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Archive for October 11th, 2014
Spanish national park could lose Unesco status over illegal boreholes
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 11th, 2014
Guardian: Spain must act urgently to stop illegal water extraction from a protected national park or risk the wildlife-rich wetlands being placed on a list of world heritage sites in danger, a UN agency has warned.
Doñana national park in Andalusia is threatened by huge demand for water, fuelled by a strawberry industry which supplies British supermarkets.
Some producers in the area are accused of using illegal boreholes to draw water from underground aquifers, which the fragile ecosystem is dependent...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Spanish national park could lose Unesco status over illegal boreholesDilemma in the Marcellus Shale: How dispose of radioactive oil and gas waste?
Posted by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Anya Litvak on October 11th, 2014
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: A few months ago, a Marcellus Shale operator approached Leong Ying, business development manager at the radiation measurement division of Thermo Fisher Scientific, with a problem. The driller, whom Mr. Ying declined to name, was trying to dispose of oil and gas waste at area landfills but the trucks kept tripping radiation alarms. Rejected trucks had to be sent back to well pads or taken out of state, both costly options. It was happening enough that it started nudging the company’s bottom line,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Dilemma in the Marcellus Shale: How dispose of radioactive oil and gas waste?Green Party gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins gains traction Democrats unhappy Cuomo
Posted by NY Daily News: None Given on October 11th, 2014
NY Daily News: The only thing standing between Gov. Cuomo and his hopes for a resounding victory on Election Day might be a 61-year-old United Parcel Service worker from Syracuse.
Howie Hawkins has taken a leave of absence from his job unloading UPS trucks to run as the Green Party candidate for governor.
Casting himself as the “progressive choice” in the race, he has gained traction among Democrats unhappy with Cuomo for embracing tax cuts and charter schools, and for not banning fracking, a gas-drilling...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Green Party gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins gains traction Democrats unhappy CuomoAnti-fracking Enviromentalist Speak Out
Posted by WDTV: Wesley Uhler on October 11th, 2014
WDTV: Here in the Mountain State, the oil and gas industry is very prominent. Some residents think it's great for the community and our economy, while others think it's just hurting the future of our environment. Natural gas drilling, or fracking, has been a highly debated issue in our area for a while. Those who oppose these practices once again spoke out against the dangers today. Fracking continues to be a hot button issue here in West Virginia, as well as nationally, as more and more natural gas...
Space-based methane maps find largest U.S. signal in Southwest
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on October 11th, 2014
ScienceDaily: An unexpectedly high amount of the climate-changing gas methane, the main component of natural gas, is escaping from the Four Corners region in the U.S. Southwest, according to a new study by the University of Michigan and NASA.
The researchers mapped satellite data to uncover the nation's largest methane signal seen from space. They measured levels of the gas emitted from all sources, and found more than half a teragram per year coming from the area where Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Space-based methane maps find largest U.S. signal in Southwest25 Devastating Effects Of Climate Change
Posted by Business Insider: None Given on October 11th, 2014
Business Insider: The world is getting warmer and that's already causing disasters that will devastate lives and cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Those problems are only getting worse, as shown by recent reports from the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC) and the White House, among others. The greenhouse gas emissions that drive warming "now substantially exceed the highest concentrations recorded in ice cores during the past 800,000 years," the IPCC said. Atmospheric carbon dioxide...
Mangroves may shelter some corals from global warming
Posted by Summit Voice: None Given on October 11th, 2014
Summit Voice: Some coral species are finding a refuge of sorts from global warming by finding new habitat in the shade of red mangrove trees.
Scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey and Eckerd College documented discovery of the refuge in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where more than 30 species of reef corals were found growing in Hurricane Hole, a mangrove habitat within the Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument in St. John.
Corals, invertebrates of the sea that have been on Earth for millions of years,...
How scientists overlooked 2,500-square-mile cloud of methane over Southwest
Posted by Christian Science Monitor: Henry Gass on October 11th, 2014
Christian Science Monitor: Scientists have identified the largest hotspot of methane gas in the United States hovering over the Four Corners region of the Southwest, and the find could have big implications for how the country tracks its emissions in the future.
Scientists first noticed the data years ago amid satellite measurements collected by the European Space Agency's Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Chartography (SCIAMACHY) instrument. The SCIAMACHY instrument collected atmospheric data over...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on How scientists overlooked 2,500-square-mile cloud of methane over SouthwestWells creep toward Chaco
Posted by Durango Herald: Mary Shinn on October 11th, 2014
Durango Herald: From the air a spiderweb of roads connecting oil and gas wells crisscrossing the desert south of Farmington is visible, cutting into a delicate desert landscape that holds sacred sites and immense energy reserves.
As the seemingly hodgepodge network of wells creeps closer to the boundary of Chaco Culture National Historical Park, created to preserve ancient ruins, environmental and tribal groups worry that an opportunity for better planning is being missed.
About 90 percent of the public land...
Drought plagues Brazil’s richest metropolis
Posted by Inter Press Service: São Paulo on October 11th, 2014
Inter Press Service: Agricultural losses are no longer the most visible effect of the drought plaguing Brazil's most developed region. Now the energy crisis and the threat of water shortages in the city of São Paulo are painful reminders of just how dependent Brazilians are on regular rainfall. Nine million of the 21 million inhabitants of Greater São Paulo are waiting for the completion of the upgrading of the Cantareira system, made up of six reservoirs linked by 48 km of tunnels and canals, which can no longer...