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Flying Wombat
Date: Mon, 26 Sep 94 22:20:12 PDT
Subject: Bread Smell Hurts Environment
NATICK, Mass. (AP) -- There's nothing like the smell of baking bread to stir memories of warmth and comfort.
Well, forget that. As it turns out, that pleasant scent threatens the environment -- the chemical that wafts the delectable essence across neighborhoods near large bakeries may help create smog.
Bread factories around the country may soon be called upon to limit their odorous emissions as states work to meet federal clean air requirements.
That means no more bread smell. No more warm, comforting factory aroma that harks back to Grandma's kitchen.
"You drive down the highway and you hope the smell will be there," said Phyllis Davidson, a customer at the second-day bake shop outside the Wonder Bread factory in Natick, which may have to install equipment that would do away with the aroma.
"It's like waking up to the smell of coffee brewing or bacon cooking. It's homey," Davidson said.
When bread reaches 174 degrees Fahrenheit -- when it's baked to perfection -- it emits ethanol as a gas.
Massachusetts is one of 33 states that either have or are drafting ethanol emissions regulations for large bakery ovens.
Ethanol is a volatile organic compound that contributes to ozone buildup close to the ground. The 1990 Clean Air Act gives states until November to submit plans for reducing ground-level ozone.
By itself, ethanol is harmless alcohol, said Anne Giesecke of the American Bakers Association: "It's the same as what people would exhale in a bar on Saturday night."
But when ethanol hits sunlight, it breaks down into its basic components, including oxygen, and forms ozone.
High in the atmosphere, the thinning ozone layer allows dangerous ultraviolet radiation to seep through to earth. Close to the ground, too much ozone means smog.
Ethanol is turned into carbon dioxide by equipment already in place in Wonder Bread factories in New Brunswick, N.J., Philadelphia, San Francisco and Pomona, Calif., said Keith Schopp, a spokesman for St. Louis-based Ralston Purina, which makes Wonder Bread.
Environmental Protection Agency officials emphasize that ethanol regulations don't apply to small neighborhood bakeries, only to large bakeries with the potential to release more than 50 tons of ethanol annually.
But tell that to the auto mechanics at Sears in Natick -- connoisseurs of the odors that waft into the garage from the Wonder Bread factory across the street.
Some are gourmets: After 30 years, Tony Freitas still raves about the way that cinnamon smell warms the spirit on bitter winter mornings.
Others are gourmands: "See all of us who look like this?" said mechanic C.J. Deberadinas, grabbing and shaking his spare tire of flab. "We all like the bread smell."
Their rhapsodies sound half-baked over at the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection.
"If people have such a visceral response to this smell, they can bake their own bread," said engineer Marc Cohen, who drafted the state regulations.
Flying Wombat
Date: Sun, 9 Oct 94 9:40:11 PDT
From: Reuters / Stephen Morrill
Subject: These fish were made for walking
TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) - Months of heavy rain in Florida has brought much that is traditional for the sunshine state's wet season -- thunder and lightning, mosquitos, mildew, and walking catfish.
Yes, say scientists and Floridians who have seen the phenomenon, some catfish here do walk.
"I was out walking one night recently with my husband and we looked down and there were little catfish sort of scooting along the street," recalled Carolin Martin of Valrico, a town near Tampa.
"We got a plastic trash bag, put the fish in it, and dumped them back in the pond. There were some men fishing in the pond, but we were having better luck picking the fish up in the street," she said.
Walking catfish, exotic fish that are not native to Florida, are usually about one foot long, but can reach close to two feet, ichthyologists say.
Using a special portion of their spine, the fish are able to crawl out of one pond or river and slither on their bellies across the ground to another pond or river, said Paul Shafland, lab director at the Florida Non-Native Fish Research Lab in Boca Raton.
And despite the testimony of thousands of eyewitnesses that the fish actually achieve a tottering "walk," Shafland said the fish do not really do so. "They don't exactly walk. They crawl on their pectoral spines," he said.
But Shafland said the fish are able to breathe air.
"They can utilize atmospheric oxygen as well as you or I, and anytime there's a heavy rain or heavy dew, and the temperature's just right, they will come out and crawl," he said.
Shafland said the fish move from one body of water to another not to flee danger, as many people believe, but because they need shallow, predator-free areas to lay their eggs.
"And contrary to some press reports, these catfish do not climb trees. They do not tap dance. And they certainly do not eat dogs," he said.
Linda Silvers, Martin's neighbor, said she wondered at first when she saw a live, flopping fish near her new pool.
"I thought someone had left it there as a joke. I didn't realize at first that I was looking at an ambulatory fish. I thought I was taking leave of my senses," she said.
"We took to calling them the Great Grey Bourbon Fish," she said. "But we were entirely sober."
Walking catfish, or Clarias batrachus, came here from Southeast Asia in the early 1960s as an aquarium fish. By the end of that decade wild specimens were breeding in Palm Beach county and today batrachus has swum, slithered and walked across the state to the west coast and as far north as Tampa.
What is merely a nuisance or a curiosity elsewhere in the state has the potential to become a real problem near Tampa, where 200 tropical fish farms raise aquarium stock for the entire country.
"I wish there was a way to exterminate them without hurting my product," says Willis Aten, owner of Aqua-hatch Tropical Fish Farms Inc. "They've been known to walk a couple of miles, slithering like snakes. They get into my ponds where I raise barbs and tetras and they're bad news."
He said the catfish not only eat the fish food put out for the aquarium fish, but they have a good time eating Aten's small -- and expensive -- barbs and tetras.
But Aten noted that his losses are small and that since he routinely pumps his stock ponds dry several times each year, the catfish don't really get established in them.
"Also, they're good eating, without that fishy, musky taste."
Florida is home to 23 kinds of exotic non-native fish, 18 of which are believed to be thriving in the alien environment. But ichthyologists say the foreign fish are not interfering with the native species.
"This is not an ecological catastrophe. It's more of a nuisance," Shafland said.
Flying Wombat
first, you gotta catch 'em. next, you gotta cook 'em. then, you gotta eat 'em.
collecting them along the road would be a lot easier than investing in a lot of fishing gear. and I think pan-frying would be ideal... hmm.
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