ApocaDocuments (12) for the "Biology Breach" scenario from this week
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Sun, Dec 28, 2008
from Merrillville Post-Tribune:
IDEM stops giving fines, punishments
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management has stopped issuing fines against other state agencies in Indiana that violate their environmental permits.
For instance, the Indiana Department of Transportation violated wastewater permits for rest stops across the state more than 550 times over four years. It discharged sludge and ammonia into streams, causing algae blooms and potential damage to aquatic life. But INDOT got no fines. It got off with a legal slap on the wrist. Environmentalists are appalled, calling it a "creeping lack of accountability" and commitment to enforcing the law. ...
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Ever had a slap on the wrist? It willy willy hurts!
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Sat, Dec 27, 2008
from New York Times:
Tennessee Ash Flood Larger Than Initial Estimate
A coal ash spill in eastern Tennessee that experts were already calling the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States is more than three times as large as initially estimated, according to an updated survey by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Officials at the authority initially said that about 1.7 million cubic yards of wet coal ash had spilled when the earthen retaining wall of an ash pond at the Kingston Fossil Plant, about 40 miles west of Knoxville, gave way on Monday. But on Thursday they released the results of an aerial survey that showed the actual amount was 5.4 million cubic yards, or enough to flood more than 3,000 acres one foot deep. ...
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Somebody made an awfully big boo-boo!
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Sat, Dec 27, 2008
from Reuters:
Pollution at home often lurks unrecognized
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Many people may be surprised by the number of chemicals they are exposed to through everyday household products, a small study finds, suggesting, researchers say, that consumers need to learn more about sources of indoor pollution.
In interviews with 25 women who'd had their homes and bodies tested for various environmental pollutants, researchers found that most were surprised and perplexed by the number of chemicals to which they'd been exposed.... The term "fragrance" on household-product labels can signal the presence of potentially harmful chemicals. One of the uses of phthalates, for example, is to stabilize fragrances. ...
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I'd rather die than my home have housatosis!
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Fri, Dec 26, 2008
from Associated Press:
Amateurs are trying genetic engineering at home
The Apple computer was invented in a garage. Same with the Google search engine. Now, tinkerers are working at home with the basic building blocks of life itself.
Using homemade lab equipment and the wealth of scientific knowledge available online, these hobbyists are trying to create new life forms through genetic engineering -- a field long dominated by Ph.D.s toiling in university and corporate laboratories. ...
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In ye olde days we called that "sex."
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Fri, Dec 26, 2008
from Washington Post:
Report: Alberta Mines Imperil Birds
About half of America's migratory birds fly from destinations as far-flung as Chile to nest in Canada's boreal forest. In Alberta, that forest lies above tar sands that contain oil reserves second only to Saudi Arabia's.
The excavation of the tar sands -- projected to pump $2.4 trillion into Canada's economy between 2010 and 2030 -- could reduce the region's migratory-bird population by almost half, according to a peer-reviewed study released Dec. 2 by U.S. and Canadian environmental groups.... The study estimates that over 30 to 50 years, tar sands excavation will reduce bird populations by anywhere from 6 million to 166 million, including several endangered and threatened species. ...
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Haven't these birds ever heard of a detour?
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Fri, Dec 26, 2008
from Discovery Channel:
Tenn. Sludge Spill Challenges 'Clean Coal' Future
When an earthen wall holding back 525 million gallons of ash slurry gave way at the coal-fired Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee in the wee hours of Monday morning, the resultant flood ruined a picturesque rural landscape, inundated more than a dozen houses, and blanketed as much as 400 acres of land with potentially toxic muck....
But the mud has done much more than just sully a countryside. Americans' energy consumption habits are a top-tier political issue, and as we look for new ways to curtail global warming, wean ourselves from oil, and find sources of clean energy, coal's role is still unclear.
So the accident raises a serious question: Is there such a thing as "clean coal"? ...
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Now this is what I call a shovel-ready project!
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Fri, Dec 26, 2008
from National Research Council:
EPA Should Pursue Cumulative Risk Assessment of Phthalates
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should examine whether combined exposures to chemicals known as phthalates could cause adverse health effects in humans, says a new report from the National Research Council. In addition, this analysis, called a cumulative risk assessment, should consider other chemicals that could potentially cause the same health effects as phthalates, instead of focusing on chemicals that are similar in structure, which is EPA's current practice. Furthermore, EPA should consider using the recommended approach for future cumulative risk assessments on other kinds of chemicals.... Currently when conducting cumulative risk assessments, EPA often considers only chemicals that are structurally related, on the assumption that they have the same chain of reactions that lead to a final health outcome. That practice ignores how exposures to different chemicals may result in the same health effects. The conceptual approach taken for phthalates -- to consider chemicals that cause similar health effects -- should also be applied when completing any cumulative risk assessment, the committee said. For instance, EPA could evaluate the risk of combined exposures to lead, methylmercury, and polychlorinated biphenyls because all contribute to cognitive deficits consistent with IQ reduction in children. ...
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Even scientists says we should investigate this further!
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Wed, Dec 24, 2008
from University of California - Davis via ScienceDaily:
Baby Fish In Polluted San Francisco Estuarian Waters Are Stunted And Deformed
Striped bass in the San Francisco Estuary are contaminated before birth with a toxic mix of pesticides, industrial chemicals and flame retardants that their mothers acquire from estuary waters and food sources and pass on to their eggs, say UC Davis researchers. Using new analytical techniques, the researchers found that offspring of estuary fish had underdeveloped brains, inadequate energy supplies and dysfunctional livers. They grew slower and were smaller than offspring of hatchery fish raised in clean water. ...
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As long as everyone is deformed it will all even out.
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Tue, Dec 23, 2008
from Nashville Tennessean:
Flood of sludge breaks TVA dike
HARRIMAN, Tenn. — Millions of yards of ashy sludge broke through a dike at TVA's Kingston coal-fired plant Monday, covering hundreds of acres, knocking one home off its foundation and putting environmentalists on edge about toxic chemicals that may be seeping into the ground and flowing downriver.
One neighboring family said the disaster was no surprise because they have watched the 1960s-era ash pond's mini-blowouts off and on for years. About 2.6 million cubic yards of slurry — enough to fill 798 Olympic-size swimming pools — rolled out of the pond Monday, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Cleanup will take at least several weeks, or, in a worst-case scenario, years. ...
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Sounds like a shovel-ready project to me!
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Tue, Dec 23, 2008
from Associated Press:
More than 100 million Americans breathe sooty air
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 100 million people living in 46 metro areas are breathing air that has gotten too full of soot on some days, and now those cities have to clean up their air, the Environmental Protection Agency said Monday.
The EPA added 15 cities to the sooty air list, mostly in states not usually thought of as pollution-prone, such as Alaska, Utah, Idaho and Wisconsin. That's probably because of the prevalence of wood stoves in western and northern regions, a top EPA official said.
But environmentalists said the EPA was only doing half its job on soot-laden areas, letting some southern cities with long-term soot problems — such as Houston — off the hook. ...
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Hrmm mfffl grtmmm bakltmum.
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Mon, Dec 22, 2008
from The Times-Picayune:
Report sounds alarm on dead zone in the Gulf
After years of piecemeal efforts to reduce Mississippi River pollution that leads to the Gulf of Mexico's annual "dead zone" disturbance, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Agriculture Department need to take quick action in pinpointing and reducing the source of the problem, says a new report from the National Research Council.
Agricultural practices in the nation's Heartland are a major contributor to the dead zone problem, and the report points out that EPA and USDA have not effectively coordinated upstream pollution-control measures to tackle the problem: a lifeless, oxygen-depleted swath of Gulf waters nearly the size of New Jersey.
Even with a more robust program to reduce river pollution, the report notes that it could take decades to reverse the damage. ...
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You mean we're going to have to hold people accountable? No way!
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Mon, Dec 22, 2008
from Chemical & Engineering News:
Beetle Epidemic Escalates
...Colorado is among the hardest hit areas in what entomologists are calling one of the largest insect infestations in North America's recorded history. Stretching from British Columbia to as far south as New Mexico, millions of acres worth of pine trees have been killed by mountain pine beetles (Dendroctonus ponderosae) over the past few years. The trees' deaths pose ecological, social, and economic challenges. The threat of fire ranks among the biggest concerns, particularly as the rice-grain-sized beetles migrate from trees in sparsely populated higher altitudes to forests surrounding residential neighborhoods.
This species of bark beetle is native to Western North America and infests trees as part of a natural cycle. Entomologists and chemical ecologists say several factors have contributed to the insect's recent population boom, including a 10-year drought that weakened the pines' natural defenses and winters warm enough that more of the beetle larvae can now survive. In areas where mountain pine beetle numbers equate to an epidemic, many trees are already dead. Simply removing the beetle-riddled arboreal carcasses is one of the only remaining options for controlling the epidemic, scientists say. Meanwhile, researchers are studying how the combination of other forestry management techniques and chemical tools may help save remaining trees from massacre by beetles. ...
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Those bark beetles bite!
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