ApocaDocuments (9) for the "Biology Breach" scenario from this week
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Sun, Mar 1, 2009
from PressTV (Iran):
Persian Gulf faces possible environmental crisis
The Persian Gulf has been polluted by more than 5,000 cubic meters of toxic industrial waste including heavy metals.
The waste material from Mobin Petrochemical Company, located in Assaluyeh in southern Iran, has been discharged into the Persian Gulf without being treated, Iran's Environmental News Agency reported.
The news report added that the petrochemical company's waste materials are toxic and replete with hazardous industrial materials.... According to the latest studies, the level of the pollution in The Persian Gulf as a semi-closed sea is 47 times more than the open seas and the water in eastern coast of the area contains more pollutants.
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Surely the petrochemical companies have inadvertently been releasing those petrochemicals.
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Sun, Mar 1, 2009
from Tribune Democrat (PA):
Pollution pinches Chesapeake crabs
The blue crab population is at an all-time low, and two factors are to blame: Pollution and overfishing. There are six sub-basins of the 444-mile Susquehanna that feed the bay.
Acid-mine drainage is blamed for pollution from this region, while farm runoff is the main culprit to the east.
There is less crab food, less crab habitat and too much catching of fish the crabs feed on.
In 2007, watermen suffered the worst crab harvest since Chesapeake Bay recordkeeping began in 1945. Last year was even worse in Virginia, and only slightly better in Maryland, causing more than $640 million in losses, reports show. ...
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Even with all that armor, they're still going the way of the trilobite.
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Sun, Mar 1, 2009
from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
States' patchwork ballast rules has a few holes
A battle to force overseas ships to stop dumping biological pollution in the Great Lakes is taking shape in the harbors of Wisconsin.
The state Department of Natural Resources recently released a proposed set of ballast water discharge rules for oceangoing vessels that is far stricter than anything that has been adopted by any other Great Lakes state except New York.
Ballast water is used to steady less-than-full cargo ships and is a problem for the Great Lakes because oceangoing vessels traveling from distant countries can arrive with tanks teeming with unwanted organisms. Those foreign species can wreak havoc on the environment when the ballast is flushed as cargo is loaded.
Congress has been talking about a uniform national ballast law for the better part of a decade, with little to show for it.
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Sorry... but I just crapped a pile of quagga mussels on your couch!
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Fri, Feb 27, 2009
from Scientific American:
The Great Garbage Patch
In 1997 Captain Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, set sail from Hawaii and discovered, in a remote part of the North Pacific, an island -- made of plastic.
Moore measured about 300,000 tiny pieces of plastic per square kilometer back then, but a decade later there are approximately 2.3 million pieces of plastic per square kilometer. What is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is now the size of the United States, according to Moore.... The plastic never degrades, but sunlight and wave friction break it into tiny particles, smaller than five millimeters, that remain suspended in the water. Holly Bamford, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says it's likely that filter feeders like clams or jellyfish are eating the plastic, which may prove dangerous all the way up the food chain. Ongoing studies will try to determine the patch's impact. ...
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That's no patch -- that's a continent!
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Fri, Feb 27, 2009
from Forbes:
25 more Oklahoma wells tested in E. coli probe
At least 25 more private water wells have been tested near a northeastern Oklahoma town where an E. coli outbreak last summer killed one man and sickened hundreds more, the state's Department of Environmental Quality said.... But earlier this month, Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson suggested that it could have been the result of contamination from nearby poultry farms.
He released a report concluding that the well at the Country Cottage "is, and has been, contaminated with poultry waste and associated bacteria, including E. coli." The report also noted 49 poultry houses within a six-mile radius of Locust Grove that have the capacity to produce 10,000 tons of waste a year.
The poultry industry has denied these claims, saying the DEQ testing did not identify "any link between bacteria in water wells and poultry." ...
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Gosh. How could thousands of tons of chickenshit possibly get into wells?
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Tue, Feb 24, 2009
from London Daily Mail:
Social websites harm children's brains: Chilling warning to parents from top neuroscientist
Social networking websites are causing alarming changes in the brains of young users, an eminent scientist has warned.
Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Bebo are said to shorten attention spans, encourage instant gratification and make young people more self-centred.
The claims from neuroscientist Susan Greenfield will make disturbing reading for the millions whose social lives depend on logging on to their favourite websites each day. Baroness Greenfield, an Oxford University neuroscientist and director of the Royal Institution, believes repeated exposure could effectively 'rewire' the brain. "We know how small babies need constant reassurance that they exist," she told the Mail yesterday.
'My fear is that these technologies are infantilising the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment." ...
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Michael is wishing he was sure he existed.
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Tue, Feb 24, 2009
from New York Times:
Many Plans to Curtail Use of Plastic Bags, but Not Much Action
SEATTLE -- Last summer, city officials here became the first in the nation to approve a fee on paper and plastic shopping bags in many retail stores. The 20-cent charge was intended to reduce pollution by encouraging reusable bags. But a petition drive financed by the plastic-bag industry delayed the plan. Now a far broader segment of Seattle's bag carriers -- its voters -- will decide the matter in an election in August.
Even in a city that likes to be environmentally conscious, the outcome is uncertain.
"You have to be really tone-deaf to what's going on to think that the economic climate is not going to affect people," said Rob Gala, a legislative aide to the city councilman who first sponsored the bill for the 20-cent fee. ...
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So... why don't we just bag the plastic altogether!
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Mon, Feb 23, 2009
from The Louisville Courier-Journal:
Indiana ash ponds pollute bird habitat, drinking water
The ash ponds at the nation's third-largest coal plant near here have contaminated a new wildlife sanctuary for endangered birds and the drinking water of a neighboring community.
And while a federal agency and the company that owns the Gibson plant, Duke Energy, have taken steps to alleviate both problems, advocates say the situation underscores the need for a fresh look at the hazards of coal combustion waste.
Congress and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency promised such a review following the 1.1billion-gallon ash slide in Tennessee in December that smothered several hundred acres.
The House Natural Resources Committee is weighing national standards for ash impoundments, and the new EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, has promised to study whether national standards are needed to prevent toxic contaminants in ash from polluting water. ...
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They are nothing but a bunch of ash-holes!
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Mon, Feb 23, 2009
from Environmental Health News:
A worldwide pollutant may cause gene loss
A new study suggests that long term exposure to a common water pollutant reduced the genetic diversity of the midge - a common water insect.
Aquatic insects are the foundation of healthy waterways. Other insects, invertebrates and fish depend on the tiny creatures for food. A loss of their genetics is a loss for ecosystem diversity.
The pollutant, called tributyltin (TBT), is a widely used pesticide. While TBT affected the growth, survival and reproduction of the midge insect, the greatest effects were found in the genes. TBT-exposed insects lost gene diversity two times greater than non-exposed insects.... Most toxicity studies look at high dose, single generation effects. But, in reality, organisms -- including humans -- are exposed to low-levels of chemicals over long periods, sometimes for many generations. Little is known about how these types of exposures may affect health.
In this study, scientists exposed the midge to TBT at levels found in the environment for 12 generations. They monitored growth, weight, mortality and genetic diversity, which was determined by studying DNA sequences known as microsatellites. ...
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If I were a midge, I'd be worried. Thank goodness I don't share any DNA with midges!
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