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Archive for March, 2014
Months after oil train derailment, crude still found Alabama swamp
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 15th, 2014
Associated Press: Environmental regulators promised an aggressive cleanup after a tanker train hauling 2.9 million gallons of crude oil derailed and burned in a west Alabama swamp in early November amid a string of North American oil train crashes.
So why is dark, smelly crude oil still oozing into the water four months later?
The isolated wetland smelled like a garage when a reporter from The Associated Press visited last week, and the charred skeletons of burned trees rose out of water covered with an iridescent...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Months after oil train derailment, crude still found Alabama swampCalifornia drought: Strife over groundwater boils over
Posted by San Francisco Chronicle: Melody Gutierrez on March 15th, 2014
San Francisco Chronicle: Zinfandel will flow like the water once did in Paso Robles this weekend. Bottles will pop open during a wine festival as rigs drill deep across the city to find a resource whose scarcity threatens Paso Robles to its core: water.
How scant has the crucial underground water supply become around the San Luis Obispo County city? Sue Luft can tell you anecdotally. The water levels in wells that feed homes and wineries around her 10-acre property just south of Paso Robles have dropped 80 feet in some...
More people to get clean, safe water in Tanzania
Posted by Daily News: None Given on March 15th, 2014
Daily News: NATIONWIDE implementation of water projects is designed to increase access to clean and safe water to more people from the current 51.09 to 74 per cent before end of next year, equal priority being given to both rural and urban communities, the government has said.
Speaking in Dodoma yesterday ahead of the National Water Week Festival to be held from March 16 through to 22, at Jamhuri Stadium, the Minister for Water, Prof Jumanne Maghembe said a total of 1,600 water projects are being implemented...
World’s most pristine waters are polluted by US Navy human waste
Posted by Independent: Cahal Milmo on March 15th, 2014
Independent: The American military has poured hundreds of tonnes of human sewage and waste water into a protected coral lagoon on the British-owned base of Diego Garcia over three decades in breach of environmental rules, The Independent can reveal.
The Indian Ocean base on the Chagos Islands has been one of the world’s most isolated and controversial military installations since Britain forcibly removed hundreds of islanders in the early 1970s, abandoning them to destitution, to make way for US forces including...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on World’s most pristine waters are polluted by US Navy human wasteDrought-stricken California, court rules smelt fish get water
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 14th, 2014
Reuters: A California appeals court sided with environmentalists over growers on Thursday and upheld federal guidelines that limit water diversions to protect Delta smelt, in a battle over how the state will cope with its worst drought in a century.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a lower court should not have overturned recommendations that the state reduce exports of water from north to south California. The plan leaves more water in the Sacramento Delta for the finger-sized fish and...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Drought-stricken California, court rules smelt fish get waterWarmer years linked to more malaria in tropical highlands
Posted by SciDevNet: Pablo Correa on March 14th, 2014
SciDevNet: People in densely populated highlands of Africa and South America — who have so far been protected from malaria by cooler temperatures — may be seeing more of the disease as the climate changes, according to a study in Science (6 March). Mountainous regions with relatively cold climates that are unsuitable for the malaria parasite and the mosquitoes that transmit — but there have been indications, for example from modelling studies, that with climate change this protection will wear off. Now scientists...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Warmer years linked to more malaria in tropical highlandsAfter North Carolina spill, coal ash ponds face extinction
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 14th, 2014
Reuters: Power producers' coal ash disposal ponds like the one that leaked toxic sludge into a North Carolina river in February may soon become a thing of the past.
After six years of deliberation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in May will decide on changes to the Clean Water Act that would direct power companies to remove dangerous impurities, including carcinogens, from coal ash wastewater before releasing it into rivers that supply drinking water.
While the new regulations will not prohibit...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on After North Carolina spill, coal ash ponds face extinctionAmerica’s dirtiest secret
Posted by Boulder Weekly: Jefferson Dodge and Joel Dyer on March 14th, 2014
Boulder Weekly: The oil and gas industry has a dirty little secret, make that a dirty big secret ... no, make that one of the biggest, dirtiest secrets in U.S. history.
What is no secret these days is that the potential for negative environmental and health impacts as a result of oil and gas exploration and production activity is very real.
Concern over fracking, with its toxic cocktail composed of some combination of between 300 and 750 chemicals, 70 percent of which are known to be harmful to humans because...
BP regains ability to bid on leases for US land, water
Posted by Washington Post: Steven Mufson on March 14th, 2014
Washington Post: The Environmental Protection Agency and BP have reached an agreement that lifts a ban on BP's ability to hold government contracts that has barred the company from bidding on oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters because of the massive oil spill triggered by a blowout on a BP well in April 2010.
BP, the largest lease-holder and one of the largest oil producers in the Gulf of Mexico, had been pressing for an end to its debarment in order to conduct business more freely and to reassure...
Three ways that green policy can reassure voters at 2015 UK election
Posted by Guardian: Matthew Spencer on March 14th, 2014
Guardian: After years of economic uncertainty and falling living standards, the 2015 election will have a defensive feel to it. The electorate will want reassurance, not big change. Whoever ends up in government will be pursuing small "c" conservative ends: stability and security.
The 2010 general election was not a cautious one. The banking crisis required national renewal and David Cameron, in optimistic mode, issued a manifesto invitation for the public to "join the government of Britain". All three...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Three ways that green policy can reassure voters at 2015 UK election