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Archive for August 27th, 2013
Yosemite Rim Fire is taste of things to come
Posted by New Scientist: Peter Aldhous on August 27th, 2013
New Scientist: San Francisco is in a declared state of emergency, its power and water supplies threatened by one of the largest fires on record in California. The blaze is 250 kilometres to the east of the city, on the fringes of Yosemite National Park. It is a grim warning of profound changes that may lie ahead, as the western US comes to terms with a new ecology of fire, wrought by climate change.
The Rim Fire is already the seventh largest in California since records began in the 1930s, having so far torched...
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California’s Rim Fire now 20 Percent Contained, but Homes and Resources Still Threatened
Posted by Nature World: None Given on August 27th, 2013
Nature World: California's Rim Fire, which now covers an area larger than Chicago, continues to burn though the Stanislaus National Forest and a portion of Yosemite National Park, but firefighters have more of a handle on the enormous wildfire than at any point to-date.
Relying heavily on fire-fighting airplanes and helicopters, crews made significant gains in battling the blaze, with the latest update from the Incident Information System (Inciweb), which handles California's wildfire information, indicating...
Entergy to shut controversial Vermont nuclear plant
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 27th, 2013
Reuters: Entergy Corp will shut the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, citing high costs tied to regulation and competition from cheap natural gas, bringing to an end a long battle with politicians and environmentalists seeking to close it.
Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin welcomed the news that the 40-year-old plant, which generates three-quarters of the state's power, will cease operations by the end of 2014, though the closure raises new problems for the New England state, including how long it would...
PA Public Health Assessment Finds Fracking Makes People Sick
Posted by EcoWatch: Sandra Steingraber, PhD; Larysa Dyrszka, Md; Kathleen Nolan, Md, Msl on August 27th, 2013
EcoWatch: Early results from an on-the-ground, public health assessment in Washington County, PA, indicate that environmental contamination is occurring near natural gas drilling sites and is the likely cause of associated illnesses. We are alarmed by these preliminary findings. They show that--after only six years of drilling--human exposure is occurring and people are getting sick. The presence of any sick people gives lie to industry claims that high volume hydraulic fracturing--fracking--is “safe.”
Focusing...
Entergy to Close Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on August 27th, 2013
Environment News Service: Entergy Corporation today said it plans to close and decommission its Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station in Vernon, Vermont. The station is expected to cease power production after its current fuel cycle and move to safe shutdown in the fourth quarter of 2014.
Anti-nuclear activists greeted the news with delight. After years of protests, conferences and lawsuits, the nuclear plant that has worried them will be shuttered.
The nonprofit group Beyond Nuclear commented, "The State of the Vermont,...
9 scary facts about the Yosemite fire
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 27th, 2013
Mother Jones: No one knows what started the Rim Fire, the 160,000 acre blaze that`s ripping through the western side of Yosemite National Park. But nearly 4,000 firefighters have been dispatched to try to stop it using helicopters, bulldozers, and flame retardants. Although the situation is starting to look up - 20 percent of the fire is now contained, up from 7 percent just two days ago -- the authorities predict the fire will keep spreading, and fast, in days to come.
There are many reasons to be concerned...
Shrinking water supply under threat in U.S. farm breadbasket: report
Posted by Reuters: Carey Gillam on August 27th, 2013
Reuters: A critical water source for U.S. farmers and ranchers is being depleted at a rapid rate and nearly 70 percent of it will disappear within the next 50 years if the current trend does not change, according to a report issued this week.
Thirty percent of the groundwater from a critical portion of what is known as the High Plains Aquifer already has been pumped and another 39 percent will be depleted over the next five decades, according to the report by environmental science and engineering experts...
SkyTruth Tracks Fracking From the Edge of Space
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on August 27th, 2013
EcoWatch: For the past year, our satellite monitoring of infrared data from around the world has detected immense amounts of light and heat coming from natural gas flares in North Dakota`s Bakken Shale. A recent study concluded that 30 percent of the natural gas produced in North Dakota is being wasted by a process called flaring, and the carbon dioxide emissions alone are equivalent to the annual emissions of 1 million automobiles.
This does not even touch the unknown air quality impacts from burning fracked...
Giant sequoia trees threatened by Yosemite fire
Posted by LiveScience: Becky Oskin on August 27th, 2013
LiveScience: A raging forest fire sweeping toward Yosemite National Park in California may threaten giant sequoia trees. The massive Rim Fire is an intense "crown" fire, meaning it is burning and leaping in the tops of trees instead of crawling along the ground. The National Park Service has closed two of Yosemite's three giant sequoia groves to work on preventive fire efforts, a park service statement said. The Merced and Tuolumne groves are about 4 miles (6 kilometers) from the edge of the Rim Fire, which...
Yosemite’s Massive Rim Fire Fueled by Climate Change
Posted by EcoWatch: Beth Pratt on August 27th, 2013
EcoWatch: Last night from my neighbor’s deck, I watched the eerie glow of flames from one of the largest wildfires in California history. At my own house the top of the giant pyrocumulus--a cloud created by the intense heat of the fire--looms over the trees today. The airspace above my home has become a regular flyway, with DC10s soaring overhead carrying flame retardant, and helicopters buzzing by with their water filled “bambi buckets.”
Known as the Rim Fire, to date it has burned almost 160,000 acres...