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Archive for September 24th, 2010
EPA pushing states to cleanup Chesapeake Bay: report
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 24th, 2010
Reuters: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday threatened to go after five mid-Atlantic states with rules that could lead to higher sewer bills and stricter conditions on construction unless they cut pollution flowing into the Chesapeake Bay. The Washington Post reported in its Saturday edition that the EPA told Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Delaware and New York that their plans to cut pollution contained "serious deficiencies." The EPA said some states are ...
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EPA pushing states to cleanup Chesapeake Bay: report
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 24th, 2010
Reuters: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday threatened to go after five mid-Atlantic states with rules that could lead to higher sewer bills and stricter conditions on construction unless they cut pollution flowing into the Chesapeake Bay. The Washington Post reported in its Saturday edition that the EPA told Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Delaware and New York that their plans to cut pollution contained "serious deficiencies." The EPA said some states are ...
EPA: 5 states must toughen Chesapeake Bay plans
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 24th, 2010
AP: Five of six states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed must strengthen their restoration plans or face tighter federal regulation, the EPA announced Friday. Plans filed by the District of Columbia and Maryland represent a strong start but those of five other bay watershed states have gaps the EPA said are reducing confidence that they can cut pollution sufficiently to meet restoration goals. The other states are Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New ...
Pakistan government relents in research funding row
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 24th, 2010
SciDev.Net: The Pakistani government, in bitter dispute with its higher education establishment, has agreed to restore university funds that were originally promised in this year's budget but later withdrawn and re-allocated to flood-relief. It is hoped the move will end an impasse between the government and the country's Higher Education Commission (HEC), although the government also says it is halting new research scholarships. The total sum for higher education in Pakistan's 2010--2011 ...
A source of sea-level rise to rival glaciers
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 24th, 2010
Daily Mail: Melting glaciers aren't the only reason coastal cities need to worry about sea-level rise. Agriculture is pumping groundwater for irrigation at such a rate that the runoff equals the contribution from melting of glaciers and ice caps outside of Greenland and Antarctica, according to a new study looking at groundwater depletion. It also exceeds or falls into the high-end of previous estimates of groundwater's contribution to sea-level rise, the researchers found. Most ...
Losing wild species at rapid pace, warns UN
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 24th, 2010
Times of India: The world is failing to stop the alarming loss of the Earth's species and habitat, a UN summit was warned on Wednesday amid multinational bickering over who pays for the rescue. Recent reports have warned that species are disappearing at up to 1,000 times the natural rate of disappearance because of human activity and now climate change. "Too many people still fail to grasp the implications of this destruction," UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon warned. "I urge all leaders ...
A special report on forests: Seeing the wood
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 24th, 2010
Economist: DAYBREAK is a heavenly time to look on the Amazonian canopy. From a Brazilian research tower high above it, a fuzzy grey sylvan view emerges from the thinning gloom, vastly undulating, more granular than a cloud. It is mind-bendingly beautiful. Chirruping and squawking, a few early risers--collared puffbirds, chestnut-rumped woodcreepers and the tautologous curve-billed scythebill--open up for the planet's biggest avian choir. In a slick of molten gold, dawn breaks and the trees ...
Laos sees big fish as small price to pay for hydropower
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 24th, 2010
Guardian: Despite the risks to the world's biggest freshwater fish, Laos has rejected calls for a dam moratorium on the lower reaches of the Mekong because it wants cheap power to develop its economy. The south-east Asian nation moved this week to secure regional approval for the first major hydropower plant on its stretch of the river in the face of protests from international conservation groups. Catfish the length of cars and stingrays that weigh more than tigers are threatened by the ...
Trinidad Scraps Controversial Smelter
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 24th, 2010
Inter Press Service: The new government of Trinidad and Tobago wasted little time. In fact, Finance Minister Winston Dookeran took less than 30 seconds of a two-hour budget presentation to announce that the People's Partnership government, headed by the country's first female prime minister, Kamla Persad Bissessar, was scrapping the $66.6 million dollar smelter plant project involving investors from China and Brazil. "In addition to the health and environmental risk, there is also serious concern as to ...
Britain must act now to save wildlife habitats: study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 24th, 2010
Reuters: Britain needs to spend up to one billion pounds a year to protect fragile English wildlife habitats from climate change, intensive farming and population growth, a government-backed report said on Friday. It urged the government to transform conservation policy in the next 40 years to avoid a devastating loss of the countryside that supports thousands of important plants, trees and animals. British ecologist John Lawton, who led the year-long study, said England's wildlife ...