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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from
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Species Collapse:(4)
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climate impacts  ~ contamination  ~ smart policy  ~ efficiency increase  ~ economic myopia  ~ global warming  ~ governmental idiocy  ~ technological innovation  ~ melting glaciers  ~ sixth extinction  ~ governmental corruption  



ApocaDocuments (7) matching "contamination" from this week
[see full week] ~ [see all stories tagged "contamination"]
Sat, May 9, 2009
from The New York Times:
UN: Treaty Expanded by 9 More Dangerous Chemicals
A U.N.-sponsored treaty to combat highly dangerous chemicals has been expanded to include nine more substances that are used in pesticides, electronics and other products, U.N. officials said Saturday. The additions include one called PFOS worth billions of dollars in a wide range of uses from making semiconductor chips to fighting fires. Another is lindane, a pesticide widely used in combatting head lice. "These chemicals transit boundaries. They are found everywhere in the world," Donald Cooper, [executive secretary to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, or POPs] said. "They don't go away. They persist in the atmosphere, they persist in the soil, in the water for extremely long periods of time." ...


And, quite often, these chemicals have way too many syllables!!

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Fri, May 8, 2009
from Syracuse Post-Standard:
Syracuse's community gardens are tainted with lead and arsenic
A dedicated band of gardeners have been tilling Syracuse's soil as a way of building community and providing fresh fruits and vegetables to their families. But the plots they have been eating from and others they have been working to develop are contaminated with toxic metals. In at least some cases, Syracuse city workers were likely the ones who laid down the polluted dirt. A recent study of six local community gardens by scientists at the State University College of Environmental Science and Forestry showed that all but one of the plots contained elevated levels of lead, according to preliminary results. Samples from one garden in development -- the Isabella Street Community Garden -- exceeded health standards set by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The normal level of lead in soil is between 40 and 50 parts per million. The Syracuse gardens have lead levels that range from 46 to 820 parts per million. Moreover, arsenic levels in all of the plots except for one were off the charts, said ESF professor Venera Jouraeva, who led the study. ...


I wondered why my carrots seem soooo heavy...

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Fri, May 8, 2009
from Charleston Gazette:
Bush EPA hid data on coal-ash risks, study shows
The Bush administration kept secret for nearly five years data that showed increased cancer risks from drinking water polluted by coal-ash impoundments, according to a new report issued Thursday. Under President Bush, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials never made public an October 2002 study that outlined increased risks of as high as 1 in 50 additional cancer cases. EPA later published some of the data in an August 2007 study. But even then, the agency report left out some key information about additional dangers to aquatic ecosystems and wildlife from toxic metals leaching out of unlined or inadequately lined coal-ash dumps. The Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice on Thursday issued a report that tries to explain in simple language the findings in both EPA documents, which examined more than 200 coal-ash landfills and surface impoundments. ...


Bush and company... nothing but a bunch of ashholes!

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Tue, May 5, 2009
from Washington Post:
For Old Drugs, New Tricks
...leftover pills can seem so small, so easily disposable, that many people routinely flush them down toilets, wash them down sinks or throw them in trash that goes to a landfill. And then they often end up in places where they shouldn't be, like the public water supply. The average American takes more than 12 prescription drugs annually, with more than 3.8 billion prescriptions purchased each year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The most commonly cited estimates from Environmental Protection Agency researchers say that about 19 million tons of active pharmaceutical ingredients are dumped into the nation's waste stream every year. ...


Funny how I always feel my mood elevated after a cool drink of tapwater.

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Tue, May 5, 2009
from New York Times:
Justices Limit Liability Over Toxic Spill Cases
The Supreme Court made it harder on Monday for the government to recover the often enormous costs of environmental cleanups from companies with only minor or limited responsibility for toxic spills. The decision tightened the reach of the Superfund law, known formally as the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, by limiting both the kinds of companies subject to liability and the situations in which partly culpable companies can be made to bear the entire cost of cleanups. ...


The High Court... must be high!

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Mon, May 4, 2009
from ABC News:
Plastic bag ban begins
South Australia has become the first state to ban lightweight plastic checkout bags. The ban is expected to reduce the 400 million bags a year which end up in dumps. Shops must supply reusable or environmentally friendly alternatives such as cornstarch or paper bags. Retailers could get an on the spot fine of $315, or a maximum penalty of $5,000 if they are caught breaching the ban. ...


Quit being a bag nag!

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Mon, May 4, 2009
from New York Times:
Earlier Puberty in European Girls
A 15-year study of young girls in Denmark found that the average age of breast development has fallen by a full year compared to girls studied in the early 1990s. The findings, published this month in the journal Pediatrics, add to a growing body of evidence that the timing of puberty is changing, possibly related to environmental exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals that mimic estrogen in the body.... The average age for breast development among the current generation of girls was 9.86 years, compared to an average age of 10.88 years among the children studied in the early 1990s. ...


At this rate, girls will be born with breasts by the year 2143.

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