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Archive for November 30th, 2012
San Diego approves pact for desalinated water
Posted by Associated Press: Elliot Spagat on November 30th, 2012
Associated Press: San Diego's regional water agency approved a contract Thursday to buy the entire output of what would be the Western Hemisphere's largest seawater desalination plant.
The San Diego County Water Authority voted on the 30-year contract involving Poseidon Resources LLC, which needed the deal to finance construction of the $984 million project.
The plant in Carlsbad is designed to produce 50 million gallons of highly purified drinking water a day, enough to supply about 8 percent of the region...
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Dispersant makes oil 52 times more toxic
Posted by LiveScience: Douglas Main on November 30th, 2012
LiveScience: For microscopic animals living in the Gulf of Mexico, even worse than the toxic oil released during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster may be the very oil dispersants used to clean it up, a new study finds.
More than 2 million gallons (7.5 million liters) of oil dispersants called Corexit 9527A and 9500A were dumped into the gulf in an effort to prevent oil from reaching shore and to help it degrade more quickly.
However, when oil and Corexit are combined, the mixture becomes up to 52 times...
Pacific islanders face major losses from climate change
Posted by AlertNet: Megan Rowling on November 30th, 2012
AlertNet: The livelihoods of some 10 million people in Pacific island communities are increasingly vulnerable to climate change, which poses "unprecedented challenges" to the region's economies and environment, a U.N.-backed report said on Friday.
Incomes - in many cases already low - are at risk from sea-level rise, tropical cyclones, floods and drought, as well as pressures linked to over-fishing and coastal development, said the report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Pacific...
Lawmakers cry “fowl” over move to help lesser prairie chicken
Posted by Reuters: Ros Krasny on November 30th, 2012
Reuters: A move by U.S. authorities to consider placing a small grassland bird native to parts of the oil and gas belt on the Endangered Species List has drawn the ire of some Western lawmakers.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Friday announced a plan to consider having the lesser prairie chicken listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act.
The lesser prairie chicken is a medium-sized, gray-brown grouse, smaller and paler than the greater prairie chicken, its close relative.
Once...
Brazilian bank approves $10.8 billion loan for controversial Amazon rainforest dam
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 30th, 2012
Mongabay: Brazil's National Development Bank (BNDES) on Monday announced it has approved a $10.8 billion (22.5 billion Brazilian reais) loan to the consortium that is building the controversial Belo Monte dam in the state of Par´ in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, reports International Rivers, a group that is campaigning against the dam. The loan in the largest in the bank's 60-year history, according to the group.
Belo Monte is controversial on several grounds. Environmentalists and indigenous...
Pictures: Bakken Shale Oil Boom Transforms North Dakota
Posted by National Geographic: Jim Urquhart, Reuters on November 30th, 2012
National Geographic: North Dakota, once a sleepy backwater of the petroleum industry, this year surpassed Alaska as the number two oil producer in the United States. The gush of North Dakota crude has helped lift U.S. oil production to its highest level in 14 years, and has the United States on track to regain its spot as the world's top energy producer within five years.
It's all due to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a new combination of old technologies that has yielded astounding results. Using high-pressure...
Outgoing Mexican President’s Environmental Legacy Questioned
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 30th, 2012
Inter Press Service: - "A Canadian firm wants to extract minerals in our area; it will harm the environment and use up water needed by the community," complained Hipólito GarcÃa, who lives in Tetlama, 110 kilometres south of the Mexican capital. Similar complaints are echoed around the country.
GarcÃa`s protest is aimed at two concessions granted to the mining company Esperanza Silver de México, a subsidiary of the Canadian firm Esperanza Resources Corp, for mining silver and gold on 1,500 hectares in the central...
Climate change: you can’t ignore it
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on November 30th, 2012
Guardian: If you were that way inclined, you could say that the biblical weather we've been having this past week – perfectly timed to coincide with start of the Doha climate talks – was some thundering deity disgorging its watery wrath over the British isles. These deluges have been the worst for five years, and come on the heels of Hurricane Sandy – climate change is literally lapping at our doors. And yet 2012 is likely to be the ninth warmest year on record. A study published in the journal Science showed...
Dozens hospitalized after train spills chemicals in N.J
Posted by MSNBC: None Given on November 30th, 2012
MSNBC: Residents were asked to stay inside their homes for hours after emergency and hazmat crews responded to a train derailment and hazardous material spill Friday morning in Gloucester County, N.J. More than two dozen people have been transported to a local hospital with respiratory problems after the incident.
Gloucester Office of Emergency Management confirmed that a Conrail train derailed after the bridge it was traveling on collapsed -- for the second time in a little more than three years --...
Drought drops Lake Michigan water to near record low
Posted by Reuters: Sam Nelson on November 30th, 2012
Reuters: The worst drought in the United States in over a half century slashed crop output, snarled river transportation and is now drawing down water in the U.S. Great Lakes, particularly Lake Michigan.
The low water was exposing broad expanses of shoreline to owners of lakeside property, but so far no significant impact has been reported by commercial shipping interests, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said this week.
The water level in Lake Michigan is within two inches of its December record low...