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Archive for March 25th, 2014
The business of sanitation: how partnership can plug the access gap
Posted by Guardian: Rich McEachran on March 25th, 2014
Guardian: The sanitation target is the most off-track of all the MDGs, with 80% of countries falling behind their national targets. About a third of the global population has no access to a toilet, and roughly the same number of people have to openly defecate. Even a toilet is no assurance of hygiene – thousands of children die from sanitation-related diseases, including diarrhoea, every day, mainly caused by lack of access to clean water.
International organisations like WaterAid have been effective in...
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Researchers find fracking safety data is ‘sparse’ across Europe
Posted by Blue and Green: Charlotte Malone on March 25th, 2014
Blue and Green: A study from independent research consortium Researching Fracking in Europe (ReFINE) has found that data looking at the risks of leaking shale gas wells is “sparse”. It says current numbers show huge disparity in the safety of such wells.
The study, published in Marine and Petroleum Geology, found that previous research of oil and gas wells that were drilled over the last 100 years reveal highly variable well barrier and well integrity failure rates, ranging from 1.9% to 75%.
The researchers...
California hit by worst drought in 500 years
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 25th, 2014
Agence France-Presse: California is now in its third year of a drought that may turn out to be its worst ever. To make matters worse, the state has just had its warmest winter on record, depriving its parched land of snowmelt in the spring. Some communities are at risk of running out of drinking water, while those worst hit are ranchers and farmers. A lack of green grass means some are having to sell cows they can't afford, while the dry spell may force arable farmers to leave idle half a million acres of cropland.
Climate change: Too much rain caused deadly mudslide on unstable ground
Posted by Examiner: Jay Inslee on March 25th, 2014
Examiner: Authorities confirm 14 dead and 176 missing on Monday from the massive landslide that rolled through the rural neighborhood of Oso/Darrington north of Seattle on Saturday covering a square-mile area with mud and mangled trees as it laid waste to 50 structures.
Experts say the cause of the landslide, which wasn’t the first in the area, appears to be ground saturation after receiving double the normal rainfall for March, the sixth-wettest recorded since 1922, as explained by Johnny Burg, a meteorologist...
Oil spills into Lake Michigan from BP refinery
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 25th, 2014
Reuters: An unknown amount of oil leaked from BP Plc's Whiting refinery in Indiana into Lake Michigan after a mechanical glitch on Monday afternoon, the company confirmed on Tuesday.
The discharge had stopped, the leak was contained, and no injuries were reported, the London-based company said in a statement on Tuesday.
Related Aerial of BP Whiting Refinery BP Whiting Refinery As crews worked on the cleanup, the effect on Lake Michigan was not immediately clear. About 60 percent of the lake is covered...
Australian town in fear of emissions and coal dust from power plant
Posted by Guardian: Oliver Milman on March 25th, 2014
Guardian: The coal mine and adjoining power station in the small Australian town of Anglesea suffers from not one, but two incongruities. Anglesea, in Victoria, unlike its windswept Welsh namesake, is a bucolic surf location that sees a huge influx of visitors as temperatures soar in the summer months. It's not your archetypal mining town, even to its residents. "People who visit here, or people who haven't lived here long don't know the mine is here," says local doctor Jacinta Morahan. "It's well hidden"....
Fracking safety: report warns of ‘significant unknowns’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 25th, 2014
Guardian: The lack of publicly available data on the UK's onshore oil and gas drilling means there are significant "unknowns" about the safety of future fracking wells, according to a new study. The research also found that public data from the US showed that hundreds of recent shale gas wells in Pennsylvania have suffered failures that could cause water or air pollution.
"The research confirms that well failure in hydrocarbon wells is an issue and that publicly available data in Europe on this seems to...
New book on climate and water in the Hindu Kush
Posted by eKantipur: None Given on March 25th, 2014
eKantipur: The centrality of water in climate change is astounding,” said Dipak Gywali, former Water Resource Minister, on Monday at the launch of a new book Research Insights on Climate and Water in the Hindu Kush Himalayas from the World Bank-funded South Asia Water Initiative Small Grants Program, implemented by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). The new book, which presents policy-relevant findings of eight research projects in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China,...
El Nino likely in 2014, Australian Bureau of Meteorology says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 25th, 2014
Reuters: Climate models show an increased chance of a 2014 El Nino weather event, said Australia's bureau of meteorology, leading to possible droughts in Southeast Asia and Australia and floods in South America, which could hit key rice, wheat and sugar crops.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said an El Nino could occur during the southern hemisphere winter, May-July, with Australian cattle and grain farmers already struggling with drought which has cut production.
The last El Nino in 2009/10...
Researchers evaluate unprecedented environmental flow to Colorado Delta
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on March 25th, 2014
PhysOrg: University of Arizona scientists Karl Flessa and Ed Glenn and a binational team of scientists will monitor the effects of an engineered spring flood to bring water to the parched Colorado River delta.
The pulse flow of water into the dry lower reaches of the Colorado River began Sunday.
"This allocation of environmental water to the Colorado River Delta in Mexico is unprecedented," said Flessa, UA professor of geosciences and co-chief scientist of the monitoring effort. "We need to learn how...