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Archive for February 28th, 2014
EPA Puts Pebble Mine on Hold
Posted by National Geographic: Dan Vergano on February 28th, 2014
National Geographic: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials on Friday put on hold plans for a massive open-pit copper mine in Alaska, invoking Clean Water Act rules.
Requested by EPA administrator Gina McCarthy, the delay aims "to protect the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery in Bristol Bay, Alaska," the agency said in a statement.
Such a Clean Water Act hold on mining, invoked only 13 times previously by the agency, means the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cannot approve a permit for the proposed Pebble...
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Is climate change behind California’s dry spell?
Posted by PhysOrg: Ker Than on February 28th, 2014
PhysOrg: California's parched landscapes are receiving a much-needed soaking this week as heavy rainstorms roll across the West Coast. The break in the state's dry spell is due to a weakening of an atmospheric anomaly that has been hovering above the northern Pacific Ocean. Dubbed the "ridiculously resilient ridge" by a Stanford graduate student, this enormous region of atmospheric high pressure has been squatting off the coast of western Canada since January 2013, diverting storms northward, away from California...