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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from
View By Scenario:
Species Collapse:(6)
Plague/Virus:(2)
Climate Chaos:(5)
Resource Depletion: (8)
Biology Breach:(11)
Recovery:(8)
This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
contamination  ~ technical cleverness  ~ heavy metals  ~ smart policy  ~ stupid humans  ~ technological innovation  ~ toxic sludge  ~ bad policy  ~ marine mammals  ~ global warming  ~ GMOs  



ApocaDocuments (9) matching "contamination" from this week
[see full week] ~ [see all stories tagged "contamination"]
Sun, Jan 11, 2009
from Associated Press:
Salmonella prompts peanut butter recall in Ohio
COLUMBUS, Ohio – An Ohio distributor says it has recalled two brands of its peanut butter after an open container tested positive for salmonella bacteria. There was no immediate indication whether the brands were linked to a national salmonella outbreak. King Nut Companies said in a statement issued Saturday that it has asked customers to stop distributing all peanut butter under its King Nut and Parnell's Pride brands with a lot code that begins with the numeral "8." The brands are distributed only through food service providers and are not sold directly to consumers. Preliminary laboratory testing found salmonella bacteria in a 5-pound container of King Nut brand creamy peanut butter, the Minnesota Department of Health said Friday. The Minnesota tests had not linked it to the type of salmonella in the outbreak that has sickened almost 400 people in 42 states, but the department said additional results are expected early next week. ...


Just don't you mess with my jelly!

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Sun, Jan 11, 2009
from Associated Press:
Nation's largest utility grapples with 2 spills
STEVENSON, Ala. (AP) — Standing on a porch near the Widows Creek power plant Saturday, Charlie Cookston took a drag off a cigarette and ticked off the reasons he distrusts the Tennessee Valley Authority. Dead mussels in the mighty, meandering Tennessee River. Dwindling numbers of fish. Big, black piles of coal ash that seem to get larger every day. As nearby residents await lab tests on the safety of drinking water, tempers are unsettled. Electric rates at the nation's largest utility have soared. A dike burst in Tennessee destroyed several homes, and on Friday, as much as 10,000 gallons of waste spilled into Widows Creek in northwestern Alabama. The nation's largest utility, once was viewed as a savior to the region, bringing lights, thousands of jobs and progress since its creation as a New Deal program in 1933, has had a rocky few months. ...


When it rains it pours, and when it spills it floods!

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Thu, Jan 8, 2009
from Associated Press:
TVA ratepayers may be stuck with ash cleanup bill
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- The tab for a toxin-laden ash flood at a coal-fired power plant in Tennessee could reach hundreds of millions of dollars, and ratepayers for the nation's largest public utility will probably be stuck with the bill. The total cost of cleaning up last month's accident isn't yet clear, but the bill will be staggering. Extra workers, overtime, heavy machinery, housing and supplies for families chased from their homes and lawsuits are among the costs that are piling up. And with few other places for the Tennessee Valley Authority to turn to cover the costs, the utility's 9 million customers in Tennessee and six surrounding states will bear the brunt in higher electricity rate hikes in the future, TVA Chairman Bill Sansom told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "This is going to get into (electric) rates sooner or later," Sansom said. "We haven't even thought about going to Washington for it." When a dike broke Dec. 22 at the Kingston Fossil Plant, some 1.1 billion gallons of sludge was released from a 40-acre settlement pond, blanketing nearly 300 acres in a rural neighborhood up to 9 feet deep in grayish muck and spilling into the Emory River threatening drinking water. ...


So... I see ... we get crapped on twice.

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Wed, Jan 7, 2009
from ProPublica:
Agencies Move to Restrict FOIA Access in Last-Minute Regs
As one of the most secretive presidential administrations in history gets ready to close up shop, it's closing a few more things -- records. Over the past few months, some federal agencies have issued rules that would eliminate public disclosure of information -- or, in some cases, make it more difficult for requesters to get information. While the federal Freedom of Information Act regulates what government information may be withheld from the public, internal rules determine how that law is carried out at the agency level. Those rules also may restrict access to information. On Dec. 9, the Department of Energy [2] proposed a rule that would eliminate the agency's "public interest balancing test" in determining whether to release information to the public. ...


What we don't know ... can only poison us!

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Wed, Jan 7, 2009
from New York Times:
Hundreds of Coal Ash Dumps Lack Regulation
The coal ash pond that ruptured and sent a billion gallons of toxic sludge across 300 acres of East Tennessee last month was only one of more than 1,300 similar dumps across the United States — most of them unregulated and unmonitored — that contain billions more gallons of fly ash and other byproducts of burning coal. Like the one in Tennessee, most of these dumps, which reach up to 1,500 acres, contain heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury and selenium, which are considered by the Environmental Protection Agency to be a threat to water supplies and human health. Yet they are not subject to any federal regulation, which experts say could have prevented the spill, and there is little monitoring of their effects on the surrounding environment. ...


Maybe Obama better appoint an Ash Czar!

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Tue, Jan 6, 2009
from CNNMoney:
Your house can make you sick
(Money Magazine) -- You're sniffling and wheezing your way through another winter. A run of bad luck with germs? Sure, but it also may be the result of something more insidious: toxins. Chemicals found in common home furnishings can cause asthma and flu-like symptoms, and your basement or bathroom may be harboring allergy-inducing mold. You could even be experiencing a reaction to a more dangerous substance that could cause kidney damage or cancer.... Banishing toxins from your home isn't an exciting improvement, but it's a crucial one, since many states counsel home buyers to do environmental checks before closing on a home. Below you'll find five of the most dangerous and common toxins to watch for, along with the most wallet-friendly ways to nip them in the bud. ...


Of course, you could live outside .... oh wait. That's bad for you, too!

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Tue, Jan 6, 2009
from Environmental Health News:
Mercury-laden whale meat may foster heart disease
Eating mercury contaminated seafood increases the risk of heart disease in men, reports this unique study that examined Faroese whalers. The risk of heart disease increases in men who eat mercury contaminated seafood -- in this case whale meat. The results support previous findings with other human populations that show higher exposures to methylmercury can promote heart disease. Methylmercury is an environmental pollutant found in fish and seafood. It is at particularly high levels in some top level predators that eat smaller prey, such as tuna and other large fish and marine mammals. People who eat enough mercury-laden food to increase their body levels may suffer from well known and adverse health effects, including reproductive and neurological problems and an increased risk of death from heart attacks. This unique study looked at a group of 42 Faroese whalingmen aged 30-70 years old. More than half (26 (or 63 percent of the men) ate "3 or more whale meals per month." The researchers investigated if long-term exposure to mercury by eating pilot whale meat led to adverse heart related health effects, such as heart attacks....The researchers found a clearly significant correlation of increased blood pressure and arterial thickness with higher mercury levels found in their bodies. ...


Sounds like nothing but a bunch of blubber to me!

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Tue, Jan 6, 2009
from Inter Press Service:
PERU: Open-Pit Mine Continues to Swallow City
CERRO DE PASCO, Peru, Jan 5 (IPS) - An immense open-pit mine located 4380 metres above sea level is swallowing up the centre of the city of Cerro de Pasco in Peru's central highlands, while the damages, in the form of toxic waste, spread to nearby villages. The government just signed a new law to relocate part of the local population, who for decades have suffered from the lead dust, dynamite explosions and toxic gases generated by the mining of zinc, lead and silver. The open-pit mine now operated by Volcan, a Peruvian company, in this city of 70,000 -- which is the capital of the province of Pasco -- is now 1.8 kilometres long. Neighbourhoods stretch all around its edges. The shabby houses located a few metres from the edge show cracks from the detonations, and children with blood lead levels far above the acceptable limits play next to vast heaps of slag. And in villages near the city, local peasant farmers watch their livestock die because of a lack of water, and contaminated grass. ...


Sounds like a fate ... that awaits ... us all.

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Mon, Jan 5, 2009
from London Daily Mail:
Orange drinks with 300 times more pesticide than tap water
Fizzy drinks sold by Coca-Cola in Britain have been found to contain pesticides at up to 300 times the level allowed in tap or bottled water. A worldwide study found pesticide levels in orange and lemon drinks sold under the Fanta brand, which is popular with children, were at their highest in the UK. The research team called on the Government, the industry and the company to act to remove the chemicals and called for new safety standards to regulate the soft drinks market. The industry denies children are at risk and insists that the levels found by researchers based at the University of Jaen in southern Spain are not harmful... The chemicals detected included carbendazim, thiabendazole, imazalil, prochloraz, malathion and iprodione. ...


Things go better.... with imazalil!

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