Water // Current

Experts warn of severe water shortages by 2080

Half the world's population could face a shortage of clean water by 2080 because of climate change, experts warned Tuesday. ... more

jefftego
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More Trickery Lies and Deception from the County of Maui and its' Business Partners

The County of Maui says that they consider themselves a protected public trust user? What the fuck is this a protected public... more

Kepano
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Restore Natural Stream Flow That Was Here Prior to the Arrival of The Americans.

Because of the greed of the money that the Illegal State of Hawai’i, and the Illegal governing body The County Of Maui,... more

Kepano
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Farmers in California feeling effects of drought

Water restrictions, higher prices, and wildfires that are more ferocious brought on by climate change are changing the landscape... more

JanforGore
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Filtered urine to become new water source for ISS

Among the ship's cargo, which will help prepare the station for an expanded six-person crew, is a water regeneration system... more

InformedTexan
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Protest over water privitization in Mali turns deadly

And so it begins. "One person died and five were injured Monday when security forces opened fire on a protest over plans... more

JanforGore
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Himalayan glaciers may disappear by 2035

The glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, a large... more

jefftego
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Purified urine to be astronauts' drinking water

Presumably this means the crew will be able to make less water last longer? My natural reaction would be disgust to the idea of... more

purplefox
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Who owns nature?: Monsanto & biotech companies move to monopolize biodiversity

They may be moving to do so but they are coming up against much resistance from farmers, consumers, and various organizations that... more

JanforGore
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Mother of two sues for £10,000 after spending 16 years paying next doors water bill

Jean Shaw claims she was forced to drastically cut back on using water while bringing up her two children because of the cost. ... more

MiguelSanchez
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Trapped in black tar: How the oil sands made Canada a suburb of Fort McMurray

Sometimes I feel like I'm living in Russia or Nigeria, I swear to god." Andrew Nikiforuk is on stage at the Capilano Performing Arts Theatre, reflecting on life in Alberta as an outspoken critic of the tar sands. Yet one of the most decorated magazine writers in the country spared little as he carved up the captains of industry and politicians behind Alberta's massive oil boom, in front of about 200 people on Oct. 26.

Drawing on his new book, Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of the Continent, Nikiforuk forcefully outlined a very ugly business. He described the tar sands development as the largest capital project in the world, at $200 billion since 1996 when the associated pipelines and refineries are rolled in.

Then he set out the stakes. The development of the world's dirtiest oil has made Canada the biggest supplier of the United States' massive energy needs for the last seven years. "While we were having our donuts at Tim Hortons, we were becoming what Stephen Harper calls an 'emerging energy superpower.' "

Nikiforuk also set out the consequences. Not just the environmental ones -- we'll get to those. The political ones. "We are now a petro-state," Nikiforuk declared, with a wildly fluctuating petro dollar, noting that in Nigeria, Venezuela and Russia the consequences are not too subtle. "In Alberta, it's a little more subtle."

The implications of all that oil lucre sloshing loosely about in politics and society are rather profound, Nikiforuk argued, noting that the only real democracies in the Middle East are the countries without any oil. In British Columbia, he says, our complicity is being bought with the tar sands' dirty money. Toxic sour-gas wells that feed the tar sands' own enormous energy demands are putting $2 billion a year in the B.C. government's coffers. The feds are getting $5 billion to $6 billion a year in tar sands-related corporate tax revenue, Nikiforuk estimates. "They've used it to lower your taxes."

He quoted Thomas Friedman's twist on preacher Jonathan Mayhew's famous 1750 dictum: "There is no representation without taxation." In other words, if oil companies are the ones improving governments' accounts, then governments will do the oil companies' bidding, not ours.

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A 2008 industry-funded study suggested that the "steam-assisted gravity drainage" projects (as opposed to the open-pit mines) could extirpate caribou, bear, moose and fish from between one and three million acres. Water in the Athabaska region is in decline by 30 percent since the 1960s, Nikiforuk said. The process of extracting oil from the sand requires vast quantities of water, and produces enormous volumes of toxic waste. Nikiforuk said a dozen tailings ponds cover 50 square kilometers, held back by sand dams that rival the Three Gorges dam in size. "They're all leaking."

Nikiforuk asserts that efforts to monitor the effect on the Athabaska watershed, part of the third-largest river system in the world, is pathetic. In 2004, Nikiforuk said, federal scientists declared that the monitoring program "was designed to find nothing."

"This is Third World," Nikiforuk observes. "It's really disturbing that this would happen in a country like Canada."

http://thetyee.ca/Books/2008/11/06/BlackTar/
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It boils down to this: Canada is now America's drug dealer and making a good profit from it ( the government that is) at the expense of our climate balance, human health, and biodiversity. There is no more stark an example of human greed and political audacity than this. As this speaker asks: how could this happen in a country like Canada? So the next question then is: what will the Obama policy be on tar sands? And if it is continued, how does that make any plan to bring "green jobs" here sustainable with this kind of environmental devastation continuing to be allowed by this government with them profiting from it? This must stop. This country needs an intervention!Sometimes I feel like I'm living in Russia or Nigeria, I swear to god." Andrew Nikiforuk is on stage at the Capilano... more

JanforGore
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12 responses

9 days ago

Working on water well brings antagonistic groups together

Water can bring peace because it is the essence of all life on Earth. While it is sad to see so many people without it, this... more

JanforGore
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14 responses

9 days ago

Why small plastic particles may post a big problem in our oceans

Over the past few years, scientists have begun to realize that the increasing volume of plastic materials slowly decomposing in the world's oceans may present a long-term problem for marine food chains already reeling from overfishing and other anthropogenic insults. Partly as a result of a pair of influential papers published in ES&T, scientists are now exploring the role that fragments of plastic trash may play in transporting marine pollutants.

NOAA MARINE DEBRIS PROGRAM
Microplastic debris isn't unattractive, but research shows that it can be highly toxic.

The first international conference about this newly emerging microplastics problem was held in September and sponsored by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Attendees from six countries agreed to define microplastics as plastic pieces or fragments smaller than 5 millimeters. Sources of microplastics include both the small plastic particles used in products like body washes and cosmetics and the weathering of larger plastic flotsam and jetsam, says conference organizer Joel Baker of the University of Washington Tacoma, where the event was held.

Larger plastic debris tends mainly to float on the surface, but microplastics also can be found in the water column and on the seabed, says Richard Thompson, a researcher at Plymouth University (U.K) and a coauthor of both ES&T papers.This distribution, together with the smaller size, means that a wider variety of organisms could be exposed to [microplastics], he says. Thompson has been at the forefront of developing methods to definitively identify plastic fragments as small as 20 micrometers.

As plastic items break down, any toxic additives they contain including flame retardants, antimicrobials, and plasticizers may be released into the ocean environment, Thompson explains. Plastics can act like sponges to collect hydrophobic persistent organic pollutants, such as PCBs, adds Holly Bamford, director of NOAA's Marine Debris Program. Microplastic particles have been shown to hold concentrations of PCBs more than 1 million times higher than those in the surrounding water, Baker says.

At the recent conference, Hideshige Takada of the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology presented persuasive data that microplastics can impact marine food chains; the results came from a feeding experiment with streaked shearwaters, a common seabird in Japan and Australia. Takada's group, which has analyzed plastic pellets found on beaches around the world, fed chicks living in their natural environment a diet of fish laced with PCB-laden polyethylene resin pellets collected from Tokyo Bay. The pellet-consuming chicks took in up to 3 times the concentrations of lighter-weight PCB compounds, or congeners, as did chicks fed fish alone, he reported.

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The world now uses 230 million pounds of plastic annually, Thompson says, noting that much of this is for one-trip packaging that is thrown out within a year of production, on average. Because the plastic that enters the ocean tends to fragment, it is likely to remain in the environment for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, he says.
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I have to wonder, just where did the corporations producing these items with these toxins think it would break down and go to? Did they not think, know, or care where it went? Who has the bigger responsibility here? The producers of these plastic items, or the consumer? I went shopping this morning and saw a woman loading four, FOUR large cases of bottled water into her cart and I just couldn't help myself... I went over to her and nicely told her where Poland Spring comes from, how Nestle gets it, and where those bottles will go when she is done with them, and that bottled water on the whole is really no different than tap water and she would do much better with a Brita. She put two cases back... it's a start. ;-).Over the past few years, scientists have begun to realize that the increasing volume of plastic materials slowly decomposing in... more

JanforGore
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8 responses

10 days ago

Moon craters may hold traces of early life

Ice deposits hidden in the Moon's darkest craters might contain traces of early life from meteorites blasted off the Earth by... more

Bigdog_mike
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1 response

11 days ago

Uranium: Boom, Bust and Back Again

Mining is returning to the Uranium Capital of the World. But do people really want it back again?

dbocaz
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17 responses

22 days ago

Osmosis

This is an issue based visual montage, interpret it how you see fit.

JeffBall
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4 responses

11 days ago

Osmosis

An issue based visual montage.

JeffBall
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0 responses

12 days ago

Army Corps identifies leaking dam near Walla Walla

SPOKANE, Wash.—A leaking dam near Walla Walla poses an "unacceptable" risk to the public and will be specially... more

bedeboop
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0 responses

12 days ago

Bush shits in your water

Halloween Trick from Bush Administration: Treat to Factory Farms

WASHINGTON (October 31, 2008) – Thousands of factory farms will be exempt from needing permits that limit water pollution thanks to a new Bush Administration rule signed today. In addition, the Environmental Protection Agency did not adopt improved controls for bacteria and other pathogens that can pose risks to human health and wildlife.

Factory farms, also known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), confine animals on an industrial scale and produce massive amounts of manure and other waste that can pollute waterways with dangerous contaminants. EPA estimates that these facilities generate three times more waste than people do nationwide. Moreover, factory farms lack waste treatment facilities comparable to those that treat human sewage.

The new rule:

Creates a loophole allowing facility operators to avoid permits by claiming they won’t have a discharge.
Adopts a scheme that allows facilities to avoid certain environmental enforcement. For instance, if an operator certifies that the facility won’t have a discharge, environmental authorities will ignore enforcement action, even if the facility discharges to the nation’s waters.
Rejects improvements in technology that would reduce harmful bacteria and other pathogens contained in animal waste, missing an opportunity to prevent water pollution and threats to public health.

“Literally and figuratively, this rule puts the Bush Administration’s stamp of approval on a load of manure,” said Jon Devine, Senior Attorney in the Water Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). “Even though Congress specifically targeted factory farms for regulation under the Clean Water Act in 1972 and EPA has recognized the importance of these operations getting pollution control permits, the Administration stepped in it today.”

“It’s outrageous to see the environmental yard sale that marks the Bush Administration’s final days in office,” said Jeffrey Odefey, Staff Attorney at the Waterkeeper Alliance. “Clearly, industry lobbyists are picking up last-minute deals intended to preserve their right to pollute for years to come. Instead of offering meaningful protection of our nation’s waters and communities, EPA has come up with an unworkable muddle that sets the country back by decades.”

"Clean water is too important to allow polluting factory farms to continue business as usual," said Ed Hopkins, Sierra Club's Environmental Quality Program director. "Yet again, the Bush Administration has put private industry profits before public health."
Halloween Trick from Bush Administration: Treat to Factory Farms WASHINGTON (October 31, 2008) – Thousands of factory... more