Gizmorama - September 25, 2013

Good Morning,

Hurricane Katrina was bad enough, but now it appears that the natural disaster may be linked to a brain-eating organism that has been discovered in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. Scary, right?

Learn about this and other interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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*-- Ireland connects first community-owned wind farm to grid --*
NENAGH, Ireland - Ireland's first community-owned wind farm was connected to the grid this week in County Tipperary, bringing praise from Irish Energy Minister Pat Rabbitte. The Templederry Community Wind Farm, which was first envisioned in 1999, Monday began producing green electricity and selling it into the national grid system operated by EirGrid. It produces about 15 gigawatt-hours of power per year, sufficient for 3,500 homes in the city of Nenagh. Common in Germany and Denmark, community-owned wind farms are rare elsewhere in Europe, and Rabbitte said the Templederry effort could help set an example for the idea Ireland and elsewhere. "I commend the local community here in Templederry for their initiative and resolve in successfully establishing Ireland's first community-owned wind farm," he said. "Developed and owned by ordinary members of the local community, this enterprise is already streaming benefits in the form of dividends into the local community." The project, he said, "demonstrates the potential of local communities to harness their own local resources for their own benefit as well as contributing to important national goals -- Ireland has signed up to demanding commitments at EU-level and beyond as to the use of green energy in our overall energy mix." The Templederry project, he added, is "a template for the future and I fully expect to see many more of these community-led projects, where local people seize the initiative in powering Ireland for the 21st century." The project has 32 community shareholders from all walks of life, including a parish priest, its backers say. Tipperary Energy Agency Chief Executive Paul Kenny said the wind farm's long gestation process shows such projects aren't easy to get off the ground, the Tipperary Star reported. "Developing wind farms is a real challenge for any small organization," he said. "Costly studies and consultants are often a barrier to communities and farmers. A new model like Templederry is needed. "In Denmark and Germany most wind farms have an aspect of community ownership. Even if it is only 10 percent, it is still vital. The key challenge in Ireland is to engage communities in ownership or co ownership of wind developments." The wind farm boasts a pair of 2.3-megawatt turbines built by Germany's Enercon atop 210-foot steel towers. Besides erecting the tower and installing the machine, Enercon says it was also in charge of managing the foundation work as well as part of the electrical installation of the project. Since the Templederry project was handed over to the local agency in December, it has already achieved an excellent yield in the first few months of operation due to the "outstanding wind conditions" at the site. The Tipperary site is rated Class I, meaning turbines installed there should be able to withstand annual gusts of 115 mph and 50-year gusts of 154 mph. Robin Borgert, Enercon's regional manager for Northern Europe, said the company hopes the wind farm will serve as a "launching pad for other projects of this kind. "This community-owned wind farm could be a trailblazer for Ireland," he said.


*-- Katrina link to brain-eating amoeba found in parish water discussed --*
NEW ORLEANS - Hurricane Katrina may be linked to a brain-eating organism in the waters in St. Bernard Parish, La., that has caused two deaths in three years, officials said. While stressing the link to Katrina remains "speculative," Jake Causey, who oversees safe drinking water for Louisiana, said the population accessing St. Bernard's water supply was reduced after Katrina, which could have resulted in a degradation of the water supply, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune reported Wednesday. "Certainly immediately post-Katrina, the St. Bernard population was greatly reduced, and to have a water system designed to provide water to that many people and then you lose half of them, part of the concern would be, just from a water quality perspective, that the water would just be sitting in the pipes, aging, and you could have a deterioration of the water quality," Causey said. Causey emphasized any discussion about a Katrina link was "speculative and would need to be proven." Chlorine kills the brain-eating amoeba found recently in the parish water system, officials said. In four areas where the Centers for Disease Control recently found the amoeba, no detectable traces of chloramine the parish uses to disinfect the water were found. Nearly 80 percent of St. Bernard's housing units sustained damage from storm surge and levee breaches, resulting in its population plummeting by 47 percent from its 2000 U.S. Census figure of 67,229. About 65,000 homes or businesses were using the water before Katrina. The number now is about 44,000, Causey told The Times-Picayune. Michael Beach, the head of the CDC's waterborne disease prevention division, Friday told the newspaper the entry of the amoeba into St. Bernard's water system would never be known "for sure," but the organism often enters through breaks in a water system's pipes. Last week, St. Bernard became the first U.S local government to have its treated water system test positive for a rare brain-eating amoeba. Earlier in September, state health officials confirmed a 4-year-old Mississippi child visiting St. Bernard in July died from the brain-eating amoeba after contaminated water traveled up his nose. In 2011, a St. Bernard man died from primary amebic meningoencephalitis after using tap water in a device used to rinse the nasal passages and sinuses, The Times-Picayune reported. The infection is caused by the amoeba entering the nose, then traveling to the brain, where it destroys brain tissue, health officials said. People cannot contract the infection by drinking contaminated water because stomach acid kills the amoeba.

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