Author Archive

SkyTruth Tracks Fracking From the Edge of Space

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...

250 Groups Call on EPA to Ban Endocrine-Disrupting Atrazine

EcoWatch: A diverse coalition of more than 250 conservation, public-health and sustainable farming groups sent a letter today asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban atrazine, a toxic pesticide that threatens wildlife and people across the country. The Center for Biological Diversity also submitted comments today from more than 38,000 people asking the EPA to immediately stop use of this endocrine-disrupting poison in the U.S. “We need to get this dangerous pesticide out of our water...

650,000 Comments Call on Obama Administration to Ban Fracking on Public Lands

EcoWatch: Yesterday, a coalition of 276 environmental and consumer organizations including Americans Against Fracking, 350.org, Berks Gas Truth, Center for Biological Diversity, CREDO Action, Democracy for America, Environmental Action, Daily Kos, Food & Water Watch, MoveOn, Progressive Democrats of America, The Post Carbon Institute and United For Action delivered to President Obama and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) nearly 650,000 public comments asking the federal government to ban hydraulic fracturing--fracking--on...

Asian Carp Quickly Advancing Toward the Great Lakes

EcoWatch: The leading edge of the Asian carp invasion in Illinois has advanced dramatically, with spawning moving nearly 100 miles upstream this year to within 25 miles of an electric barrier that is the last line of defense guarding Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes beyond. Data collected by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources in June shows that verified spawning of Asian carp--a key indicator of a viable Asian carp population and its ability to out-compete native fish species--has moved to within...

SkyTruth’s First Phase of Marcellus FrackFinder Nearly Complete

EcoWatch: Exactly two weeks ago, we officially launched the first stage of our new skytruthing initiative--FrackFinder: Project TADPOLE. Since the launch, our amazing volunteers have taken the project from 10 percent complete to 73 percent complete; that`s over 64,000 completed tasks (task = number of times an image is viewed and classified). On our website is a live, interactive map that illustrates, by county, the progress that our FrackFinder volunteers have made toward completing all tasks for Pennsylvania....

Greenwashing Fracking’s Devastating Climate Impact

EcoWatch: Several years ago, Utah public health officials realized they had a big problem on their hands--one with national implications as other states were racing to increase oil and gas drilling. Smog levels in the state’s rural Uintah basin were rivaling those found in Los Angeles or Houston on their worst days. The culprit, an U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report concluded earlier this year: oil and gas operations. The industry was responsible for roughly 99 percent of the volatile organic...

5 Gyres Institute Sets Sail to Study Plastic Pollution in Lake Michigan

EcoWatch: Today, a team from 5 Gyres Institute launched an unprecedented expedition to quantify and report on the extent of plastic pollution in Lake Michigan. Nick Williamson, environmental science major at SUNY-Fredonia; Saul Kliorys, Burning River Foundation board member; Sam Mason, associate professor of chemistry at SUNY-Fredonia; and Marcus Erikson, director of 5 Gyres Institute, at Great Lakes Brewing Company in Cleveland, OH. Williamson, Mason and Erikson set sail today on an unprecedented expedition...

New Poll Shows Californians Strongly Oppose Fracking

EcoWatch: A majority of Californians oppose expanded fracking in the Golden State, according to a new poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan research foundation. As oil companies gear up to frack massive petroleum deposits in the Monterey Shale, the poll also found that 65 percent of Californians say the state should act immediately to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The poll--the second this summer to find strong California opposition to fracking--puts new pressure on state lawmakers...

New Pipeline Threatens Wetlands in Gulf Coast Communities

EcoWatch: In a region still scarred by the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Plains Southcap, LLC, is building a pipeline meant to carry conventional crude oil from Alabama to Mississippi, threatening waterways in both states. Set to finish construction this year, Southcap’s underground pipeline would carry crude from the Ten Mile Terminal in Mobile, AL, to the Chevron refinery in Pascagoula, MS, tearing a path through Hamilton Creek, which feeds into Big Creek Lake, as well as Bangs Lake, only two...

Youngstown Pushes for Protections From Fracking, Earthquakes and Pollution

EcoWatch: They’re back and more determined than ever to win on election day in November 2013. The Youngstown, OH, Community Bill of Rights Committee is coordinating a new door-to-door campaign to get the required number of registered Youngstown voter signatures to put a question on the November ballot. The group says that a "Yes" vote on that ballot question would uphold Youngstown citizens’ fundamental rights to protect their family’s safe drinking water, clean air and land, and to local self-governance....