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Archive for July 21st, 2010
Canada: U.S. environmental agency questions need for cross-border oilsands pipeline
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 21st, 2010
Canadian Press: A major U.S. government agency has thrown up a new political roadblock for a $12-billion TransCanada Pipelines (TSX:TCA.PR.X) project by questioning the need for a new pipeline to carry bitumen from Alberta's oilsands to American refineries. Documents released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency harshly criticize a draft environmental impact statement for the Keystone XL project. They say the assessment doesn't consider how importing more oilsands oil would affect U.S. climate ...
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United Kingdom: Water shortages will drive demand for smart water meters, analysts predict
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 21st, 2010
Business Green: While smart meters for electricity have yet to be rolled out on any scale in the UK, smart water meters will be next on utility companies' agendas, a new report predicts. Water scarcity is a looming issue that will affect nearly half the world's population by 2030, yet developing countries lose as much as half their treated water to distribution system leaks, theft, and poor measurement techniques, according to Pike Research. Pike's report says these factors will push water ...
Climate changes heating up
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 21st, 2010
Chattanooga Times Free Press: Last year was the second warmest on record for the planet, and this year is now on par to be the planet's hottest, according to climatologists. But in a new global broadbrush forecast, climate experts add that "the Southeast United States may be one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change." Not only does the Southeast have the most coastline to lose in the United States -- 41 percent of the lower 48 states exposed to sea level rise and intensified hurricanes -- but ...
Storms Threaten To Shut Down Gulf Well Work
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 21st, 2010
National Public Radio: Tropical rainstorms moving toward the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday threatened to shut down undersea efforts to seal BP's ruptured well, interrupting work just as engineers get close to plugging the leak with mud and cement. Retired U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said a weather system brewing in the Caribbean could force crews to abandon their watch over the experimental cap that's been bottling oil a mile below the surface of the water for nearly a week. Scientists have been ...
Guatamala: Reviving Lake Atitlán
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 21st, 2010
Inter Press Service: "There are hardly any tourists now, and nearly all the hotels are empty," says Rosa Rosales, who works at the Hotel Pa Muelle, on the shores of Guatemala's Lake Atitlán, a natural treasure that has been overcome by pollution. "The view of the lake is beautiful and the water looks very blue," but the tourists don't trust it, said Rosales, who works at one of the 281 hotels that dot the shore of the lake, located in the southwestern department of Sololá. According to the Chamber ...
Ethiopian government says it has tripled forest cover in a decade
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 21st, 2010
Mongabay: Known abroad for past images of drought and starvation, the African nation of Ethiopia has announced that it has tripled forest cover from 3 percent in 2000 to 9 percent today, according to the AFP. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development made the announcement last week after a decade of intensive tree-planting initiatives: for example, in 2007 Ethiopia planted 700 million trees. Ethiopia is primarily a nation of agriculturalists and is betting on the increased forest cover ...
Messy cleanup of BP oil spill damages the Gulf
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 21st, 2010
Associated Press: The 5,600 vessels taking part in the oil spill operation on the Gulf of Mexico make up the largest fleet assembled since the Allied invasion of Normandy, according to the Coast Guard. Hordes of helicopters, bulldozers, Army trucks, ATVs, barges, dredges, airboats, workboats, cleanup crews, media, scientists and volunteers have descended on the beaches, blue waters and golden marshes of the Gulf Coast. That's a lot of propellers, anchors, tires, and feet for a fragile ecosystem ...
China flooding causes worst death toll in decade
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 21st, 2010
Associated Press: Flooding in China this year has killed 701 people, left 347 missing and caused billions of pounds in damage, a senior Chinese official has said. Three-quarters of China's provinces have been hit by flooding and 25 rivers have seen record high water levels, causing the worst death toll in a decade, Liu Ning, general secretary of the government's flood prevention agency, told a news conference. Aside from the dead and missing, 645,000 houses were toppled and overall damage ...
For Oysters, a ‘Remedy’ Turned Catastrophe
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 21st, 2010
New York Times: In late April, just days into what has turned out to be the largest oil spill in American history, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, with the support of local parish officials, ordered the opening of giant valves on the Mississippi River, releasing torrents of freshwater that they hoped would push oil back out to sea. Now, reports indicate that the freshwater diversions have had a catastrophic impact on southeastern Louisiana`s oyster beds that is far in excess of the damage done by oil ...
China’s worst-ever oil spill threatens wildlife as volunteers assist in clean-up
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 21st, 2010
Guardian: Chinese officials have warned of a severe threat to wildlife from one of the country's worst reported oil spills as an army of volunteers was dispatched to beaches to try to head off the black tides. At least one man has drowned in crude during the clean-up operation, which has expanded as the area of the slick has doubled in size despite earlier government assurances that it was being contained and posed no risk to ecologically sensitive areas. Five days after a pipeline ...