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Tea Party-Controlled Legislature Pushes ‘Industry-Driven’ Great Lakes Water Withdrawal Bill
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on November 25th, 2014
EcoWatch: The Ohio legislature, dominated by a Tea Party-controlled Republican supermajority, often seems to be creating more problems than it solves. And it could be creating a problem with international ramifications. In its lame duck session, the chamber passed HB 490 last week, a water quality bill which alters standards for withdrawing water from Lake Erie and its tributaries, and sent it to the state Senate, where it’s expected to pass.
The omnibus bill contains some good things, such as new restrictions...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Tea Party-Controlled Legislature Pushes ‘Industry-Driven’ Great Lakes Water Withdrawal Bill‘Monster’ Fracking Wells Guzzle Water Drought-Stricken Regions
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on November 24th, 2014
EcoWatch: The fracking industry likes to minimize the sector’s bottomless thirst for often-scarce water resources, saying it takes about 2-4 million gallons of water to frack the average well, an amount the American Petroleum Institute describes as “the equivalent of three to six Olympic swimming pools.” That’s close to the figure cited by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as well.
But a new report released by Environmental Working Group (EWG) located 261 “monster” wells that consumed between...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on ‘Monster’ Fracking Wells Guzzle Water Drought-Stricken RegionsSandra Steingraber: Why I am in Jail
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on November 21st, 2014
EcoWatch: Breakfast in the Chemung County Jail is served at 5 a.m. This morning—Friday, November 21, 2014—it was Cheerios and milk plus two slaps of universally-despised “breakfast cake.” Along with trays of food—which are passed through the bars—arrive the morning rounds of meds for the inmates who take them. Now comes my favorite time of day in jail—the two quiet hours between breakfast and 7 a.m. before the television clicks on and we are ordered to make our beds and the loud day begins. Between the end...
Steingraber and Boland Sentenced to 15 Days in Jail for Protesting Methane Gas Storage
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on November 21st, 2014
EcoWatch: Renowned author, biologist and advocate Sandra Steingraber, PhD, U.S. Air Force veteran Colleen Boland (retired) and avid environmentalist Roland Micklem headed to the Chemung County jail Wednesday evening after pleading guilty and refusing to pay a fine in New York’s Reading Town Court. Judge Raymond Barry issued the maximum jail sentence of 15 days.
Steingraber, Boland and Micklem were arrested for blockading the gates of Texas-based Crestwood Midstream’s gas storage facility on the shore of...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Steingraber and Boland Sentenced to 15 Days in Jail for Protesting Methane Gas StorageGroups Sue Ohio Gov for Illegally Making State a Fracking Waste Dump
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on November 20th, 2014
EcoWatch: Two environmental watchdog groups have sued Ohio Governor John Kasich and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), charging that they illegally approved 23 facilities to handle the handling, storage, processing and recycling of fracking waste, bypassing the official rulemaking process. The lawsuit was filed by the Fresh Water Accountability Project and Food & Water Water Watch in the Franklin County court.
The suit says that ODNR skirted the formal process, including a legally required...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Groups Sue Ohio Gov for Illegally Making State a Fracking Waste DumpDavid Suzuki: ‘Keen Observers of the Natural World’ Wanted
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on November 19th, 2014
EcoWatch: Our ancestors may not have called themselves “citizen scientists” or organized to collect data for scientific inquiry, but they were keen observers of the natural world. Their survival often depended on being able to tease apart nature’s complexity—where to find game and when to sow seeds, collect berries and prepare for winter or bad weather.
But our modern, technology-obsessed lives increasingly divorce us from nature, with consequences for our health and well-being. Numerous studies now remind...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on David Suzuki: ‘Keen Observers of the Natural World’ WantedCanada: TransCanada Plots Dirty PR Campaign to Push New Pipeline
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on November 18th, 2014
EcoWatch: Burned by the public opposition to its Keystone XL pipeline, which has held up the project for six years, Alberta tar sands company TransCanada has laid out plans to prevent the same thing from happening as it clears the way to build its even longer and larger capacity cross-continental Energy East pipeline.
Greenpeace has leaked documents which reveal the company’s secret strategy, much of which hinges on the same astroturf and dirty tricks tactics used by Rick Berman, whose smear campaign against...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Canada: TransCanada Plots Dirty PR Campaign to Push New PipelineNeil Young Boycotts Starbucks Over Its Opposition to GMO Labeling
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on November 18th, 2014
EcoWatch: Neil Young has long been known for his involvement in environmental and social justice issues. Now Young has extended his longtime activism to another area: taking on Starbucks and its association with the anti-GMO labeling Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA). The GMA has spent heavily in states where GMO labeling has been on the ballot, working to defeat it, usually coming in just behind Monsanto in the size of its donations. “Goodbye Starbucks!” Young announces on his website. “I used to...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Neil Young Boycotts Starbucks Over Its Opposition to GMO Labeling10 Arrested as ‘We Are Seneca Lake’ Protests Continue
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on November 17th, 2014
EcoWatch: Ten people were arrested today for blockading the gates of Texas-based Crestwood Midstream’s gas storage facility on the shore of New York’s Seneca Lake. This protest marks the fourth week of the “We Are Seneca Lake” campaign to stop the major expansion project at the methane gas storage facility where plans are underway to store highly pressurized, explosive gas in abandoned salt caverns on the west side of Seneca Lake.
Thirty-five people have been arrested so far during this campaign, including...
Democracy at Its Best: Boulder County Extends Fracking Ban
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on November 14th, 2014
EcoWatch: “The time is always right to do the right thing.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.
As I sat in the hearing room of the Boulder County Commissioner yesterday I witnessed citizen-led democracy in action.
In a unanimous vote, three Boulder Colorado County Commissioners voted to extend the moratorium on oil and gas drilling in the county for the next three-and-a-half years. The three Democratic party women not only voted against fracking until July 1, 2018, they did so with strong language and gusto as...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Democracy at Its Best: Boulder County Extends Fracking Ban