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Archive for January 6th, 2013
Early fracking report hints at water quality
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 6th, 2013
Associated Press: An ongoing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study on natural gas drilling and its potential for groundwater contamination has gotten tentative praise so far from both industry and environmental groups.
Glenn Paulson, the EPA's science adviser, describes the project as "one of the most aggressive public outreach programs in EPA history."
The final report won't come out until late 2014. But a 275-page progress report was released in December and, for all its details, shows that the EPA doesn't...
Proposed rule for water testing in Colorado limited
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 6th, 2013
Denver Post: An oil well by the Wyndham Hill area in Frederick is one of 49,236 wells in the state, up 31 percent since 2008. (Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post)
Colorado's proposed new rule to protect water from expanding oil and gas operations would not apply to more than 25 percent of wells or to the tanks, pipelines and other production facilities that are frequent sources of leaks.
Environmental groups that worked with Shell Oil to develop a tougher before-and-after groundwater-testing rule are calling...
Officials can’t rule out casualties after Australian wildfires destroy 100 homes and buildings
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 6th, 2013
Associated Press: Officials are searching for bodies among the charred ruins of more than 100 homes and other buildings destroyed by wildfires in the island state of Tasmania.
Acting Police Commissioner Scott Tilyard said Monday no casualties had yet been reported. But it would take time before officials were certain that no one had died in the blazes that have razed 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres) of forests and farmland across southern Tasmania since Friday.
Police have concerns for about 100 people reported...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Officials can’t rule out casualties after Australian wildfires destroy 100 homes and buildingsFlorida’s population paradox
Posted by Miami Herald: Jerry Karnas on January 6th, 2013
Miami Herald: Explaining why 600 people a day moved to the Sunshine State, the late Florida Senate President Jim King used to say, "Florida is the land of milk and honey."
The axiom still applies: In December the U.S. Census Bureau confirmed that more people move to Florida every year than to any other state. Over the course of the state's history, its population has doubled every 20 years. Today there are more than 19 million Floridians.
Gov. Rick Scott recently touted this population growth as evidence...
Future sea level rise from melting ice sheets may be substantially greater than IPCC estimates
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 6th, 2013
ScienceDaily: Future sea level rise due to the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets could be substantially larger than estimated in Climate Change 2007, the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC, according to new research from the University of Bristol.
The study, published January 6 in Nature Climate Change, is the first of its kind on ice sheet melting to use structured expert elicitation (EE) together with an approach which mathematically pools experts' opinions. EE is already used in a number...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Future sea level rise from melting ice sheets may be substantially greater than IPCC estimates‘Horrible’ sea level rise seen by century’s end
Posted by NBC: John Roach on January 6th, 2013
NBC: Melting glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland may push up global sea levels more than 3 feet by the end of this century, according to a scientific poll of experts that brings a degree of clarity to a murky and controversial slice of climate science.
Such a rise in the seas would displace millions of people from low-lying countries such as Bangladesh, swamp atolls in the Pacific Ocean, cause dikes in Holland to fail, and cost coastal mega-cities from New York to Tokyo billions of dollars for construction...
Global warming to affect North American monsoon
Posted by Summit County: Bob Berwyn on January 6th, 2013
Summit County: Global warming result in a significant shift of the North American monsoon, with less rain during the early part of the season, in June and July, and more rain later in the summer and early autumn. The trend toward a later start to summer precipitation has already started, but will become more pronounced — and easier to distinguish from the background “noise” of natural variability — during the next few decades, according to researchers with NASA and Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory....
In the Bronx, restoring a fleeting paradise
Posted by New York Times: Liz Robbins on January 6th, 2013
New York Times: Steven Smith stands on the refuse that, no matter what, always seems to regenerate in the South Bronx. Plastic soda bottles, soccer balls, a thermos and a faded life preserver poke out from under the wooden planks scattered on the eroded shores of the East River. This is Oak Point, west of Hunts Point, a peninsula of perpetual reinvention. Once home to colonial estates and a Cuban sugar importer, then a public beach, a railroad float yard, a city landfill during the Bronx’s burning years, an illegal...
Australia: Tasmania fires rage on as police search burned homes
Posted by Reuters: Morag MacKinnon on January 6th, 2013
Reuters: Australian police and defense forces searched burned-out vehicles and homes in the towns worst hit by wildfires on the island of Tasmania, where more than 40 fires still raged on Sunday.
The blazes began on Thursday on the state's thinly populated southeastern coast, amid a fierce heatwave and strong winds.
The heat eased over the weekend, slowing the fires, but late on Sunday firefighters issued an emergency warning for residents in Taranna, 47 km (29 miles) east of the state capital Hobart,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Australia: Tasmania fires rage on as police search burned homesPlanning Lessons from Sandy: Climate Change a Reality, Adjustments Needed
Posted by Patch: Edward Van Embden on January 6th, 2013
Patch: Climate change is a reality, experts say. Following Hurricane Sandy's impact on the Jersey Shore, property owners will have to make some tough decisions about how, and if, they should rebuild. For those willing to stick it out, the only option is to build smarter and build up, some say. Here, two professionals, one an architect, one a hazard mitigation specialist, talk about the reality of climate change, and the future of building along the coast.
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Planning Lessons from Sandy: Climate Change a Reality, Adjustments Needed