RSS Feed
Archive for September, 2010
Pennsylvania GOP rejects natural gas tax plan
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 29th, 2010
Reuters: A top Pennsylvania Republican rejected a Democratic-sponsored plan for taxing natural gas production on Wednesday, vowing to stop a bill that he said would drive energy companies out of the state. The opposition will force Governor Ed Rendell, a Democrat, to seek a compromise between Democratic and Republic plans. Sen. Joseph Scarnati said a bill proposing to tax gas drillers 39 cents per 1,000 cubic feet of gas produced was "totally unacceptable" and that it would not even go ...
Posted in 
World’s rivers in crisis, study says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 29th, 2010
Reuters: The world's rivers are in crisis including in North America and Europe where governments have invested trillions of dollars to clean up freshwater supplies, a study showed Wednesday. "Threats to human water security and biological diversity are pandemic," Charles Vorosmarty of the City University of New York, co-lead author of the report in the journal Nature, told Reuters. The international team of scientists estimated that almost 80 percent of the world's population -- or ...
Human impact on world’s rivers ‘threatens water security of 5 billion’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 29th, 2010
Guardian: Nearly 80% of the world's rivers are so badly affected by humanity's footprint that the water security of almost 5 billion people, and the survival of thousands of aquatic species, are threatened, scientists warned today. The global study put together by institutions across the globe is the first to simultaneously look at all types of human intervention – from dams and reservoirs to irrigation and pollution – on freshwater. It paints a devastating picture of a world whose rivers are ...
UN environment chief urges recycling of rare metals
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on September 29th, 2010
AFP: The UN's environment chief on Wednesday called for a global drive to recycle rare metals that have hit the headlines in a spat between Japan and China, warning that they are crucial for green technologies. Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, said that demand for "rare earth metals" such as lithium and neodymium -- used in batteries for hybrid cars or components in wind and solar power -- was accelerating fast. Rare earths are available in only ...
$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, ...
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.