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Archive for April, 2010
Countries Blame China, Not Nature, for Water Shortage
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 2nd, 2010
New York Times: In southern China, the worst drought in at least 50 years has dried up farmers' fields and left tens of millions of people short of water. But the drought has also created a major public relations problem for the Chinese government in neighboring countries, where in recent years China has tried to project an image of benevolence and brotherhood. Farmers and fishermen in countries that share the Mekong River with China, especially Thailand, have lashed out at China over four ...
Russia: Ecologists fear for Baikal as Putin saves factory
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 2nd, 2010
Reuters: On the shores of Lake Baikal, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is held up as a savior and cursed as a scourge after allowing a Soviet-era paper mill to reopen beside the world's largest freshwater lake. Ecologists have branded Russia's most powerful man as the killer of Baikal, a 25-million-year-old lake believed by local tribes to be sacred, and have mustered thousands of people at protests calling for his resignation. Putin's opponents say he has misjudged the public ...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Russia: Ecologists fear for Baikal as Putin saves factorySnakes in the grass: Florida declares open season on Everglades intruders
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 2nd, 2010
Guardian: Jeff Fobb freezes as he tries to sort through the noises rising from the swamp of the Everglades: the beating wings of an ibis, the scurrying of a lizard, the much louder splash of an alligator lowering itself into the water or, the sound he really wants to hear, the rustle of a large python in tall grass. "It sounds sort of like the wind, but more steady," says Fobb. He combs through the grass with a long metal hook. No snakes. But the pythons are out there, somewhere, and Florida is ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Snakes in the grass: Florida declares open season on Everglades intrudersArch Coal sues EPA over veto of W.Va. mine permit
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 2nd, 2010
Associated Press: A subsidiary of mining giant Arch Coal Inc. sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday over the planned veto of a water quality permit for West Virginia's largest surface mine. St. Louis-based Arch argues in the federal lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C., that the EPA doesn't have the authority to revoke a Clean Water Act permit once it has been issued. The permit for the Spruce No. 1 mine was issued to Arch's Mingo Logan Coal three years ago. The EPA announced the veto ...
China: Cyber attacks against mine opponents in Vietnam, says Google
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 2nd, 2010
Mongabay: Malicious software is being used to spy on critics of a controversial bauxite mine in Vietnam, reports Google. The software, which enables users to type in Vietnamese characters, carries spyware that allows outsiders to remotely access computers upon which it is installed. "These infected machines have been used both to spy on their owners as well as participate in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against blogs containing messages of political dissent," Neel Mehta, ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on China: Cyber attacks against mine opponents in Vietnam, says GoogleEnvironmentalists blast Obama mining rule reversal
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 2nd, 2010
Associated Press: The same week President Barack Obama riled environmentalists with plans for offshore oil drilling, he faces criticism for signaling he will support a Bush-era policy criticized as giving mining companies unlimited access to public lands to dump toxic waste. The administration asked a federal judge Tuesday to dismiss a challenge by environmental and community groups to a rule that lifted a restriction on how much public land companies can use. The groups are also challenging a 2008 ...
E.P.A. Rules to Limit Water Pollution From Mining
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 2nd, 2010
New York Times: The Environmental Protection Agency issued tough new water quality guidelines on Thursday that could curtail some of the most contentious coal mining techniques used across Appalachia. In announcing the guidelines, Lisa P. Jackson, the agency's administrator, cited evolving science on the effects of mountaintop removal mining, an aggressive form of coal extraction that uses explosives and vast machinery to tear off hilltops to expose coal seams, dumping the resulting rubble into ...
EPA unveils new pollution limits that could curtail ‘mountaintop’ mining
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 2nd, 2010
Washington Post: The Obama administration on Thursday imposed strict new environmental guidelines that are expected to sharply curtail "mountaintop" coal mining, a controversial practice that has enriched Appalachia's economy while rearranging its topography. The announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency ended months of bureaucratic limbo on the issue. It was hailed by environmentalists but condemned by coal industry officials, who said it would render a technique that generates about 10 ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on EPA unveils new pollution limits that could curtail ‘mountaintop’ miningALERT! Resistance Growing to Ecologically Devastating Chinese Mining Invasion of Madang, Papua New Guinea
Posted by Water Conservation Blog on April 1st, 2010
TAKE ACTION HERE NOW!
Chinese government owned China Metallurgical Construction (MCC) corporation's efforts to establish the massively destructive Ramu Nickel mine in Madang Province [search], Papua New Guinea the largest investment in metal exploration and mining by the Chinese outside of China is in serious jeopardy. Local landowners are successfully initiating court cases and protests to demand mine tailings not be dumped into the sea poisoning fish stocks and causing extreme ecological destruction or the mine be stopped. The entire project has been mismanaged, marked by shoddy construction; and disregard for local rights, life, and marine and rainforest ecology. Chinese mining investment in Madang against local wishes can only be described as an invasion of sovereign peoples, and will be resisted at all costs.
Posted in Uncategorized Comments Off on ALERT! Resistance Growing to Ecologically Devastating Chinese Mining Invasion of Madang, Papua New GuineaPlan to chop down forests in England
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 1st, 2010
Telegraph: The new policy to convert forests to 'open habitat' will increase the area of heathland across England by 1,000 hectares (2,470 acres) every year for at least the next five years. This will mean chopping down thousands of hectares of mostly commercial conifers to allow rare animals like sand lizards, adder, woodlark and curlew to return. It is estimated that 80 per cent of lowland heathland has been lost in the past 200 years to plantation forestry, agriculture and housing ...