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Archive for May, 2013
Fracking ourselves to death in Pennsylvania
Posted by Grist: Ellen Cantarow on May 4th, 2013
Grist: More than 70 years ago, a chemical attack was launched against Washington state and Nevada. It poisoned people, animals, everything that grew, breathed air, and drank water. The Marshall Islands were also struck. This formerly pristine Pacific atoll was branded “the most contaminated place in the world.” As their cancers developed, the victims of atomic testing and nuclear weapons development got a name: downwinders. What marked their tragedy was the darkness in which they were kept about what was...
Protests in Chinese city over planned chemical plant
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 4th, 2013
Reuters: Hundreds of people took to the streets of the Chinese city of Kunming on Saturday to protest against the planned production of a chemical at a refinery, in the latest show of concern over the effects of rapid growth on the environment. China's increasingly affluent urban population has begun to object to the model of growth at all costs that has fuelled the economy for three decades, with the environment emerging as a focus of protests. Photographs on Weibo, China's version of Twitter, showed a...
U.S. commits to protecting loggerhead sea turtle habitat by 2014
Posted by Reuters: David Adams on May 4th, 2013
Reuters: The Obama administration has agreed by July 1 to map out areas to protect nesting beaches for endangered loggerhead sea turtles as part of a legal settlement with conservation groups. The U.S. Department of Commerce agreed to the deadline for a preliminary proposal on the critical habitat of loggerheads in the U.S. Atlantic and Pacific oceans and in the Gulf of Mexico, under an agreement filed on Thursday in U.S. District Court in California. Three environmental groups sued the government in January,...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on U.S. commits to protecting loggerhead sea turtle habitat by 2014How much water in that snowpack? Scientists seek a better gauge
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 4th, 2013
Christian Science Monitor: Scientists are testing a new approach for gauging the amount of water stored in mountain snows – reservoirs that supply more than 75 percent of the fresh water in the western US and that slake the thirst of some 1.5 billion people around the globe.
The aim is to measure the snow's water content more accurately and more frequently, so that water managers can mete out water stored in reservoirs more effectively. The data also are expected to improve snowmelt forecasts as a melt season progresses....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on How much water in that snowpack? Scientists seek a better gaugeClimate change may bring drought to temperate areas, study says
Posted by LA Times: Neela Banerjee on May 4th, 2013
LA Times: Climate change may increase the risk of extreme rainfall in the tropics and drought in the world's temperate zones, according to a new study led by NASA.
"These results in many ways are the worst of all possible worlds," said Peter Gleick, a climatologist and water expert who is president of the Pacific Institute, an Oakland research organization. "Wet areas will get wetter and dry areas will get drier."
The regions that could get the heaviest rainfall are along the equator, mainly over the...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Climate change may bring drought to temperate areas, study saysCalifornia Wildfire Drives Thousands From Homes
Posted by New York Times: Adam Nagourney on May 4th, 2013
New York Times: Walls of wind-driven fire swept across Ventura County on Friday, forcing thousands of home evacuations, shutting down schools and offices and ravaging acres of woodland as firefighters struggled for a second day to bring an ominously early California wildfire under control.
There were no reports of injuries or homes destroyed as the heat abated and fierce winds began tapering off Friday evening. But the intensity and early arrival of the year's first major wildfire -- months before such fires...
Potential of best practice to reduce impacts from oil and gas projects in the Amazon
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 4th, 2013
ScienceDaily: Hydrocarbon exploration and production continues to press into the most remote corners of the western Amazon, one of the most biologically and culturally diverse zones on Earth. A new best practice framework that combines technical engineering criteria with ecological and social concerns could reduce the negative environmental impacts of such development, according to research published May 1 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Matt Finer from the Center for International Environmental Law and...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Potential of best practice to reduce impacts from oil and gas projects in the AmazonSouthern California coast wildfire threatens 4,000 homes
Posted by Reuters: Alex Dobuzinskis on May 4th, 2013
Reuters: A fierce, wind-whipped wildfire spread on Friday along the California coast northwest of Los Angeles, threatening 4,000 homes and a military base as residents were evacuated ahead of the flames and a university campus was closed.
More than 950 firefighters had built containment lines by late afternoon around about 20 percent of the inferno, which has blackened 18,000 acres of dry, dense brush and chaparral since erupting on Thursday morning. More firefighters were said to be on the way.
Fire...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Southern California coast wildfire threatens 4,000 homesBrazil: Amazon Indians occupy controversial dam to demand a say
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 3rd, 2013
Reuters: Amazon Indians on Friday refused to end their occupation of a building site that has partially paralyzed work on the world's third largest hydroelectric dam for two days.
Some 200 people from various indigenous groups occupied one of three construction sites of the controversial Belo Monte dam on the Xingu River on Thursday, halting work by 3,000 of the 22,000 workers on the project.
They are demanding that the Brazilian government hold prior consultations with indigenous peoples before building...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Brazil: Amazon Indians occupy controversial dam to demand a sayU.S. to protect endangered loggerhead sea turtle habitat
Posted by LA Times: Julie Cart on May 3rd, 2013
LA Times: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has two months to identify suitable in-water nesting and migratory habitat for endangered loggerhead sea turtles, according to a legal settlement filed this week.
The agreement -- between the wildlife service and the groups Center for Biological Diversity, Turtle Island Restoration Network and Oceana -- gives the government until July 1 to propose feeding, breeding and migratory habitat in the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. waters in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on U.S. to protect endangered loggerhead sea turtle habitat