Biology
Breach
October 28, 2013, from Associated Press
North Dakota, the nation's No. 2 oil producer behind Texas, recorded nearly 300 oil pipeline spills in less than two years, state documents show. None was reported to the public, officials said.
According to records obtained by The Associated Press, the pipeline spills -- many of them small -- are among some 750 "oil field incidents" that have occurred since January 2012 without public notification.... Dennis Fewless, director of water quality for the state Health Department, said regulators are reviewing the state's policies for when to publicly report such incidents after a massive spill was discovered last month in northwestern North Dakota by a wheat farmer. State and company officials kept it quiet for 11 days -- and only said something after the AP asked about it.
October 28, 2009, from The Tennessean
A new EPA report says that the potentially toxic pollutants in coal ash – from mercury to arsenic - are of particular concern because they can concentrate in large amounts that are discharged to waterways or seep into groundwater... EPA officials have said they would decide by the end of this year whether coal ash should be regulated as a hazardous waste.
Coal ash industry officials have advocated for leaving coal ash regulations up to individual states.
The EPA report documents cases of fish and other aquatic wildlife kills, as well as contaminated wells and the sublethal affects to wildlife, including damage to reproductive organs and developmental problems.
The cause has been coal ash wastewater released accidentally and also routinely discharged into the environment as part of normal coal-fired plant operations.
October 28, 2009, from Cold Truth
The Coalition for Chemical Safety sounds like just the kind of group to which environmental activists would swarm.
The images on their Web site are iconic: A child holding the hand of a grownup, a worker's hard hat with an American flag decal, a family photo.... But if you check the interactive map on the coalition's website, the three or four "members" in the 13 states listed are mostly agri-business, chemical and industry trade associations....earlier this month, the chemical industry received an unexpected gift when the White House Office of Management and Budget prevented EPA from requiring safety data on pesticides that Congress had required years earlier.
The OMB -- which oversees regulatory policies -- was notorious for bending over backwards in previous administrations to please industry, especially in regulations involving the environment and public health and safety.
|
Climate
Chaos
October 28, 2014, from Washington Post
...climate science education may well work to counteract political ideology after all -- at least if you get to kids when they're young enough, before ideological views have become crystalized.
October 28, 2009, from BBC
...The majority of Kyrgyzstan is mountainous and we are surrounded by snow-capped peaks.
Mr Ermenbaev says the size of the surrounding mountain lakes is further evidence of the effects of global warming.
"When a glacier starts melting it creates small lakes, and each year the size of those lakes is growing," he says.
He adds that when the lakes get too big, the water overflows and rushes down the valleys and gorges, potentially threatening the settlements in its path....even if the water is stored downstream in reservoirs it evaporates much more quickly than it would in colder temperatures at higher altitude.
|
Resource
Depletion
|
Recovery
|
ApocaDocs