RSS Feed
Archive for August, 2015
How developing countries are paying a high price for the global mineral boom
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 15th, 2015
Guardian: A 200ft deep pit gapes where three years ago stood a mountain. Fields where small farmers planted rice and grew fruit are now an industrial site, and wooden houses in the old village of Didipio have been abandoned – the community moved to make way for a large-scale gold mine owned by a New Zealand company.
The Filipino mine, guarded by high fences and bitterly contested by the indigenous Bugkalot people who fear pollution, spills and ill-health, is just one of scores of major new gold and copper...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on How developing countries are paying a high price for the global mineral boomFirefighters fight blazes across U.S Northwest, California wine region
Posted by Reuters: Eric M. Johnson and Curtis Skinner on August 15th, 2015
Reuters: More than a thousand residents in north-central Washington state fled their homes on Friday after a cluster of wildfires erupted around the town of Chelan, while fierce blazes blackened a swath of the drought-stricken U.S. West, officials said.
Firefighters were also dealing with wildfires in Idaho, Oregon, and Montana, while crews battling a wildfire near California's celebrated wine region north of San Francisco managed to draw containment lines around more than half of a 24,555-acre (9,940-hectare)...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Firefighters fight blazes across U.S Northwest, California wine regionCritics of carbon regulations using mine spill to skewer EPA
Posted by Associated Press: Michael Biesecker on August 15th, 2015
Associated Press: Authorities say rivers tainted by last week's massive spill from an abandoned Colorado gold mine are starting to recover, but for the Environmental Protection Agency the political fallout from the disaster could linger.
The federal agency's critics are already seeking to use its much-maligned handling of the mine spill to undercut the Obama administration's rollout of major regulations aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions at the nation's power plants. Members of oversight committees in both...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Critics of carbon regulations using mine spill to skewer EPARiver fouled by mine waste in Colorado reopens for recreation
Posted by Reuters: Keith Coffman on August 14th, 2015
Reuters: Authorities in southwestern Colorado said on Friday it was safe for people to once again kayak and raft along a stretch of river that was fouled by toxic waste from an abandoned mine more than a week ago.
A roughly 45-mile portion of the Animas River running through La Plata County, Colorado, to the New Mexico border was reopened to recreation by order of the county sheriff. The order included the city of Durango, a resort town popular for its outdoor water sports.
Water samples tested by the...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on River fouled by mine waste in Colorado reopens for recreationThousands of felons are on the front lines of California’s forest fires
Posted by Grist: None Given on August 14th, 2015
Grist: Here`s a kind of crazy stat: Between 30 and 40 percent of California`s forest firefighters are state prison inmates. The state has become a tinderbox of sorts from a four-year drought, and roughly 4,000 low-level felons are on the front lines of the state`s active fires. Here`s what`s going on:
Why are prisoners fighting fires? For years, California`s prison system has operated a number of "conservation camps," in which low-level felons in the state prison system volunteer to do manual labor outside,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Thousands of felons are on the front lines of California’s forest firesAlberta names panel that will review its climate-change policy
Posted by Reuters: Nia Williams on August 14th, 2015
Reuters: The Canadian province of Alberta, the biggest source of U.S. oil imports, announced the members of its climate change policy review panel on Friday, part of its pledge to implement new rules on greenhouse gas reductions.
Environment Minister Shannon Phillips said the panel would offer recommendations to the government by early November, ahead of a key United Nations climate change conference in Paris in December, but did not say when new GHG targets are likely to come into effect.
The five...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Alberta names panel that will review its climate-change policyToxic Wastewaster Spill Colorado Highlights Problem Abandoned Mines
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 14th, 2015
National Public Radio: MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
It's been more than a week since 3 million gallons of toxic wastewater gushed from the Gold King Mine in Colorado. That wastewater filled with toxic heavy metals has contaminated several rivers in three states. This disaster points to a bigger problem with abandoned mines around the country. Alan Prendergast has been writing about that for the weekly newspaper Westword in Denver, and he joins us now. Welcome to the program.
ALAN PRENDERGAST: Glad to be here, Melissa.
BLOCK:...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Toxic Wastewaster Spill Colorado Highlights Problem Abandoned MinesRisk of food shortages to rise with climate change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 14th, 2015
CBS: The chances of food shortages and extreme price hikes could triple by 2040 due to increasing extreme and erratic weather brought about by climate change, according to task force of British and American experts.
According to the new report from the Global Food Security program, the risk of a "production shock" is set to go from an event that has happened once a century to one that happens every 30 years mostly due to the impacts to farmers from floods and droughts.
"It is likely that the effects...
Grassroots Pressure Escalates to Shut Down Diablo Canyon Nuke Plant
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on August 14th, 2015
EcoWatch: The two reactors at Diablo Canyon are the last ones still operating in California. And the grassroots pressure to shut them down is escalating.
Together grassroots activists have shut three California reactors at San Onofre, between Los Angeles and San Diego and one each at Rancho Seco, near Sacramento and at Humboldt, perched on an earthquake zone in the north.
NRC Panel Rejects Challenges To Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant http://t.co/JZSykPtWeR pic.twitter.com/7IM527pJLh
-- Dan Yurman (@djysrv)...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Grassroots Pressure Escalates to Shut Down Diablo Canyon Nuke PlantColorado Governor Drinks Water From Animas River After Historic Mine Waste Spill
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on August 13th, 2015
EcoWatch: Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper was at the Animas River in Durango, Colorado yesterday, dealing with the ongoing chaos of the acid-mine pollution caused by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency`s (EPA) mistake at the Gold Strike Mine that turned the river a ghoulish orange-yellow color. Gov. Hickenlooper--always a media showboat--decided he was going to drink water out of the Animas River to prove a point that it was safe and as reported by the Durango Herald newspaper he did just that.
.@hickforco...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Colorado Governor Drinks Water From Animas River After Historic Mine Waste Spill