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Archive for May 23rd, 2013
House votes to take Keystone decision out of Obama’s hands
Posted by Grist: John Upton on May 23rd, 2013
Grist: Those rambunctious fossil-fuel flunkies in the U.S. House of Representatives were at it again Wednesday. They passed a bill that would allow Keystone XL to bypass environmental laws and be built without approval from President Obama.
The House voted 241-175 to do away with an ongoing environmental review for the northern leg of the tar-sands pipeline project and make it more difficult for opponents to file appeals. (The southern leg is already more than halfway built.) The vote was mostly along...
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German Brewers Say Fracking Threatens Purity
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 23rd, 2013
Bloomberg: German brewers called on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government to block the tapping of shale gas by means of hydraulic fracturing, citing industry concerns that fracking could taint the purity of the country’s beer.
The Association of German Breweries, which represents companies including Anheuser-Busch InBev NV (ABI) (ABI) and Bitburger Braugruppe GmbH, rejected the government’s planned legislation on fracking until groundwater contamination can be safely excluded. They said the current proposals...
Bangladesh farmers battle water woes
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 23rd, 2013
Inter Press Service: Fahima Begum rises each morning at dawn and walks two kilometers to a small pond, the nearest source of fresh water. On her way she passes the rusty old hand-pumped tube well that used to supply water to her village in Bangladesh's arid Barind region until the water table here dropped out of reach. Using a ragtag array of pots, she carries back as much as her frail body will allow, knowing that it will have to last her family all day. Susma Sen, also a resident of the Hamidpur village, in Chapainawabganj...
South Africa: Water Debt and Leaks Plague City Residents
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 23rd, 2013
Inter Press Service: - Nokuzola Bulana has a problem with leaks. The water that drips from the pipes of the toilet outside her home in Khayelitsha, a large semi-informal township on the fringes of Cape Town, South Africa goes to waste and drives up her water bill.
Bulana, a water activist, says she fixed the leaks in January but water on the floor at the base of the toilet, which is inside a stall painted with pink, yellow and purple stripes, and pooled on the ground outside the stall, shows that seepages persist....
Keystone pipeline: House votes to bypass Obama
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 23rd, 2013
Guardian: Congress has voted to shut Barack Obama out of the biggest environmental decision of his presidency -- the fate of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline -- and claimed the authority to approve the project.
The vote to approve the pipeline, which passed 241-175 in the Republican-controlled house, was pure political theatre.
The measure would dispense with additional environmental reviews of the pipeline and would allow only 60 days for legal challenges.
The bill was unlikely to pass in the Senate...
Congressman Peters Uses Keystone XL Vote to Push for Petroleum Coke Investigation
Posted by Michigan Radio: None Given on May 23rd, 2013
Michigan Radio: The U.S. House voted Wednesday to sidestep President Obama, and authorize the first leg of a controversial pipeline project carrying tar sands oil to the US from Canada.
Detroit Congressman Gary Peters used the opportunity to push for more scrutiny of petroleum coke -- a byproduct of tar sands refining that’s already showing up in Detroit.
The proposed Keystone XL pipeline would bring tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada tar through the U.S. to Gulf Coast refineries. Much of the debate around...
Fracking Role for Environmental Defense Fund Splits Green Groups
Posted by Bloomberg: Mark Drajem on May 23rd, 2013
Bloomberg: A coalition of 67 grassroots groups criticized the Environmental Defense Fund for its ties to natural gas drillers in setting voluntary standards for hydraulic fracturing, a process opposed by many green advocates.
The activist groups, many in communities where natural gas production is booming or in New York where it could start soon, said EDF is offering “greenwashing” for companies such as Chevron Corp. (CVX) by joining them on a set of standards for fracking.
“There is a better way to protect...
Ogallala Aquifer in Texas Panhandle Suffers Big Drop
Posted by Texas Tribune: None Given on May 23rd, 2013
Texas Tribune: The Ogallala Aquifer suffered its second-worst drop since at least 2000 in a large swath of the Texas Panhandle, new measurements show. The closely watched figures, published this week by the High Plains Underground Water Conservation District, cover a 16-county area stretching from south of Lubbock to Amarillo. The Ogallala wells measured by the district experienced an average drop of 1.87 feet from 2012 to 2013. That makes it one of the five or 10 worst drops in the district's more than 60-year...
Shale gas investments ‘could be worth £4bn a year to UK economy’
Posted by Guardian: Fiona Harvey, on May 23rd, 2013
Guardian: Investments in shale gas drilling could yield an industry worth nearly £4bn a year to the UK economy and create more than 70,000 jobs, according to a new report from the Institute of Directors (IoD), becoming a "new North Sea" energy business in the process.
That is higher than previous estimates, and includes a wide variety of jobs from those directly employed in the industry, such as geologists and drilling experts, but also cement manufacturers and people working in local retail and service...
Thinking ‘big’ may not be best approach to saving large-river fish
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 23rd, 2013
ScienceDaily: The study says 60 out of 68 U.S. species, or 88 percent of fish species found exclusively in large-river ecosystems like the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio rivers, are of state, federal or international conservation concern. The report is in the April issue of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
On the other hand, says lead author Brenda Pracheil, a postdoctoral researcher in the UW's Center for Limnology, the study offers some good news, too.
Traditionally, the conservation...