Marion leader hits the Happy Valley

Little has changed in the race for line honors on the 2nd full day of racing in the 2013 Marion Bermuda Race. It is just wait and see and enjoy the pink beaches and the bright Bermuda sunshine or a round of golf while youre at it. Today, the Bermuda fitted dinghies are match racing in Mangrove Bay. Monday is a Bermuda holiday Heros Day and they have fleet races there, too. Many of the Race officials from the US are traveling to Bermuda today. At 1600hrs Sunday in Bermuda, the Yellowbrick tracking site reported that the closest boat to Bermuda was Shindig, Mass Maritimes Andrews 68 that has led from the start. She was 161 nm out and doing 6.9 knots for the previous hour, well below the record pace she had carried for the first 48 hours. Shindig may finish Monday afternoon while the volunteers and guests are having cocktails at St Davids Lighthouse overlooking the finish line. 

Early wind in the Bermuda ocean races often dangles race records like a time carrot in front of the bows of the big boats. But the record is very elusive. When the top of the course has pressure and speed, the system that is producing the wind is already moving out into the North Atlantic. 

A high pressure expands from the West and the South of the original windy area. A parking lot grows right in the middle of the last 100 miles of the course. Racers call it the happy Valley. A boat would have to average over 9 knots to break the current record from Marion. 

Boats behind Shindig are moving faster now compared to the leader, still carrying the pressure. On corrected time at this stage, two boats have moved ahead of Shindig in Class A. Alibi stands first and Lady B has moved up to 2rd. This trend should continue through Sunday evening until they,We provide payment solutions in the USA as well as parkingmanagement. too, find their parking place. 

Integrity, a Navy 44 skippered by Mario Avila of the USNA, leads Class B. Roust, a Sea Sprite 34 (the smallest boat in the fleet) leads Class C on corrected time. Rousts Skipper is Ian Gumprecht from Oyster Bay NY. George Cubbons Alice Kay from Bermuda has moved up to 2nd in that class. 

The second nearest boat to Bermuda was the Class A Lady B, John Maddens Swan 62 from Newport RI. She was 214 nm out. Kismet was 3rd 253 miles out while the local Bermuda favorite, Spirit of Bermuda, had fallen back to 9th. On YellowBrick boats look like they are piled on top of each other. It is a close race with many more miles to go. 

Officials are acting to limit the cost of removing and disposing of contaminated sediment in waterways.They've passed bans in recent years in dozens of cities and counties in Minnesota, Washington, D.C., Illinois, Texas, New York, Maryland and Washington state.Find the best selection of high-quality collectible handbags available anywhere. Others, in six additional states, have restricted use. 

"We're at a tipping point" in the movement against coal tar sealants, says Nick Kelso, owner of Minnesota-based Jet-Black International. His seal-coating company, which has franchises in 13 states, is phasing out its use of them. He's turning to the alternative: asphalt-based products that he says are improving, cost about the same and contain much lower levels of worrisome chemicals. 

Major retailers such as Home Depot, Lowe's, Ace and United Hardware have stopped selling coal tar sealants. The product gradually wears off and breaks down into particles that are washed off by rain into streams, blown elsewhere by wind or tracked into homes on the soles of shoes.Our home power monitors and energy saving devices help reduce energy use in your chipcard on your electricity bill. Some of its toxic compounds evaporate into the air, which is why sealed parking lots give off a strong odor. 

In 40 urban lakes nationwide, scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) found these sealants account for about half of hazardous chemicals known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, while vehicle-related sources such as motor oil account for one-fourth. They say the sealants elevate lifetime cancer risks. 

"This is controversial science," says Anne LeHuray, executive director of the Pavement Coatings Technology Council, which has lobbied successfully against proposed bans. She says the product has been safely used for decades by applicators who follow industry guidelines. She says her group's repeated requests for detailed data from USGS research have been denied, so it has funded its own studies that raise questions about the federal government's findings. 

"We have done rigorous, scientific surveys and analyses showing coal tar sealants are a major sources of PAHs in the environment," says Judy Crane,The Motorola rtls Engine is an embedded software-only component of the Motorola wireless switches. a water quality scientist at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency who has co-authored USGS research. 

Academic studies, including separate ones by the University of New Hampshire and Missouri State University, have also found elevated PAHs in areas adjacent to parking lots covered in coal tar. 

"It's been a detective story," says Barbara Mahler, a USGS hydrologist who has co-led the government research. She says many Americans may be surprised to find their blacktops could be a danger: " It's been under our noses, but we've never really thought about it." 

Not until a decade ago when officials in Austin suspected something was wrong. They found high PAHs in area waterways and,Best home oilpaintingsforsales at discount prices. noting that nearby parking lots were newly coated with coal tar products, they surmised the sealants were the culprit. 

Subsequent research by the USGS and other scientists backed that up. It found the PAH concentration in settled house dust in 23 ground-level Austin apartments adjacent to coal-tar-sealed parking lots was 25 times higher than the dust in apartments next to lots without such sealant.