Category: Kenneth Brown
Legislation May Spur More Cell Phone Recycling
WASHINGTON, Dec. 13, – Many Americans have a partner they spend most of the day with. The partner helps them take care of business, coordinate plans and keep tabs on their kids. But despite this communication companion’s loyal service, most Americans bury it in the closet after about a year and a half, only to make a more sophisticated acquaintance.
Cell phones have seemingly become a necessity in today’s society. Wireless subscribers in the United States have climbed from 350,000 in 1985 to almost 175 million.
The number of subscribers, combined with the short life of the phones, means that almost 130 million phones are retired annually in this country. Although some of these phones end up in the trash, which can create environmental hazards, most people choose to store them away, which has created a stockpile of some 500 million phones in the closets, drawers and basements of America, according Inform Inc., an environmental research organization.
Nearly all major wireless industry service providers and phone manufacturers have established voluntary end-of-life collection programs, ranging from mail-in to collection bins in their stores.
A common trend in industry collection programs, especially with service providers, is for proceeds from recycling and sales of refurbished phone to go to charities established by the companies. Two of the largest collection charities are Verizon’s HopeLine program benefiting victims of domestic abuse and Donate a Phone, operated by The Wireless Foundation, a non-profit industry organization working with most major wireless companies that raises funds for a variety of charities.
To a smaller extent, independent charities also collect phones.
In addition, independent phone recyclers such as Michigan-based ReCellular, the largest U.S. phone refurbisher and recycler, also accepts phone donations by mail.
ReCellular, which works with a majority of industry collection programs and charities, receives about half its phones for free from independent and wireless industry charity collections, with a portion of the profit from reselling or recycling the equipment returning to those charities, according to ReCellular marketing manager Mike Newman.
The other half are phones returned by customers to phone service providers and manufacturers. Newman said depending on quality, which varies widely, ReCellular will pay about $3 or $4 for a phone that can be refurbished and resold.
ReCellular sells the used phones for $7 to $8 to domestic retailers and service providers in Latin America.
Phones that can’t be refurbished and resold, which account for around 30 percent of phones that come in, are sold to companies that harvest them for raw materials and properly dispose of the waste. Cell phones contain some toxic plastics and metals, namely lead used in solder, that if dumped in a landfill can leach into ground water or release hazardous materials when burned.
The revenues generated from selling unusable equipment are usually offset by handling costs, and “we probably break even at best,” Newman said. And ReCellular usually has to pay to have some plastics and phone batteries recycled.
The reuse market is certainly the money maker for ReCellular and similar businesses, providing nearly all their profit. Last year ReCellular took in about 4 million phones and had revenue of more than $40 million.
ReCellular has been in business for 14 years, and Newman said incoming collections are expanding but still have great potential for growth: businesses like ReCellular currently collect only three to five percent of the phones retired a year. “It’s not a lot.. There are a lot of phones out there that nobody is collecting and nobody is recycling.”
Newman said he attributes this to lack of public awareness of phone collection programs. There are some 40,000 drop-off locations in the United States, and “you can recycle your phone without too much effort,” he said. “But you have to know that you can do it and you have to be motivated to do it, and that to me is the biggest hurdle right now.”
Wireless industry companies don’t mention their collection programs in their numerous advertisements. “They really haven’t broadly publicized it,” said Bette Fishbein, author of “Waste in the Wireless World” and senior fellow at Inform Inc., a non-profit research organization aimed at solving environmental problems.
“I see a real problem in voluntary programs.” Fishbein said. “You’ve got to have targets and you’ve got to have reporting and you’ve got to have some consequences if you don’t meet these targets.”
Fishbein also said that companies must be stakeholders in their products at the end of their useful lives. This will give the companies incentives to make a more easily recyclable product and ensure that it is collected.
Fishbein said the trend of wireless companies’ contributing the proceeds from recycling phones to charity is very unusual in the recycling business. “Why, if it’s profitable, they don’t take a lot more back isn’t 100 percent clear,” she said. Part of the reason may be because more phones may saturate the reuse market and decrease the value of used phones, she said.
Marcia Simon, a spokeswoman for Verizon’s New England region, said every Verizon store collects phones but the company doesn’t plan to get into for-profit recycling. “There are so many areas to focus on strategically when you’re looking at where you’re going to draw your profit from. I think [Verizon] is just focused on other areas.” Verizon Wireless has collected phones for charitable causes since the mid-1990s, and HopeLine and related recycling programs run by Verizon have collected more than 2 million used phones since 1995, netting $7.9 million in the last three years for victims of domestic abuse. The company’s collection program continues to grow as people slowly learn about it and more people upgrade to newer phones, Simon said.
Despite some criticism of the wireless industry on recycling issues, Newman said that “the industry is waking up to the need to take it more seriously.” Both he and Fishbein see European and domestic legislation as an engine driving more recycling.
The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive, drafted by the European Union, went into effect this fall. Producers of electronic equipment must finance the collection, treatment, recovery and disposal of electronic waste. The program will impose the requirements along a sliding scale, and by 2007 producers will have to meet strict targets for recycling electronic waste or face penalties.
Just because companies are required to take back products in Europe doesn’t mean they will voluntarily do it in the United States, Fishbein said. But the directive could influence legislation in this country, she said, probably first at the state level.
The Restriction of Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive, also established by the European Union, will require products made after July 2006 to be free of many hazardous substances, including lead, mercury and cadmium, that are found in cell phones.
“The RoHs Directive is probably going to impact how electronic equipment is made around the world,” Fishbein said. Phones and electronic equipment are designed to be sold in the global market, and producers don’t want to produce two types of products, she said.
The California Cell Phone Recycling Act, signed into law in late September, is the first of its kind in the United States. It requires cell phone merchants to establish collection systems for used phones.
A take-back law being just in California can make a difference, Fishbein said. If just three or four states pass legislation, the wireless industry will respond because it doesn’t want to deal with different laws in every state, she said.
“Over the past few years we have looked at different programs that may increase the number of cell phones that we are able to collect,” said Craig Liska, corporate director of the international environment, health and safety department at Motorola., a leading manufacturer of cell phones. While some of these programs have had mild success, Liska said, he is aware that most end-of-life phones do not make it to recyclers.
Motorola is experimenting with a new take-back program in which consumers can mail in old phones by printing a prepaid label found on Motorola’s Web site.
Liska said Motorola also has been active in refining phone design to reduce weight, incorporate environmental considerations and increase energy efficiency. In the late 1990s Motorola stopped using nickel-cadmium batteries, which pose an environmental risk because of their cadmium content.
“We are currently working on designing new products that will not contain lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium VI and brominated flame retardants that are being banned in Europe in 2006,” Liska said.
Motorola continues to look for opportunities to reduce the different types of plastics used in its products, said Juli Burda, a company spokeswoman. “By reducing the number of plastics, we may assist in the recyclers’ efforts to produce a cleaner grade of recyclable plastics,” she said.
What impact industry initiatives or legislation will have remains to be seen, but when more phones hit the reuse and recycling markets, Newman said, the infrastructure in this country is ready to process them. “We’ve handled huge spikes in collections before, and we have a very scalable operation. We’d love to get more phones.”
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Special Education Legislation Gets Reauthorized
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 - The research, drafting and negotiating process took more than three years, but an overhaul of the legislation governing the education of disabled students seems headed for approval in the extended session of Congress.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ensures disabled students receive a free education with an emphasis placed on including disabled students in class with non-disabled students as much as possible.
The House passed a reauthorization of the bill in April of 2003 and the Senate passed its version in May 2004. A joint Senate and House conference committee this week approved a compromise version, and it is expected to be approved by Congress and signed by President Bush, said Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
Both sides in the conference committee praised the bipartisan compromise efforts to allow the bill to reach its final stages.
"None of out differences are insurmountable, and the consequences of not getting a bill done this year are far greater than the challenge of compromising with another," said Boehner.
The bill is modeled after the No Child Left Behind Act in that it tries to focus on results rather than process. Sen. Judd Gregg, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, noted that the bill has five themes. It seeks to improve the scholastic results of properly identified disabled students, reform the way disabled students are disciplined, reduce the number of lawsuits brought by their parents, require their teachers to be "highly qualified" and reduce the paperwork load for those instructors, and reform federal funding for disabled student education.
"We've gone from an input exercise to ultimately an output exercise, where we're looking at what the results are," Gregg said. The bill is aimed at students achieving academic goals, instead of getting sidetracked by bureaucratic requirements, resulting in students falling behind. It also seeks to change the way schools evaluate students so as to more accurately identify those with special needs.
The bill also revised the disciplinary rules for those students, making guidelines slightly more lenient: Administrators will be able to discipline disabled students using the same methods as non-disabled students, unless the student's disability is a factor in the behavior. Gregg said the bill is "sensitive to that child's handicap, but also recognizes that child must function in a classroom of other children."
Thirdly, the bill is designed to reduce litigation by creating a better communication network between parents and schools, so disputes can have constructive outcomes, rather than lawsuits.
The bill will require special education teachers to be "highly qualified" as defined by the No Child Left Behind Act in each subject they teach. It also "recognizes that special education teachers face two and a half times the paperwork burden as other teachers, by allowing 15 states to test new ways of giving teachers more time with students and less with needless paper work," said Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.).
Lastly, funding has been set on a six-year path to reach a goal of 40 percent national average federal funding for the total costs of educating students with special needs. The law stipulates, however, that that money be used for the extra cost of educating these students, not to defray their regular educational costs. Currently, the federal government contributes roughly 18-19 percent, according to congressional officials, though that figure varies state by state. Last year federal education grants to states totaled $10.1 billion and this year the House has proposed an additional $1 billion, according to the House Education and Workforce Committee.
Additionally, the bill will add programs to connect students with technologies to make them more independent after they graduate.
"Five years after they complete their special education programs, more than half of those with disabilities still are not working or involved in continuing education," said Kennedy. "We owe it to them .to provide the training and support they need to lead independent lives."
Although he has not reviewed the language in the new bill, George Dowaliby, chief of the Connecticut Bureau of Special Education, said guidelines for student achievement and student discipline won't change that much.
Dowaliby said he is concerned about the bill's language on federal funding.
He said the funding promise to achieve 40 percent federal funding, appears to be more "concrete language" than before, and an improvement. But, he said, while Washington politicians claim states currently receive 18 to 19 percent federal funding for special education, Connecticut receives much less, receiving around eight percent. "The percentage in Connecticut is lower primarily because it costs more to do business here," he said.
Even under the new law Connecticut's share would likely end up around 20 percent rather than 40 percent, Dowaliby said. He said he would like to see the system refined to more equitably distribute funds to states, so benefits would be more even.
Also a concern for Dowaliby is the funding formula under the new bill which, he said, could give local school systems more money and the state system less money.
WWII Vets Finally Have National Memorial for Veteran’s Day
WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 - The Vietnam Memorial has been in Washington since the early 1980s, only a decade after the conflict ended. In contrast, veterans of World War II have seen 60 years go by before their efforts were memorialized this spring on the National Mall.
Dominic Romano, quartermaster of the Connecticut State Veterans of Foreign Wars, said a main reason why a national memorial wasn't established faster "was when the World War II veterans came home, they just settled down and raised a family and they never gave any thought to a memorial."
Only after the Vietnam Memorial went up it 1982 and then the Korean Memorial in 1995, did veterans really become aware that Washington was lacking a World War II Memorial, said Romano, who served with the Navy in the Pacific.
Romano, of Oakville, gives credit to U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) for spearheading the memorial effort. He recalls her coming to one of their national meetings some 10 years ago. "She was heart broken about" there not being a World War II memorial, Romano said.
He also credits President Bush for helping deal with opposition to the memorial, which was concerned that the memorial would tarnish the view between the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial.
"We never would have had that memorial if it wasn't for President Bush," Romano said.
"People of the World War II generation we have found typically tend not to want to draw a lot of attention to themselves," said Bill Line, spokesperson for the National Park Service, which operates the memorial.
After the war, when the soldiers returned they wanted to put the brutality of the war behind them and start families, said Line. They did not think it necessary then to create a memorial, because they thought the war effort was something they were glad to do and merely a duty required of them.
In contrast, the time after the Vietnam War was very different, which led to a faster establishment of the Vietnam Wall, Line said.
"While the Vietnam Vets Memorial is certainly a memorial to those who died in Vietnam, it is largely an area people go to heal themselves," said Line.
"WWII is much more a celebratory and commemorative memorial," Line said.
According to Mike Conley, spokesman for the American Battle Monuments Commission, which provided federal oversight on the memorial, the push for a national World War II Memorial began with a veteran named Roger Durban. In 1987, Durban was at a fish fry in Ohio with his congresswoman, Rep. Kaptur, when he asked why there wasn't a World War II memorial in Washington. In response to Durban's query, Kaptur returned to Washington and introduced a bill later that year to create a memorial..
The legislation authorizing the World War II Memorial in Washington was signed into law in 1993 by President Bill Clinton. In 1995 a site around the Rainbow Pool between the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial was approved.
In 1996 there was a national design competition in which Frederich St. Florian, a Providence, R.I., based architect, was chosen to design the memorial. Several modifications were made to St. Florian's original design, which is a normal part of the design approval process, according to Conley.
"What changed is that his original design had two semi-circular large earthen berms on the north and south sides of the plaza, and over time that evolved into the two pavilions and 56 pillars that now compose the design," said Conley
The original design elements that remained were a lowered plaza incorporating the existing Rainbow Pool and the orientation of the tallest features facing north and south, and not obstructing the east-west view between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, which was a project requirement, Conley said.
The memorial, which opened to the public April 29, 2004 and was dedicated on May 29, 2004, has a recessed oval shaped plaza, facing east to west, surrounding an oval shaped Rainbow Fountain with water spouting at both ends. The oval-shaped plaza is bordered on each side by 56 pillars, connected by a bronze rope, each inscribed with a U.S. state or territory. At each end of the oval, ramps lead up to two pavilions, one for the Pacific and one for the Atlantic. On the west side of the oval sits an arcing blue wall with a field of gold stars, with the other side being open as the main entrance.
During the war, Line said "there was unprecedented unity in the country; everyone came together to defeat tyranny and oppression." He said the unity theme is expressed through the oval shaped design, with the states and territories dotting its perimeter.
Line noted that the memorial is intended to pay tribute to the efforts of the entire World War II generation from troops in combat to Rosie the Riveter.
The memorial has been a very popular stop for visitors to Washington, Line said, and appeals to both Americans and foreigners, especially western Europeans and Japanese visitors. Although he couldn't provide visitor numbers, Line said that National Park Service in Washington receives an overwhelming amount of calls regarding the memorial.
Romano has made two trips to the memorial since its dedication, which he attended. "It was a thrill, one of the thrills of my lifetime," Romano said of the dedication.
He will stay in Connecticut this Veteran's Day, Romano said, but he plans another trip to Washington to see the World War II Memorial, which he describes simply as "electrifying."
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Local Duo Make Science Finals
By Kenneth Brown
COLLEGE PARK, MD., Oct. 28 - Chana Rich, 14 of Fairfield, recalls her parents reaction last fall when she told them she was studying phytoremediation. "What's that," they said.
The confused reaction was similar for the parents of Rich's science project partner Daniella Sinay. But according to Sinay, 14 of Trumball, after an explanation of the phytoremediation process, which uses the natural properties of plants to extract contaminants from the environment, "even my dad who is not the best in science really understood it and he was like 'that's really, really cool.'"
Their project, dubbed "Fight Back with Phytoremediation," would eventually earn them a spot as two of the 40 finalists at the Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge, held at the University of Maryland this week.
The two girls, who attended Hillel Academy in Fairfield last year and have since graduated to different high schools, said they learned about phytoremediation after reading in a chemistry magazine called Chem Matters , about another student who did an experiment with phytoremediation. "We basically expanded on that," said Rich.
According to Rich, who is spunky yet composed when talking science, they decided to apply their idea to cleaning up the local wetlands along the Mill River, a problem they had noticed from frequently passing by in the car.
The wetlands are contaminated by runoff from surrounding abandoned ammunition and battery factories, said Rich. "We were thinking, what can we do to get rid of all this disgusting land, because no one wants to pay to pick up and move all the soil."
Rich said using phytoremediation would be "a natural, cost efficient way to clean up contaminated soil."
To begin they went to the wetlands, took soil samples, placed them in small pots and then tested the soil for contaminants. Next soy, wheat, rye, and oat plants were planted in the pots. Then the waiting began. After four weeks the soil was tested to see how effective the plants were in absorbing the contaminants.
The first round of experiments worked, according to Rich, but the plants were slow to react, so they decided to try it again. "We wanted to see if there was something we could do to increase the speed and get the plants to take up more metal," said Rich.
To meet their need for speed, the two decided to add Ethylene Diamine Tetraacetic Acid, which comes in a powder form and was mixed into the soil. "It's kind of like a catalyst; like a steroid it helps the plant take up more metal," said Rich.
The powdered acid was effective, but it did have a side effect: it slowed plant growth.
The final results, Rich said, showed that "soy was the best." The soy plant was so effective in most cases it extracted almost 100 percent of the metal out of the soil, she said.
"There were a lot variables, a lot of pots," said Rich laughing. Approximately 40 pots were necessary to generate information consistent enough to arrive at a conclusion.
The duo received advice from Karen Howell, 58, science teacher at Hillel Academy. Howell, who has taught since 1986 at Hillel Academy, said she served mostly as "a mentor" and provided supervision on Sundays for several months last fall and winter, when the girls came to work on the project.
"They're both very bright girls," said Howell.
"She's the best," said Rich of Howell, who uses an effective hands-on approach to science. In addition, Howell always participates in class activities, which energizes the students to learn, said Sinay
"For whatever you are doing, you must have a passion for it yourself," said Howell. "I have a passion for science."
She said she hopes her passion and methods for illustrating how science can be applied to everyday life, sparks the curiosity of her students.
Apparently Howell has turned on a few minds, because her students have consistently placed and won the Connecticut State Science Fair. Her students also have been to the semifinals of the Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge, but never to the finals until this year.
Although Rich and Sinay didn't win the Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge, just becoming a finalist is quite an achievement, because Howell said the competition is highly regarded for middle school science competitions.
According to the Discovery Channel, the 40 finalists were chosen from 400 semi-finalists who were chosen from a pool of 1,795 formal entries, initially taken from a pool of 7,500 students who entered science fairs around the nation.
Getting into the finals gave students entrance into a exhilarating world of science this week at the University of Maryland basketball arena, which was filled with bright green lasers, animal skeletons and people whizzing around on Segway scooters. The 40 finalists competed in teams in such events as "skateboard physics," where students predicted g-forces on a speeding skater in a half-pipe using a high-speed digital camera. And there was a "laser obstacle course," where students guided a bright green laser through several obstacles using a series of mirrors.
For the competition, Rich and Sinay were on different teams because splitting the two friends up would allow them to meet new people, said Discovery Channel spokeswoman Katie Stack.
As for their joint "Fight Back with Phytoremediation" project that got them into the finals, Rich said to apply the project to the wetlands would require removing the contaminated plants after they extract contaminants, which would be another project in itself
Sinay said they want to pitch their idea to the military. After the military has used a piece of land for artillery practice-firing guns and dropping bombs on it-the land becomes contaminated, mostly with lead, according to Sinay.
"If they use this process to clean up those contaminated sites, it's going to save them a lot of money, and it's also going to be very natural, so someone can use that land afterwards," Sinay said.
Rich said no one has taken interest in their phytoremediation idea yet, but "we might want to write them a letter, a little proposal."
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Healthcare Industry Supports Johnson Campaign
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 - Health care-related political action committees as well as individuals in the field are playing a significant role in funding Rep. Nancy Johnson's (R-5) House campaign.
Johnson has raised $2 million for her campaign and has approximately $1.4 million still available, according to Federal Election Commission records analyzed by PoliticalMoneyLine, a non-partisan research group. More than half of Johnson's money-57 percent-came from political action committees. And among the political action committee money, 42 percent came from the health-care industry.
Johnson has been on the House Ways and Means Committee since 1988, and has been chairwoman of its health subcommittee since 2001.
"Because Nancy is a nationally recognized on health care, she receives backing from doctors, hospital officials, and others who support her work to make health care more affordable and accessible," said Ken Hiscoe, Johnson's campaign manager.
As a result, Hiscoe said, Johnson receives contributions from out-of-state political action committees and individuals. According to PoliticalMoneyLine, 47 percent of her individual contributions came from outside Connecticut.
"We've always seen Nancy Johnson as someone who's worked for consumers, who's worked for choices in health care and who is interested in providing the best health care options for American seniors and those under 65," said Mohit Ghose, spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, an association whose political action committee contributed the limit of $10,000 to Johnson's campaign.
Ghose cited the passage of the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act, which Johnson cosponsored that will provide senior citizens with prescription drug benefits, as a recent legislative accomplishment that his group supported.
"She's pushed that through for Connecticut seniors who do not have that access," Ghose said.
Medicare was also an important issue for Aetna Healthcare, whose political action committee also contributed $10,000 to Johnson's campaign. Aetna spokesperson Fred Laberge said the company's political action committee gave to Johnson because of her influential leadership in Congress and concern with health-care issues.
"We support her philosophy, essentially a free market system," said Laberge.
Additionally, he said, Aetna supports Johnson because they have more than 1,000 employees that live and work in her district.
Natural Gas Prices Not Seeing Short Term Relief
WASHINGTON, Oct, 8 -- With natural gas facing an increase in demand and unpredictable prices, and with winter approaching, the congressional Joint Economic Committee held a hearing this week to learn from energy experts how to stabilize the market.
"It is important that we address the problem of high natural gas prices as soon as possible," said committee chairman Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah). "The high prices act like a brake on the American economy impacting every business and household in America."
Since 1986, natural gas consumption has increased by 40 percent, a rate far higher than oil or coal, according to the Energy Information Administration. The price of natural gas also has risen sharply in recent years.
"A few years after prices were deregulated in the 1980s, the Congress passed laws that in effect encouraged its use to produce electricity, sharply increasing demand," Bennett said. Around the same time, production from wells began experiencing a decline in production and environmental restrictions made drilling new wells difficult. Bennett noted these historic changes have resulted in increased natural gas prices and then turned to the energy experts for answers.
According to Logan Magruder of the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States, gas consumers are paying excessive prices because of obstacles limiting the development of gas reserves in federally owned land, which he said is plentiful in the Rocky Mountains. Magruder said 99 percent of the natural gas consumed in the U.S. comes from North America-83 percent from the U.S. and 16 percent from Canada.
Magruder said 25 percent of domestic reserves are in the Rocky Mountains, but the region's potential is limited by the quality and timely access to public lands and an effective regulatory environment.
Wells in use in the lower 48 states have not produced an increase in production in a decade, when production peaked in 1994, said Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. As a result, he said, the United States has resorted to importing gas from Canada.
To alleviate the decline in supply in the future, Yergin proposes more exploration of new North American sites, especially in Alaska and the Canadian Arctic, combined with importing more liquid natural gas from overseas. Yergin said liquid natural gas provides three percent of supplies today, but by 2020, he projects it could be 25 to 30 percent.
According to Paul Sankey, energy analyst for Deutsche Bank, Exxon Mobil is leading the development of a major program to import liquid natural gas to the United States by 2009. Until then, high prices will continue, Sankey said.
To moderate gas prices in the short term, William Prindle of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy said energy efficiency must be improved. Improved efficiency also will help to stabilize the long-term gas market, according to Prindle.
To achieve this, Prindle recommends the federal government expand programs that provide public benefits for efficient energy use and give tax incentives for manufacturers of energy efficient products.
The Northeast, like the rest of the country, also is affected by high natural gas prices, but prices are further inflated in New England because of its location in relation to major reserves.
The cost of transporting gas from major reserves in the Southwest and Western Canada to New England is higher than it is to other parts of the country, according to Tom Kiley, president of the Northeast Gas Association.
Kiley said New England's current infrastructure used to transport gas is adequate, but will need to expand in the future to accommodate rising gas demand.
Connecticut's largest natural gas distribution company, Yankee Gas Company, expects to raise prices approximately 1.5 percent for October, said Mary Ingarra, company spokeswoman. The residential price for natural gas in Connecticut, according to an Energy Information Administration report, was $10.98 per thousand cubic foot in October 2001, $11.94 in October 2002 and $14.07 in October 2003.
Ingarra attributes the higher price of gas this year to high gas prices during summer, when the gas was purchased and moved into storage.
Despite the rising prices, demand has been steadily increasing, and Ingarra said, "We're constantly expanding and adding customers."
Yankee Gas Company serves 71 communities and recently added the towns of Prospect and East Lyme, two cities with no prior access to natural gas.
Historic Landmark Receives Federal Funding
WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 - Wethersfield's Joseph Webb House received a $150,000 grant this week from a federal program aimed at preserving national treasures, according to museum officials.
The program, called Save America's Treasures, awarded $14.5 million over all this week to help preserve historic sites across the nation, officials said.
"This is our third application to Save America's Treasures and we are delighted to say we were successful this year," said Jennifer Eifrig, director of the Webb-Dean-Stevens Museum where the property is located. She said they have sought funding since 2001, when engineers discovered the house's frame has not sufficiently supported the three and a half story house since it was built in 1752.
"The house is under-framed, there's not enough vertical support members in the original frame to hold up the weight of the three and a half stories," Eifrig said. She described the house as large for its time period, saying "the weight of the upper floors and the roof have been pressing down on the interior center hallway walls, forcing them to become load-bearing, and they were never meant to be ."
She added: "The frame itself should be holding up the house, not the wall partitions."
The walls, which show signs of buckling, contain some of the house's most important historical artifacts, she said, including the original 1760 British wool-flocked wallpaper on the walls of the room George Washington stayed in in 1781, and murals created by Wallace Nutting, who owned the house from 1916 to 1919.
To make the house more stable, Eifrig said they plan to install supports, probably made of steel, in some open spaces around the chimney. She said these areas, which resemble closets, provide the engineers access to the weak parts of the frame and will hide the new supports from public view.
In addition, Eifrig said they want to refurbish exhibit spaces, most notably the Revolutionary War spaces, where George Washington stayed in May 1781 when he met with French General Rochambeau to plan for what would become the last military episode of the Revolutionary War, the Yorktown campaign.
"The Webb House, I think, is a perfect example of what this program is about, in the sense that these are really unglamorous needs," said Kimber Craine, director of program initiatives for the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.
The Save America's Treasures program was created in 1998 as a public-private effort to protect America's cultural treasures. It receives federal funding that is then matched by donations from the private sector. In its first year, the program was able to fund 35 historic properties and 25 collections of artifacts, documents and artistic works.
Its grants are selected by a partnership among the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services and administered by the National Park Service. A panel of experts determines who receives the competitive grants by first determining if the project meets the "national significance" requirement and then deciding how badly the project needs the money.
Craine said the agencies that work on the program contribute a large number of experts who can best decide how to execute the historical preservation projects.
Although the Save America's Treasures grant will help, Eifrig said the museum will need approximately $750,000 total to get the Joseph Webb House up to its standards. "We are definitely hoping to use the federal grant to leverage private dollars," she said, noting that the prospect of a private funding-match is a condition of the federal grant. To date, Eifrig said, the museum has raised $500,000, including private funds, out of a hoped-for $6 million for the entire museum complex, of which the Joseph Webb House is the focal point.
Wethersfield Town Manager Bonnie Therrien said the grant to fix the Joseph Webb House is important in extending the historic property's longevity. "It certainly represents the historic nature of the town of Wethersfield, it's one of the original homes and it brings a lot of tourism as well as history into the town," she said.
Projected Lack of Funds for Energy Assistance Recipients
WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 - Low income Connecticut families will likely receive less energy assistance from the government this winter than last year, officials said, because of budget cuts, higher oil prices and other increased costs.
"We're trying to reach as many households, but the benefit level is less," said Matthew Barrett, spokesman for the Connecticut Department of Social Services. Barrett said, however, the financial situation won't become completely clear until around Jan. 1, but extra funding, which was received last year, isn't expected.
Approximately 66,000 households will qualify this winter for the Connecticut Energy Assistance Program, the same amount as last year, Barrett said. But based on current budget projections and increased oil prices, Barrett said it is unlikely the Contingency Heating Assistance Program, a feature of the Connecticut Energy Assistance Program, which last year provided benefits during tough winter conditions to an additional 14,000 households, will be available.
Deputy Commissioner Claudette Beaulieu told the Connecticut legislators on Sept. 21 that the state is expecting to receive $36.9 million in federal funding from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, giving the Connecticut Energy Assistance Program a budget of about $37.4 million this winter. Last year the program had an overall budget of $43.3 million. Unanticipated costs last year exhausted money that was planned to be carried over to this year, Beaulieu said. The end result, she said is a projected loss of about $5.9 million.
If additional money does become available this winter, it will be used to increase benefits to those in the Connecticut Energy Assistance Program, said Barrett.
If funding runs short, the state has agreed to use money from its general fund to support the present funding plan, Barrett said.
The federal appropriations bill containing funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program has not yet been passed through Congress. The House version, which includes an amendment to increase funding, has been passed, with the support of all five Connecticut representatives.
Rep. Nancy Johnson (R-Conn.), who voted in favor of the increase, hopes the Senate will follow the House's actions and push to increase funding for the program, her press secretary, Brian Schubert, said in a written statement.
Johnson believes Congress must continue increasing funding for the federal program "to ensure that families are not forced to choose between food or health care and heating their homes," Schubert said.
The Senate Appropriations Committee has approved its version of the bill, which provides a slight funding increase from last year but less money than the House version, and is now awaiting a vote.
Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), believes "there is no question that there is insufficient funding for LIHEAP," his press secretary, Holly Barnes, said in a written statement. Barnes said, "Sen. Dodd has fought for increases in the program ever since its inception in the 1980's."
She noted, however, that funding has recently failed to even keep pace with inflation, let alone grown. Another problem, she said, is that significantly raising funding would be difficult because the money would have to come from other federal programs.
Barrett added that the money from the energy assistance program is distributed according to population-related formulas and because Connecticut lost a congressional seat last year it will be harder to get as much money as in the past.
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Johnson and Walesa Talk Visa Requirements
WASHINGTON, Sept. 23- Lech Walesa expressed his support Wednesday morning for including Poland in a program that would allow its citizens to enter the United States without a visa.
"We are ashamed in Poland that the visa obstacle still exists," Walesa said in a meeting with Rep. Nancy Johnson (R-Conn.), whose legislation would include Poland in the Visa Waiver Program, which currently allows the citizens of 27 countries, mostly in Western Europe, to enter the United States.
"I think it is a matter of fairness and respect that we treat Poland like the rest of the NATO countries," said Johnson, whose district includes a sizable proportion of Polish-Americans.
Johnson introduced her bill in light of a high number of Polish visa requests being rejected. She argues that the rate is unnecessarily high because of State Department fears, which she believes are unwarranted, that visitors will overstay their visas. This particularly applies to young people, she said.
The two met in Johnson's Capitol Hill office to discuss Polish-American relations, international relations and how to strengthen Poland's case to enter the program. Johnson's bill is currently in a House subcommittee.
Walesa, the former Polish president, said Poles are ashamed the visa issue still exists. He said he cannot understand why two nations with such strong historic relations are separated by this issue.
To strengthen their case, Johnson asked Walesa to push to upgrade Poland's passport system so it will comply with impending U.S. regulations regarding machine-readable passports.
Walesa said he agrees with the new regulations, which he said provide necessary security. But he admits Poland lags in developing a system and said he would understand if Congress holds it against them.
"To any single objection raised to the amendment to the visa waiver program I could bring up at least 10 argumentations against," Walesa said.
Johnson introduced a non-binding congressional resolution in February to urge the State and Homeland Security Departments to include Poland in the waiver program.
"The vibes that were coming back is, this is a very big issue and that there's going to be a lot of opposition," Johnson said.
On March 11, she submitted her bill to designate Poland as a visa waiver country.
"A legislative initiative shows more determination to the administration," she said.
If the bill becomes law, Polish citizens will require only a passport to visit the United States for up to 90 days.
Johnson said she is optimistic the bill will pass but expects it will not be dealt with until the new Congress begins next year. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) has introduced a companion bill in the Senate.
Most major U.S. allies in Europe are included in the visa waiver program. A primncipal requirement for inclusion in the program is that fewer three percent of the country's citizens applying for non-immigrant visas be rejected. While Poland is over three percent, according to the State Department, Johnson said that "a lot of the recent data is skewed." Johnson's bill would override the prerequisite. A second requirement is reciprocal treatment of U.S. citizens, which Poland met in 1991, when it repealed its visa requirement for American visitors. Additionally, Poland must comply with the updated passport system.
"This is a very important issue to the Polish-American Community," said Andre Blaszczynski, President of the Polish American Foundation of Connecticut, in a phone interview. "You can go visit there and they treat you very well, they're very hospitable; the trouble is, it's not that easy to simply invite people back for a return visit."
He added: "A lot of visas are rejected, and I think to a large extent arbitrarily."
He said this issue upsets many Poles and Polish Americans because they feel the longstanding positive relations between the two countries should entitle Poland to treatment comparable to America's other European allies.
Blaszczynski said he hopes Johnson's and Walesa's meeting "will put some life into this effort."
