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Archive for September 28th, 2010
$1.5 Billion Plan Would Cut Sewage Flow Into City Waters
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 28th, 2010
New York Times: The Bloomberg administration wants to invest up to $1.5 billion over the next 20 years on new environmental techniques to reduce the flow of sewage into the city's waterways. The plan, announced on Tuesday by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, calls for building an infrastructure to capture and retain storm water before it reaches the sewer system and overloads it. The city would foster investments in projects like green roofs with plantings, porous pavement for parking lots, rain barrels, ...
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U.S. official says BP spill fines should go to Gulf
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 28th, 2010
Reuters: A large portion of fines that BP Plc may pay for its role in the worst oil spill in U.S. history should go toward fixing the damage caused to Gulf Coast states, a federal official said on Tuesday. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who drew up a Gulf Coast recovery plan at the direction of President Barack Obama, said Congress should dedicate "a significant amount" of penalties levied on BP under the Clean Water Act to restoring a region that suffered economic and environmental damage from the ...
BP fines should fund Gulf restoration, says report
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 28th, 2010
AFP: President Barack Obama's pointman on restoring the Gulf coast in the wake of the oil spill disaster recommended Tuesday the effort be funded in part by penalties levied against BP, which may reach into the billions of dollars. The report presented by Navy Secretary Ray Mabus seeks to dedicate a portion of "any obtained Clean Water Act civil penalties directly to the Gulf states," in a bid to secure a stable channel of funds to finance their recovery. Mabus, tasked by Obama in ...
Water Use in Southwest Heads for a Day of Reckoning
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 28th, 2010
New York Times: A once-unthinkable day is looming on the Colorado River. Barring a sudden end to the Southwest's 11-year drought, the distribution of the river's dwindling bounty is likely to be reordered as early as next year because the flow of water cannot keep pace with the region's demands. For the first time, federal estimates issued in August indicate that Lake Mead, the heart of the lower Colorado basin's water system – irrigating lettuce, onions and wheat in reclaimed corners of the ...
Oil: Can Ecuador see past the black stuff?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 28th, 2010
Guardian: One of the most extraordinary people I have met in 10 days of travelling around Peru and Ecuador has been Alberto Acosta. He's head of Ecuador's leading research group now, but until 2007 was the second most powerful man in the country after the president, Rafael Correa. He was not only charged with masterminding the new constitution but was head of the assembly, or parliament, a founder of the ruling political party and minister of energy of the country that depends on oil. But ...
Patagonia’s way of life under threat by dams
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 28th, 2010
Guardian: The Aysén region of Chilean Patagonia is threatened by a plan to build five dams on the Baker and the Pascua rivers – two of the wildest in the world. The Rapid Assessment Visual Expedition (Rave), an initiative of the International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP), was set up to address the challenges of modern conservation, and it visited the area in February this year to assess what impact the dams would have on the surrounding area and its way of life.
Northeast India tourism drooping in rising heat
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 28th, 2010
Reuters: This northeast Indian highland city, known as the Scotland of the East, has long been a pleasantly cool summer holiday destination for travelers fleeing Indian's boiling plains. But Shillong now finds its fortunes fading as record heat creeps into India's northeast highlands. Disappointed tourists, stunned by the unexpectedly sweltering conditions, are canceling holidays. And hotel owners are rushing to install air conditioning, fans and refrigerators in an attempt to placate ...
United States: Las Vegas’s Worried Water Czar
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 28th, 2010
NYT: The water managers of the Colorado basin can be categorized several ways. Upper Basin and Lower Basin. Technicians, lawyers. Holders of senior water rights and owners of junior rights. But the basic divide is between optimists and pessimists -- those who think the river`s flow will keep pace with the rich past, and those that don`t. Pat Mulroy, the general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, serving Las Vegas and its suburbs, is a pessimist. She had expected the ...
Poor sanitation breeds disease and exploitation in Kenya’s slums
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 28th, 2010
IRIN: Poor sanitation, lack of water and related disease outbreaks are making the lives of the residents of the sprawling Korogocho slums in Nairobi even harder. "The lack of water and improper waste disposal are a big threat to our lives due to the risk of water-borne diseases," Nancy Wangari, a community health worker and village elder in Korogocho, told IRIN. "The threat of typhoid, cholera and other diseases from poor sanitation is real." Although some pay-toilets have been set ...
Pennsylvania struggles to enact natural gas tax
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 28th, 2010
Reuters: Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell's plan to tax natural gas production in one of America's biggest fields faces serious if not fatal opposition from Republicans who differ on the rate of the tax and how to use the revenue. Rendell wants to tax drillers in the booming Marcellus Shale 5 percent of the value of gas at the wellhead plus 4.7 cents per thousand cubic feet of gas produced, in line with neighboring West Virginia. Republicans seek a much lower tax rate that Rendell has ...