Just north, the nation’s capital has been a restricted flight zone since shortly after the 9/11 attacks, but that hasn’t stopped D.C. drone users from fueling their hobby in the Virginia countryside.

The Federal Aviation Administration has strict regulations on unmanned aircrafts in the District of Columbia and its Maryland and Northern Virginia suburbs. The rules, however, got murky this year after a National Transportation Safety Board law judge ruled that an FAA ban on commercial drones was unenforceable.

That ambiguity got worse last week when the FAA canceled a voluntary set of guidelines for drone users, known as the advisory circular for unmanned aircrafts, that’s been in place since 1981.

“It’s a problem that there’s a lot of people who are flying unsafely and not knowing any of the rules or not knowing any of the community-based guidelines,” said Christopher Vo, president of the DC Area Drone User Group.

In 2011 the FAA fined a photographer $10,000 for flying a drone over the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville. The FAA lost the case in a court challenge and appealed to the National Transportation Safety Board, after the law judge dismissed it and ruled in March that the FAA ban on commercial drones was “non-binding.”

And Washington-area drone users struggling to understand the rules, let alone follow them, are waiting for FAA to publish an updated set of guidelines.

Vo said flying commercial drones is “technically not illegal.” He doesn’t see any other reason for the FAA canceling the guidelines, besides giving “users the impression that they were permitted to fly their aircraft,” he said.

FAA spokesman Les Dorr said the FAA plans to issue a new, updated set of guidelines to come in line with laws put in place two years ago by Congress, but there’s no release date yet. Dorr said the FAA is obligated to follow laws that Congress passes.

“Some of the guidance that is in the old advisory circular somewhat conflicts the language in the law,” Dorr said. “The language in the law takes precedence.”

The 2012 FAA Modernization and Reform Act outlined restrictions the FAA can put in place for a model aircraft.

Despite the NTSB ruling on the non-binding nature of the drone rules, Dorr said the FAA has “publicized what the law is and how we interpret it.”

The DC Area Drone User Group has 1,350 members, making it the largest such organization in the country. While some of these members are commercial drone users — including people who use drones for academic research — most are hobbyists who own small drones the size of toy helicopters.

“There are no stakeholders looking toward the interest of the hobbyists or the commercial users within the FAA, so the FAA has no idea or doesn’t care about any of our interests,” Vo said. He added: “Basically I want the federal government out of my hair when it comes to my less-than-5-kilogram aircraft.”

Gray areas pose a problem for both hobbyists and commercial users, who want locations where they can legally fly their drones. Vo is petitioning to use eight locations in the Washington area.

Vo, a Ph.D. robotics student at George Mason University, said the search process is “in the very beginning stages.” But the most promising location is the Fairfax County Landfill, where a model airplane club is already allowed to fly.

At the dump, there’s less concern over privacy or security issues. The biggest risk, Vo said, is a drone crashing into a pile and joining the rest of the trash.

“There’s pretty much no risk at all flying in a landfill,” he said.

Drones have been a matter of dispute because of their potential ability to gather information about their locations and take photos that could jeopardize privacy rights. Existing rules for drone flyers include a limit of no higher than 400 feet up in the air and no-fly zones of a five-mile radius around airports, so as not to interfere with planes.

Vo said he’s waiting to see more nuanced rules that would incorporate both unrestricted recreational flying and some commercial flying.

“I think most people in the DC Area Drone User Group would agree,” Vo said, “we are willing to accept some sort of licensing requirements or some sort of registration requirements, if it means that we would be allowed to fly.”

– See more at: http://medilldc.net/2014/10/dc-drone-hobbyists-in-limbo-over-flying-locations/#sthash.veDuM4YC.dpuf

Her trainer, Alden Cesko, wanted a room too. “Of course,” said Cesko. “It’s my girl.”

Cesko taught Betsy to sniff for high explosives, sitting and pointing her nose to signal a discovery. They wake at 4 or 5 each morning, and Betsy takes tests promptly at 6 to ensure her detection abilities are 100 percent. She’s a Belgian Malinois — perked ears, black face and light brown body — who has cleared 240,000 square meters since she started searching for landmines in 2009.

Cesko and Betsy took a break from landmine clearing to spend Wednesday night in Washington, D.C., celebrating their selection as trainer-dog team of the year at the nonprofit Marshall Legacy Institute’s annual gala. The organization, which is dedicated to removing landmines, was founded by retired Gen. Gordon Sullivan in memory of Gen. George Marshall, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work helping societies recover after World War II.

Cesko’s dedication won Betsy the “Top Dog” award, says Sead Vrana, an official in Bosnia-Herzegovina. “The handler — that’s what makes the difference,” says Vrana, chief of explosive ordinance disposal at the Federation of Bosnia & Herzegovina Civil Protection, who is much more comfortable in his field uniform than in his suit. “They love each other. I’m witnessing that every day. “

Vrana said there were about 200,000 to 300,000 landmines in Bosnia-Herzegovina as of 2009, the latest estimate. About 30 percent of the population lives on or surrounds the landmines, he said, and there’s much more work to be done.

The U.S. deployed more than 16,000 troops to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1996 to help NATO allies stabilize the region following the Bosnian War. Today, more than 700 Army National Guard troops remain nearby in Kosovo, where the conflict continued after warring factions in Bosnia-Herzegovina signed a peace agreement in 1995.

After years of conflict, Army officials estimated that more than 750,000 mines had been planted by the warring groups. Many regarded them as the biggest security threat to U.S. personnel, noting that landmines caused about one-third of all U.N. casualties there.

Today in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a team of five mine-detection dogs clears an average of 600 square meters each day. Two additional dogs are expected to join the effort next week. The Marshall Legacy Institute, which has focused on demining war-torn countries, has sponsored 199 dogs for training worldwide.

Dogs are an effective way of removing mines because of their accuracy, efficiency and reduction in casualties, experts said. Since the program began 17 years ago, no dog or handler has been injured or killed.

There are, however, some limitations. For instance, the dogs can’t cover mountain terrain, and the longer a mine stays in the ground, the deeper it becomes and the harder to detect.

The Belgian Malinois, a sheepherding dog, is popular for police and military purposes. Its work ethic and intelligence makes it an easy species to train. “She,” Vrana said, motioning to Betsy, “is the most important part of the whole process.”

So what are the facts? Here are the top things you should know:

Why do officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention oppose a travel ban on people from countries, such as Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea?

Officials from the CDC, National Institutes of Health and Customs and Border Protection said a travel ban would result in limiting information on tracing the Ebola virus – details that could help prevent its spread. CDC Director Tom Frieden said the system the center has in place now allows it to track the disease and the people who may have been exposed. 

So why are congressmen arguing for a travel ban?

Some of them are concerned there isn’t enough being done to prevent the spread of Ebola. They listed concerns about the protective gear the two infected nurses used and also the reliance on self-reporting by those exposed to the virus. “We don’t know what we don’t know,” said Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio. Said Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., “It seems to me that this is not a failsafe system that’s being put into place here.” And Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., added: “We’ve got to do better than this — we can do better than this.”

What is the procedure for diagnosing an individual with Ebola?

Frieden outlined three steps: Identify the symptoms, isolate the patient and immediately call the CDC. Workers should arrive within the hour.

When should I be concerned that I have Ebola?

It takes anywhere from two to 21 days to start exhibiting Ebola symptoms. If a person returning from West Africa has had contact with a diagnosed Ebola patient and shows signs of the flu, diarrhea or vomiting within 21 days of contact, that’s a cause for concern.

Is there a cure?

No. But the NIH is developing three vaccines, two of which are undergoing trials. Luciana Borio, the Federal Drug Administration’s assistant commissioner for counterterrorism, said the FDA is expediting steps in efforts to develop medication for Ebola.

Why should I worry about what’s happening in Africa?

Frieden said an Ebola outbreak in the U.S. is unlikely, but House members say the public health crisis in West Africa could continue to spread if the U.S. doesn’t help to contain the disease.

Over 30,000 people were registered for the marathon and 10K. There were 8,000 military and service participants, 3,700 of those active duty. Whether honoring family members or overcoming their own struggles, many were running for a cause.

With 3,200 Marines running, and more on the sidelines for support, Marine Col. David Maxwell said whether he’s a runner or official the Marine presence makes the marathon special.

“The Disney marathon has its characters, London has Big Ben,” he said at the press conference. “The Marine Corps has the United States Marines.”

Army 2nd Lt. Meghan Curran, of 2nd Bn., was the first female finisher at a time of 2:51. Curran said running with a Marine Corps pack at mile 20, and hearing words of encouragement from them, got her through the last few miles.

“I just said, ‘Take it a mile at a time,’ and that put me through,” she said.

Participants include four runners who have competed in all 39 Marine Corps Marathons, and official starter Sean Astin, an actor known most famously for playing Sam in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

Maxwell said the challenges in the Marine Corps Marathon were symbolic of the challenges Marines face. More than 190,000 Marines were deployed around the world as of June, according to the Statistical Information Analysis Division.

“It takes courage to sign up in the first place, facing the physical and mental challenges that you will endure,” he said. “As marines we know full well what it means to face a challenge and overcome it.”

Medal of Honor recipient Cpl. Kyle Carpenter, who shielded a fellow Marine from a grenade in Afghanistan, skydived into a landing near the starting line. He ran with a time of 5:12.

“At the end of the run, when I’m hurting and I’m happy that it’s over, I’m really just going to be thankful that I have the ability for my legs to hurt and my legs to be sore,” Carpenter said.

Richard Powell, 1^st Bn. 23^rd Marines, was the first marine to finish at a time of 2:33. First Lt. Angelica Valdez, air intelligence officer in Heavy Helicopter Squadron 363, was the first female Marine to finish at a time of 3:05. Powell said the Marine Corps Marathon is the only race he runs year after year.

“You push yourself to a higher cause,” Powell said.

Astin said compared with many other runners who ran in honor of cause or family member, his running was “selfish.”

“It’s amazing to see marines looking back the other way and support you. It’s kind of surreal and sort of strange,” Astin said at the press conference. “To be the official starter seems… inappropriate somehow.”

His first reason is for himself, his second for his family, and he searched for a third reason. He began the hashtag #Run3rd — he printed out and kept 500 of those responses in his pocket as he ran.

The 7,320th finisher became the half-millionth participant who crossed the line in the marathon’s history. Last year the marathon’s weekend brought $100 million into the metropolitan DC area from tourism.

Samuel Kosgei, active duty U.S. Army specialist in the 1st Squadron 4th Cavalry Regiment, finished first at a time of 2:22.

“I’m glad I won,” said Kosgei, who was born in Uganda but is now stationed in Fort Valley. “This is a big deal for me.”

After consistently missed deadlines by the Department of Energy, Washington state is taking the DOE to court to amend requirements on a 2010 agreement. The state is now looking for new ways to hold the department accountable.

The Hanford complex had originally been built for World War II and produced the 20 pounds of plutonium used for the atomic bomb dropped over Nagasaki, Japan. By the time the complex stopped producing plutonium for nuclear weapons, it had also created 177 tanks of nuclear waste, currently being stored underground.

The Hanford Nuclear Reservation is now the largest cleanup site in the U.S., spanning over 586 square miles near Richland, Wash., in the middle of the desert.

The rural area is only a couple miles from the Columbia River, the largest river in the Pacific Northwest and the greatest concern for state residents. Leaks in the tanks have already been detected — if they were to leak a large amount of waste, the river would be contaminated.

The U.S. Department of Energy employs over 8,000 workers on the Hanford site, but not all of those workers agree with the DOE’s cleanup methods. Contractors in the past have kept the DOE accountable by “blowing the whistle.”

Federal courts in 2010 mandated deadlines for the DOE to finish its cleanup on the site. But the deadlines keep getting moved back, and more Hanford employees step forward voicing concerns about the cleanup process. The area has been a cleanup site for 25 years, and it’s estimated to take another 33.

“They’ve consistently mismanaged the cleanup; there’s no doubt about that,” said Bill Lang, an environmental historian and professor at Portland State University. “I don’t think there’s anybody who would defend the Department of Energy’s administration on this cleanup.

Oversight on the Department of Energy has become challenging, as whistleblowers find their comments being met with closed doors and, sometimes, termination.

“The DOE hasn’t really acknowledged whistleblowing at Hanford ever, which makes it really hard to correct behavior that leads to whistleblowing,” said Liz Mattson, program coordinator at the Hanford Challenge. The Hanford Challenge is an organization that helps whistleblowers with resources if they have trouble being heard internally.

Employees who have disagreed with the Energy Department’s course of action have been “suppressed” instead of rewarded, Mattson said.

Within the year a handful of contractors who have been critical of the site’s cleanup process have been fired, including former contractor Walter Tamosaitis who is filing a lawsuit for wrongful termination.

Washington River Protection Solutions, the unit for URS Corp. employing contractors for the Hanford site, declined to comment. WRPS told The Seattle Times on Aug. 20 Tamosaitis was one of 200 workers laid off to “align employment levels with project work scope and federal funding.” WRPS also explained another whistleblower’s termination to The Seattle Times due to “poor performance.”

Mattson gave a different story for Tamosaitis. She said he was fired because he refused to lie about the design on the waste treatment plant, claiming it as finished when it was incomplete.

“There’s the official line of how business is supposed to be done, and then there’s also the reality of how people do their jobs in actuality on site,” she added. “There’s usually two different stories, when you ask for the official story versus boots on the ground, what actually happened. It’s hard to usually get a really clear picture of what’s happening.”

Missed deadlines

Site administrators feel rushed to safely remove the waste before it could cause damage to residents and the environment.

The DOE is required to follow three important deadlines: completing the waste treatment plants to get them operating; retrieving all of the waste that is currently underground; and finishing the cleanup and disposing of all waste.

The waste treatment plants will be used to turn the nuclear waste into glass in a process called vitrification. Without completing the first task, building the waste treatment facilities, the waste being retrieved from underground can’t be transformed and disposed of.

Many have said the site is mismanaged, and that trying to save time have caused delays in the cleanup.

Shortcuts to the site in the past have led to more complications later. The DOE invested years into building the vitrification facilities, for example, before contractors began realizing the design wasn’t going to work.

Mattson said the pressure to make deadlines for the DOE is a double-edged sword. While the public is rightfully concerned about safety measures, she said, trying to rush the process has also led to mistakes and employees losing their jobs.

“If a contractor is having trouble finishing their work on time … if someone blows a whistle on that behavior, then that can have an effect on whether the contractor keeps their contract,” Mattson said. “Often that’s the thing that’s hardest for contractors to deal with, is public perception and media around their work.”

Lang said he believes contractors’ mistakes have been a result of miscommunication by the DOE. He said many of Hanford’s contractors have become scapegoats for the Energy Department when it has failed to meet deadlines.

“It’s pretty difficult to believe that the contractors, any of them — all of them perfectly capable — could screw up again, and again, and again,” he said.

The waste treatment plants were originally supposed to begin operating by 2011, which was a deadline imposed by the federal court. The deadline has now been moved back to 2019, meaning all waste wouldn’t be removed until 2048.

Lee Overton, assistant to the Washington state attorney general, said the Energy Department didn’t inform the state until 2011 that it would not be meeting the deadline within the same year.

Overton said the Energy Department has been uncommunicative with the state about its progress. When it failed to meet its first deadline, he said, the state imposed its own suggestions for the timeline after the DOE failed to offer alternative dates.

“The Department of Energy consented to agree on certain deadlines and they are failing to meet almost all of them,” Overton said. “Is that in part due to mismanagement? Possibly.” 

Hanford’s past and future

The DOE currently spends approximately $2 billion a year on the Hanford site cleanup, totaling well over $100 billion in the coming years. Critics are concerned the department’s discouragement of whistleblowers could lead to inefficiency or fewer safety precautions, especially given Hanford’s past.

Historically the DOE has been extremely secretive about its work at Hanford. For decades almost all Hanford employees didn’t know they were working with nuclear weapons; that secret led to fewer safety measures and cancer risks.

So far about 7,000 former Hanford employees have been compensated for $10.6 billion by the U.S. Department of Labor for health problems, most of them from when plutonium makers were kept in the dark, said Rachel Leiton, director of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program in the Labor Department.

“The Columbia river itself has been a lifeline for thousands of years,” said Russell Jim, program director of Native tribe Yakama Nation’s Environmental Restoration & Waste Management program. “They’re concerned only with trying to do a cursory cleanup. They don’t seem to be willing to clean it up to a point where everything is safe.”

But John Schweppe, a Richland resident and physicist, said he would only be concerned about the Hanford site if its administrators were not trying to fix the problem. He said it would take a long time and an immense amount of waste to leak for the river to get contaminated.

“You’ve got to keep it in perspective,” Schweppe said. “Everybody’s concerned small leaks can turn into big leaks, so they’re looking into it. … Nobody’s putting their hands up and saying, ‘It’s too expensive; let’s just walk away.’ That would be the only doomsday scenario that I can think of.”

“They’ve been leaking incrementally for a long period of time,” State Sen. Sharon Brown said. “We’ve been aware of the leaks and they’re being monitored.”

The DOE has reduced the cleanup area from 586 to 385 square miles as of 2011, and Brown said much of that area has been returned as public land. The hope, she said, is to make the site both a public reservation for recreational programs and a research district.