plans in order to consider the population differences and differences in usage between the Verde Valley and Prescott. Check did not state a preference.
Water Management Planner
“The new comprehensive plan recommends a County Water Advisory Committee, a new full-time employee planner focused on water management, a public process, a water conservation program and coordination with flood control,” Beverly said and proceeded to ask the candidates if they support those recommendations.
“I am not necessarily for having a new employee at this time,” Drake said, while both Democrats voiced support for a new employee.
“I think we have now reached the level where planning should have a designated person who has depth of expertise in helping us move through an application process with the best possible Information before we make a decision,” Michaels said.
Developer Incentives
All of the candidates said that they would support looking into incentives for future developers to use drought-tolerant landscaping in their projects.
“The base flow of the Verde River is sharply declining every year since 1996,” Beverly said. “This is the result of a combination of groundwater pumping and increased temperatures associated with climate change. Declining flows have changed the aquatic habitat such that U.S. Forest Service scientists now suggest that the upper river is no longer prime native fish habitat. This is a significant loss to one of the best remaining native fisheries in Arizona … What can the county do to sustain and restore water flow in the Verde River?”
Drake replied that the county “can encourage conservation and recharge efforts in and around the Verde,” but did not provide examples.
“We absolutely have to get the education ramped up in a way that’s palatable for people to accept that our new way of living in arid environments is to have self-imposed conservation expectations,” Michaels said. “I do see a way forward for mandatory conservation expectations, in some not too distant [future] hopefully water legislation … I think the county should be the lead of that … We should all expect that the county would want to work with NGOs and others to incentivize others to restore flow despite the climate challenges that we are facing.”
Check stated that her priority would be to focus on the Upper Verde River because it was the most vulnerable.
“ I think directly the county should be supportive [and] involved in making a plan to reduce development in the Big Chino Aquifer,” Check said. “Hydrologically, there is more information that’s needed and how to best do that. But working with NGOs, and putting together a conservation plan, and codifying it in a new zoning ordinance is going to be the best teeth that we can put out there to ensure that [the] Upper Verde continues flowing.” Source: Sedona Red Rock News July 22, 2024
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