Short Takes – 5-17-24

General Engineer (Technical Advisor) - Direct Hire (Remote). USAJobs.gov PHMSA job notice. Summary: “This position is in the U.S. DOT, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS), Standards & Rulemaking Division. OPS administers the Department's national regulatory program to assure the safe transportation of natural gas, petroleum, & other hazardous materials by pipeline. If selected you will be working in the areas of pipeline integrity, operations, & regulations, including Distribution Integrity Management & Distribution operations.” Position closes May 22^nd, 2024.

MIT Unveils Game-Changing Sensor for Toxic Gas Detection. SciTechDaily.com article. Pull quote: ““The next steps will be to evaluate these in real-life settings,” he says. For example, the material could be applied as a coating on chimneys or exhaust pipes to continuously monitor gases through readings from an attached resistance monitoring device. In such settings, he says, “we need tests to check if we truly differentiate it from other potential contaminants that we might have overlooked in the lab setting. Let’s put the sensors out in real-world scenarios and see how they do.””

EPA urges chemical facilities to prepare for Gulf Coast hurricane season. SafetyAndHealthMagazine.com article. Pull quote: ““In the spring, on-scene coordinators from EPA Region 6 coordinate with LEPCs, which include local response personnel from city or county emergency management, police, fire, and other departments to prepare for hurricane season,” the release states. “OSCs also regularly coordinate and train with state emergency management teams and other federal agencies to prepare for various disaster scenarios.””

Implementing Statutory Addition of Certain Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) to the Toxics Release Inventory Beginning With Reporting Year 2024. Federal Register EPA final rule. Summary: “The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is updating the list of chemicals subject to toxic chemical release reporting under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) and the Pollution Prevention Act (PPA). Specifically, this action updates the regulations to identify seven per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) that must be reported pursuant to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 (FY2020 NDAA) enacted on December 20, 2019. As this action is being taken to conform the regulations to a Congressional legislative mandate, notice and comment rulemaking is unnecessary.” Effective date: June 17^th, 2024.

Revision of Agency Information Collection Activity Under OMB Review: Baseline Assessment for Security Enhancement (BASE) Program. Federal Register TSA 30-day ICR notice. Abstract: “TSA's BASE program works with transportation asset and system owner/operators to identify their current security posture, identify security gaps, and encourage implementation of countermeasures applicable to the specific surface mode of transportation. Through a series of establish questions, data and results collected through the BASE program will inform TSA's policy and program initiatives and allow TSA to provide focused resources and tools to enhance the overall security posture within these sectors of the surface transportation community.” Comments due June 17^th, 2024.

New Star Wars Plan: Pentagon Rushes to Counter Threats in Orbit. NYTimes.com article (free). Pull quote: “Last month the Pentagon also awarded contracts to two companies — Rocket Lab and True Anomaly — to launch two spacecraft by late next year, one acting as a mock enemy and the other equipped with cameras, to pull up close and observe the threat. The intercept satellite will not have any weapons, but it has a cargo hold that could carry them.”

Evacuations ordered amid water levels rivaling historic Hurricane Harvey floods: 'This is a life-threatening situation'. TheCoolDown.com article. Pull quote: “At the beginning of May, officials issued an evacuation order to communities along the east fork of the San Jacinto River, between FM Road 1485 and Lake Houston, with Harris County Executive Judge Lina Hidalgo warning that flooding could extend half a mile inland.”

Could bird flu in cows lead to a human outbreak? Slow response worries scientists. Nature.com article. Pull quote: Gaps in the data have been apparent since US officials first announced the outbreak in March. An analysis of viral genomes found that H5N1 probably jumped from an infected wild bird to a cow, perhaps as early as November. The virus has been circulating in cattle ever since. The delay in identifying the outbreak suggests that surveillance programmes are not robust, says Jonathan Pekar, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, San Diego. “The infrastructure we have in place is insufficient to prevent future pandemics,” he says.”