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Only about 10 percent of the antibiotics used in chicken are actually used to treat humans, says the National Chicken Council. Its statement comes on the heels of a controversial report by Reuters indicating increasing proof that the prophylactic medications used in chickens are fueling antibiotic resistance not just in fowl, but in humans as well.

In a statement yesterday, the NCC refuted these assertions, claiming that only a small portion of the antibiotics that Reuters journalist Kate Kelland examined – about 10 percent – were also given to humans. The rest of the antibiotics used in fowl do not treat human populations.

“All antibiotics used to prevent and treat disease in chickens are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The majority of these antibiotics are never used in human medicine and therefore represent no threat of creating resistance in humans,” said Ashley Peterson, NCC vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs.

That said, Peterson announced, new changes are on the horizon for those meds that are also used in human populations.

“While minimally used in raising chickens, by December 2016, these antibiotics that are important to human medicine will be labeled for use in food animals only to prevent and treat disease, under the supervision and care of a veterinarian,” he said. He likened the future guidelines to those applied to treatments applied to other animals. “Much like a companion animal veterinarian would use de-worming compounds to prevent illness in puppies and kitten,” Peterson said, the antibiotics would be used to treat opportunistic illnesses not treated by other medications. He did not specify how often that need arises in poultry.

Kelland’s report included statements by Britain’s chief medical officer, who called antibiotic resistance a “catastrophic threat.” Dame Sally Davies  said “superbugs” are the culprit, and they are being fueled by over-exposure to antibiotics, including in our food.

“If we don't act now, any one of us could go into hospital in 20 years for minor surgery and die because of an ordinary infection that can't be treated by antibiotics.”

NCC took Reuters to task for not consulting industry specialists before publishing the report, which they felt leaves the reader “with hypothetical comments from a few sources.”

Antibiotic resistance has, however, been a concern for more than a half-century, when antibiotics were first developed and over-used at start. Studies by researchers at Tufts University in 2011 backed up that discovery, noting that “[substantial] data show elevated antibiotic resistance in bacteria associated with animals fed NTAs (nontherapeutic antimicrobials) and their food products. This resistance spreads to other animals and humans—directly by contact and indirectly via the food chain, water, air, and manured and sludge-fertilized soils.”

Studies in 2007 (and more recently) have also shown that puppies and kittens are also subject to the same risk of antibiotic resistance, as are other animals used for agricultural purposes.

Image credit: USDA

In its annual review, S&P Dow Jones Indices deleted 46 companies from the 2014 Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, and the largest deletions — by free-float market capitalization — included Bank of America, General Electric and Schlumberger. Other large companies cut from list were McDonald’s, Starbucks and Nike.

The three largest companies added (among 32 total) to the list were: Amgen Inc., Commonwealth Bank of Australia and GlaxoSmithKline PLC.

S&P Dow Jones Indices and RobecoSAM, an investment specialist that focuses exclusively on Sustainability Investing, have been compiling the index for 15 years. DJSI was the first global index to track the financial performance of the leading sustainability-driven companies worldwide, based on an “analysis of financially material economic, environmental and social factors.”

“Both the importance and the understanding of sustainability has grown dramatically over the past decade and a half,” said David Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the S&P Dow Jones Index Committee, in a press release. Over that span the indices have become “the leading benchmark in the field,” he continued.

The DJSI follow a best-in-class approach, including companies across all industries that outperform their peers in numerous sustainability metrics. Each year more than 3,000 companies, including 800 companies from emerging markets, are invited to participate in RobecoSAM’s Corporate Sustainability Assessment, which provides the financial analysis.

Out of thousands, only 16 companies have been on the list every year since 1999: Baxter, Bayer, BMW, BT, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Diageo, Intel, J Sainsbury, Novo Nordisk, RWE, SAP, Siemens, Storebrand, Unilever and UnitedHealth.

What’s the takeaway? The list can fluctuate fairly dramatically from year to year, as company sustainability investments and strategies change, depending on where they are with their sustainability programs. Ongoing and more mature company programs may help explain certain deletions, but they do not say very much regarding actual sustainability commitment and future investments. However, the index is useful as companies drill deeper into the components of sustainability, especially from a financial and transparency perspective.

Image: Cover extracted from the 2014 Dow Jones Sustainability Index Review

Flame retardant opponents had a big reason to celebrate this weekend. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced on Sunday that he would get behind the push to ban chemical flame retardants from furniture and children’s products.

Schumer has proposed a ban on 10 specific flame retardants that are used in children’s clothing, bedding and other furniture products. The flame retardant products associated with TDCPP and TCEP in particular have been found to be toxic to humans through long-term exposure.

Plus, Schumer says, there is now question about their efficacy in stopping fires.

“It’s a nightmare scenario that is all too real: Children are being exposed to highly toxic flame retardants -- that can cause cancer and developmental delays -- just by lying on a changing table and in their cribs, or even by sitting on the family couch. To boot, these carcinogenic chemicals found in foam are not effective in reducing fire risks,” the senator said in press conference on Sunday.

Schumer was joined by representatives of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association, the Uniformed Firefighters Association, the Center for Environmental Health, Safer Chemicals Healthy Families and Clean and Healthy NY, as well as medical personnel from Mt. Sinai’s Children's Environmental Health Center.

Increasing attention is being drawn as well to the exposure that first-line responders and other fire and law personnel receive when they are responding to a fire that may involve furniture sprayed with chemical flame retardants. According to Dr. Susan Shaw, a professor at the State University of New York’s Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, “Cancer is the leading cause of line-of-duty deaths among firefighters today.” Shaw is also the founder and director of the Marine Environmental Research Institute and has conducted research on first-line responders exposed to chemicals in the line of duty.

And environmental advocates have even more reasons to celebrate: Last week four national health care systems announced that they have decided to stop purchasing furniture treated with flame retardants. University Hospitals, Beaumont Health System, Hackensack University Medical Center and Advocate Health Care stated in a joint press release on Sept. 10 that they would begin transitioning away from furniture that contains chemicals used for this purpose. The four health care systems all provide services in the eastern U.S., and are taking the initiative independently.

The announcements are likely to have a decisive effect on the flame retardant industry. The four health care providers have a consumer base of more than 7,000 and say they spend on average more than $40 million on furniture purchases per year combined – all of which they say they will now spend on furniture that doesn’t use chemical flame retardants.

The announcements and recent efforts by furniture companies to drop flame retardants in California dovetail with new studies that suggest the chemicals are retained in the body and the environment much longer than originally suspected. A new study put out by Duke University and Environmental Working Group on mothers and their children who were exposed to TDCPP found that the chemical could actually be measured in the human body, and that children exposed to TDCPP showed significantly higher retention of the carcinogen than adults. One child was found to have 23 times the level of the chemical in his body than his mother. Average readings of exposure showed a 5-to-1 increase in children compared to their parent. TDCPP has been linked to hormonal disruption and other metabolic problems.

Sen. Schumer’s legislation would ban the top 10 flame retardants that have been linked to cancer and health problems. They are:

• TDCPP


• TCEP


• TBBPA


• Decabromodiphenyl ether


• Antimony trioxide


• HBCD


• TBPH


• TBB


• Chlorinated paraffins


• TCPP

Schumer’s bill will, of course, have to be ratified by both the Senate and the House. With the increasing effort by companies and nonprofits to bow out of using chemical flame retardants, however, commercial momentum may have just as much say as political oversight in changing U.S. flame retardant testing and standards.

Image of child in crib: Nerissa's Ring

Image of firefighter: DVIDSHUB

By Elizabeth Dove

Can value for both business and developing country communities be realized with integrity?

Partnerships between international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and businesses are fairly new and somewhat uncomfortable territory in Canada. Such collaborations are usually philanthropic and/or volunteer contributions by business, in exchange for bragging rights on good deeds done. Even on this modest partnership plane, there is a great deal of heated discourse from within the Canadian development sector around the appropriateness of INGOs working with business.

There is, however, a small but growing number of Canadian INGOs positioning themselves as having a service to offer business that will create value for both the core business of a company and meet the mandate of the NGO. Examples include World Vision Canada’s work with extractive companies to ensure project alignment with local government and community development and Socodevi's work to improve the capacity of Van Houtte coffee producing communities in Honduras.

Another such entrepreneurial initiative is the business brokerage service of Uniterra. Uniterra is a co-venture of the INGOs World University Service of Canada (WUSC) and Center for International Studies and Cooperation (CECI). As it has developed into Canada’s largest overseas volunteer-sending program over the past 10 years, Uniterra has established strong business relationships and networks in the countries it works with throughout South and Central America, Africa and Asia. Opportunities to facilitate partnerships with overseas businesses to benefit local communities evolved naturally.

Playing matchmaker between business and opportunities in the developing world

As an audience assembled on June 27 at the Ryerson CSR Institute in Toronto to give input on the Uniterra Partnership Brokers value proposition were told, the rich hydrating properties in the French cosmetic brand L'Occitane are the result of a partnership CECI and Uniterra brokered 16 years ago. Sylvain Matte, senior advisor for Uniterra Strategic Partnerships, told those gathered about how two generations of women have now benefited from the skills, revenue and empowerment created by the partnership between L'Occitane and the shea nut women’s co-op in Burkina Faso.

Uniterra went on to illustrate other partnerships that have benefited local businesses and local communities that they have brokered, such as the partnerships they are currently facilitating between a juice company and Malian mango producers and one between a mining equipment company and a their new local representatives in Senegal who are getting skills training through exchanges of staff.

Uniterra has several strengths it plays to in the role of matchmaker: staff on the ground, many of whom are local and so fluent not just in the language but the culture; a long history and talent for facilitating strategic partnerships between organizations, listening for points of similarity and divergence; experience in assessing capacities of organizations to develop new skills; expertise in adult education training techniques to skill up individuals and organizations where there are gaps.

Barriers for INGOs in working with business

As Dr. Kerrighan Webb, event host and director of the Ryerson’s CSR Institute, noted: INGOs are sitting on business opportunities they haven’t realized. “All of these contacts, on the ground knowledge and connections can be used for everyone’s benefit,” Webb said.

So what’s holding INGOs back? Over the 50-plus years of INGOs working to improve the lives of those in the developing world, business hasn’t been a traditional partner – INGOs are usually working in the space between community organizations and varied levels of government because all have stated goals around improving the health and livelihoods of the local people. The key goal for business is revenue growth which has historically come at the expense of the livelihood (abysmal wages), rights (land acquisition) and environmental health of the poorest, putting business then at odds with the goals of INGOs. Business isn’t top of mind as a development partner for many INGOs for this reason alone. Of course alongside that revenue goal, more and more companies are now actively seeking ways to use their core competencies to achieve corporate social responsibility (CSR) goals around improving lives and the environment. But their language, metrics and value set creates a kind of sectorial cultural barrier that INGOs often are ill equipped to cross, if they were inclined.

Indeed, in polishing their offering, it became apparent that Uniterra would have fine-tune their already impressive business acumen and work on their positioning. Several audience members offered that, to be truly resonant, Uniterra must hone in on a few sectors and unpack the needs of each, using sector-specific language. Tea and mining, it was pointed out, have different gaps and metrics. The Uniterra staff also showed timidity characteristic of the NGO sector in answering a question about their value-add over competitors. The staff acknowledged this was a skillset they need to build.

But to Webb’s point, Uniterra has an advantage a number of INGOs do not: They see the opportunity. They see that their core competencies and assets have value to business – both in the developed and developing world – and that they can better meet their mandate to create economic opportunities for women and youth in the developing countries by harnessing their strengths and packaging them for Canadian business.

Shaking up the INGO model to meet mission, fiscal realities

This realization didn’t come overnight. It has after all been 16 years since they played matchmaker between L'Occitane and the shea nut co-op. But time has made evident the sustainable results of the partnerships Uniterra has brokered: thousands of jobs created; leadership roles and empowerment for women; access to technology, credit and business development services for entrepreneurs, farmers and family businesses; and vocational and entrepreneurship training for youth. Uniterra has found that, with integrity, they can create partnerships where both big business and small communities thrive. All of this is achieved along with business partners meeting their goals around revenue generation, new supply sources, expansion and improved community and employee relations.

Matte concedes that the push to market test the expansion of the “Uniterra Partnership Brokers” model, at events throughout the country like the one at Ryerson, has come from both the convergence of community impact analysis and fiscal pressures:

“We strongly believe that a better synergy between aid, trade and private investment can contribute to more sustainable development. The Canadian government has made it clear that long gone are the days when INGOs can expect renewed funding based on the historical levels. We are being encouraged to innovate our delivery model and diversify our revenue sources. At the same time the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD), like many other major donors, is encouraging business to consider ways they can become more involved in improving the conditions in the developing world. The timing is right for Uniterra to take our model of working with business to a new level.”

As demonstrated by private sector representatives at Ryerson, there is an appetite for this kind of partnership that delivers both solutions to business and community development. It will be interesting to see how other Canadian INGOs position their assets to meet their mission in current donor funding and CSR environment.

Image credit: Flickr/whiteafrican

Elizabeth Dove is a specialist in strategically engaging the public, companies and government on sustainability and social change. She has worked as senior staff and consultant for initiatives that support the arts, child welfare, public health and particularly international development. Using a results-oriented approach focused on tangible measurable benefits, Elizabeth helps bridge the cultural differences between sectors to create collaborations that meet shared goals. She is an Associate at Open Spaces Learning, a Canadian change management firm helping companies realize business and social impact. She is also a Strategist at Dove Consulting which consults with Uniterra on its business platform. Twitter: @EDove5, @openspaceslearn.

By Ian Edwards

The underwhelming launch in August of Milton Glaser’s new graphic campaign -- “It’s not warming. It’s dying” -- shows in dreary shades of green the many ongoing branding and marketing challenges of the climate change movement.

The prolific graphic design genius behind the happy and ubiquitous “I ♥ NY” slogan (that single-handedly rebranded a struggling city in 1977) can’t even get it right.

His design of a green disk shrouded in a deathly black fog is dull, and the tagline is just plain wrong. The planet is warming according to the many scientific minds at the United Nations’ International Panel on Climate Change, as just one source blaming humans for making climate change worse. Additionally, the people living here are indeed threatened, but this big orbiting rock will outlive us all.

With an issue as polarizing as climate change, accuracy is important.

The 'sustainability' conversation – of which the climate change discourse is a critical subset -- needs recalibration, traction and a spark that will ignite it in the mainstream beyond the lukewarm response to the crisis to date. How much more evidence do we need that the language of fear, which Glaser uses, fails to engage and inspire action?
The term 'sustainability' was adopted to make “save the world” earnestness palatable for stodgy boardroom meetings -- and to let businesses seem like they are part of the environmental solution. At its core, 'sustainability' is about surviving, rather than thriving. No wonder it doesn’t change behavior.

It's often not even genuine: As the Economist recently made vivid, so-called 'sustainability' programs in most business are misnamed when they are simply efficiency programs veiled in do-gooder activities for PR gains.

'Climate change' -- or the more provocative term 'global warming'  -- is also abstract and, as is the case in the U.S., politicized beyond meaning. Despite compelling science and super storms, it is mired in the language of faith, or humanity’s birthright entitlements, or government overstep.

If there is any success in marketing climate change awareness, it’s not yet in the mainstream marketing channels that speak to everyone, but in the domains of non-governmental organizations that preach primarily to the converted. Groups like World Wildlife Fund and 350.org  have a head start in using clever, stakeholder-engaging marketing to link the way we live with the effects of climate change. The Guardian ran a representative list in 2013.

As a progressive consumer, I can send a few dollars to save a whale or spotted owl or starving child in Africa, but saving the climate needs a whole lot more engagement and sacrifice. Which may explain why Glaser’s latest effort to woo the mainstream with fear falls short.

Twenty years ago, social marketing researcher Kim Witte established a framework that tracked campaigns -- like health ads for anti-smoking, HIV/AIDs prevention and teen pregnancy awareness – that used shame, fear and blame to scare people into better behavior.

“The minute that perceived threat exceeds perceived efficacy [the ability to effectively respond], then people begin to control their fear instead of the danger and they reject the message,” she says in The Use of Fear Appeals, an undated presentation available online.

Someone might agree with Glaser and might even be scared by his campaign -- but they also feel powerless and, as a result, ignore it.

Except, it’s not like we haven’t tackled abstract environmental bogeymen before.

In the 1970s we dealt with the scary issue of ozone depletion caused by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in common products like aerosol cans. I remember the advocacy messaging in my comic books. By the 1990s, we marshaled a U.S. response to the dangers of acid rain through emission caps and the Clean Air Act.

Why not climate change?

As a top-line summary: The deniers’ work to sow doubt is effective, and the fix seems way too painful. We need better terms of reference. We need to put the focus on the parties who can actually get creative ideas in place and at scale.

As an alternative to 'sustainability,' the term 'resilience' is a great word – offering hope, the sense that we can rebound and that something can be done. Tom Steyer’s NextGen Climate is focusing the fight in the right arena – the ballot box, the stalled government process and candidates who believe in addressing climate change. The NYC People’s Climate March on Sept. 21 has the potential to vividly prove the widespread solidarity on this issue, swing momentum in the conversation and bring groups like 350.org into the mainstream. And, if the viral spread of the Tesla Motors brand is any indication, the public is hungry for exciting alternatives, innovations and evidence of humanity’s ability to practically address the environmental challenge.

All of which points to an opportunity to reframe the overall conversation – in which marketers can be pivotal and constructive. To borrow from Witte, we might ask ourselves what allows the mainstream to feel effective in changing our collective 'risky' behavior as it relates to climate change? Voting, marching and innovating are achievable, empowering, scalable and marketable.

Image credit: Flickr/takver

Based in New York City, Ian Edwards is a Sustainability Communications consultant and Sustainability MBA candidate at Bard. www.linkedin.com/in/ianedwards/

This video is part of our ongoing coverage of SOCAP14.  To see the rest please visit our SOCAP 14 page here.

What exactly is "impact investing"? Paula Goldman is Senior Director of Knowledge & Advocacy for Omidyar Network and, according to her, it's a type of investing that asks for both financial and societal return.  In this brief conversation, Paula discusses both the history of impact investing and how governments can enact policies to encourage it.

Partnerships between companies and NGOs are now more likely to leverage non-financial resources and competencies to achieve mutually agreed goals, finds the latest research by C&E Advisory in its annual Corporate-NGO Partnerships Barometer report.

The report – the fifth in an annual series of practitioner-led studies drawing on a poll of 130 leading companies and NGOs – explores the drivers for, and barriers to, partnering, as well as future prospects for the corporate-NGO partnership agenda.

C&E Advisory found that both NGOs and corporates are gaining a greater understanding of the business potential of partnerships as organisations engage in multi-lateral agreements over longer timescales, leveraging each sector’s assets to maximise mutual benefit.

This year’s research has also seen a striking increase in the view that partnerships are changing business practices for the better. Around 59% of corporate respondents state that their NGO partnerships have helped them change business practices for the better (up from 46% in 2013) and 87% believe their NGO partners have helped their companies to better understand social and environmental issues.

Notably, 69% of business respondents believe that effectively harnessing their competencies and non-cash assets can make much more of an impact on their NGO partners than financial support alone.

And although a disparity remains between NGO and corporate perceptions of the value of non-financial support, this latest research reveals a narrowing gap as almost half of NGO respondents now acknowledge the impact that non-financial support, such as leveraging corporate competencies, canbring to the attainment of their mission (48%, up 12% on the 2013 figure).

When asked what factors were most likely to make corporate-NGO partnerships more important over the next three years, over 90% of all respondents state ‘increased recognition of the need to leverage each sector’s different assets in order to maximise mutual benefit’.

You can dowload the full report here.
 

Declines in populations of pollinators such as bees and wasps may be a key threat to nutrition in some of the most poorly fed parts of the globe, according to new research.

A major study, published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B and co-authored by a University of Leeds academic, looked at the importance of pollinators to 115 of the most common food crops worldwide and the importance of those crops in delivering vital nutrients to vulnerable populations.

The research, the first to study the relationship between nutrition and pollination across the globe, found some regions where disruptions in pollination could have serious implications for human health.

Deficiencies in ‘micronutrients’—nutrients such as iron and vitamins that are required by the body in small quantities—are three times as prevalent where production of micronutrients is heavily dependent upon pollinators, such as Sub-Saharan Africa, India, and the Middle East.

In Southeast Asia and parts of Latin America, almost 50% of plant-derived vitamin A production relies on pollination.

Dr Becky Chaplin-Kramer, research associate at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the lead author of the study, said: "A disruption in pollination services certainly has a price-tag, estimates go as high as $390 billion annually, but the cost to our nutrition could be even greater."

“This means pollinator declines could hit hardest on the very people who can afford to lose the least in terms of nutrition,” she said. 

The study was coordinated by the Natural Capital Project, a partnership between Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment, the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment, The Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund.

 

Editor's Note: This article is part of a short series on creating resilient cities, sponsored by Siemens. Please join us for a live Google Hangout with Siemens and Arup on October 1, where we’ll talk about this issue live! RSVP here.

The 9-foot storm surge from Superstorm Sandy, which came on top of a 5-foot high tide, inundated the low-lying areas of the city -- wiping out electrical service to substantial portions of the city, and ultimately causing some $50 billion worth of damage. Approximately 800,000 customers lost power in the city, along with millions more along the East Coast. The question posed in a recent toolkit was was: What actions can be taken to reduce the impact of a similar event?

With our climate in upheaval, many cities, organizations and businesses are talking about building resiliency into their operations, in order to allow them to better deal with extreme events such as heavy storms, droughts and floods. While these expenditures are often high, given today’s reality they are considered necessary -- in keeping with Ben Franklin’s adage that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

While taking steps to improve the resiliency of, for example, a city’s electrical grid, won’t prevent the increasing number and intensity of storms from coming (only reducing our carbon emissions can do that), they can prevent the kind of system-wide damage that New York City and its residents suffered in the wake of Superstorm Sandy.

The grid’s 61 substations, 94,000 miles of underground cable and 34,000 miles of overhead cable are susceptible to damage and disruption caused by events ranging from tidal surges, flash floods, blizzards, droughts, high winds and heat waves, all of which are more likely to occur given the onset of global warming. Recommended actions fell into three categories: robustness and redundancy of equipment, keeping the demand from overwhelming supply, and enhanced coordination of resources through smart infrastructure.

Specific actions within the first category include: waterproof and flood proof switches and gear, coated wires and circuits, and more technical fixes like fuse-saving circuits and voltage/VAR controls. Demand management tools, which allow the utility to momentarily disconnect non-critical sources, can reduce overloading of circuits that could lead to failure. This capability is enhanced through the use of automation components such as intelligent feeders and relays, along with automated switches. Battery storage, which would include the incorporation of electric vehicle batteries through a V2G scheme, can also smooth out peaks and prevent the distribution system from becoming overdrawn.

A smarter grid, in which each part of the grid has knowledge of what is happening around it, can substantially help to fend off blackouts more effectively. This can be achieved with an advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), which includes smart meters and geographic information systems (GIS). Another device that has recently come on the scene is the synchrophasor, which can be used to monitor voltage, current and frequency at specific locations on the grid in real time. The system can then use this information to make adjustments that ensure uninterrupted operation. Think of those times when you’ve been at the beach and a big wave is coming your way. If your back is turned, it can knock you over or even hurt you. But if you see it coming, you can take a deep breath, brace yourself and perhaps duck under water, mitigating the impact of the force.

Distributed generation, where a diverse set of smaller-generation sources take the place of a single large-scale source, actually applies to all three categories. If a distributed source receives excessive demand, additional power can be dispatched to the area. If it fails, less people are impacted and other nearby sources can be diverted to take its place. Many of these capabilities are being combined into microgrids.

New York City has, in fact, started down this road. Just last month the city announced a $3.3 million investment to improve the resiliency of its electric delivery system through the use of microgrids. The money, which was awarded by the New York Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), will be used to fund a number of research projects, but the largest portion ($2 million) will go into a partnership between Con Edison, GE and Pareto Energy to demonstrate a non-synchronous microgrid solution based on Pareto’s GridLink technology. This technology, which will connect the Kings Plaza Shopping Mall in Brooklyn to ConEd’s electrical network, will use microgrid inverters to distribute the power going into the grid from various sources. This serves to insulate the grid from surges that could otherwise overwhelm the system. The company describes it as a plug and play “interconnect anywhere” solution.

New York also announced a $75 million DOE-funded smart grid and control center being administered through its independent system operator (NYISO). The project will utilize synchrophasors to reduce outages and improve efficiency.

This is an excellent example of a city being proactive and making the kind of investment that will prepare it for future weather-related challenges. These investments will also create jobs along the way and stimulate the local economy.

Image credit: "Power pole". Licensed under GNU Free Documentation License 1.2 via Wikimedia Commons

RP Siegel, PE, is an author, inventor and consultant. He has written for numerous publications ranging from Huffington Post to Mechanical Engineering. He and Roger Saillant co-wrote the successful eco-thriller Vapor Trails. RP, who is a regular contributor to Triple Pundit and Justmeans, sees it as his mission to help articulate and clarify the problems and challenges confronting our planet at this time, as well as the steadily emerging list of proposed solutions. His uniquely combined engineering and humanities background help to bring both global perspective and analytical detail to bear on the questions at hand.

Follow RP Siegel on Twitter.

We’ve been reporting for more than a year on Foster Farms' mysterious salmonella infections, which earlier this year the U.S. Department of Agriculture linked to three California processing plants. In July, the agency issued a Class I recall after more than 600 people had been sickened by the infection, and a 10-year-old boy was hospitalized – the lynch pin, it seems, to finally linking the epidemic to its point of origin.

What wasn’t disclosed to the public until now, however, was just how extensive the infections were, or the number of times that the factories were found in noncompliance during routine inspections.

All of that came to light last week, when the Natural Resources Defense Council published the results to its recent Freedom of Information Request to the USDA.

The 300 pages of noncompliance reports, or NRs, paint a disturbing picture of routine sanitary problems, which have ranged from cockroach infestations (for which one plant was shut down in January) to mold problems, fecal matter, stopped-up floor drains due to processing procedures and unsavory product quality issues.

But it is the number of actual violations that are mind-boggling: According to the NRDC, more than 200 violations were levied against two Foster Farms plants by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in relation to the salmonella Heidelberg strain. More than 150 occurred at its Livingston, Calif. plant alone. S. Heidelberg’s virulence has been linked to the fact that it is antibiotic resistant and therefore can’t be killed by Foster Farms’ standard antibiotic treatment methods.

The NDRC and more than 25 other organizations have called on Foster Farms to drop the antibiotic regimens, which they say is helping to fuel drug-resistant bacteria in processing plants, as well as spread them to consumers’ kitchens. Earlier this month, the NRDC also petitioned the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider an earlier finding that the Food and Drug Administration isn’t obligated to take an action concerning the use of antibiotics in meat.

“FDA has long approved the practice of adding antibiotics to animal feed, which the agency acknowledges contributes to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that threaten human health,” said NRDC in its appeal to the courts.

Foster Farms CEO Ron Foster has long defended his company’s use of antibiotics in chicken, saying it is necessary to ensure the animals’ health. The statements seem to contravene what organic chicken producers have found, which is that a healthy environment, not prophylaxis, is the key to healthy and safe meat products.

But while the NRs suggest that Foster Farms processing procedures may well have had something to do with the cause of the epidemic, it also raises questions about the inspection processes that allow plants to continue to operate when large-scale bacteria infections are present or being investigated. As the NRDC notes, “[The] good news is that these reports indicate that immediate corrective action is generally required whenever a violation is found and contaminated products must be re-washed or discarded.”

So much better for the company that does not lose valuable production time, as Foster Farms did when cockroaches were found on-site. But for the hundreds of sickened consumers, food production deadlines and speedy dispatch is of little consolation, especially if it may not keep a year-long epidemic from gaining ground.

Image credit: Sarah Macmillan