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Wed, Aug 6, 2014
from Columbus Dispatch:
Ohioan gets prison after workers dump toxic drilling brine
The owner of a northeastern Ohio business that collected and stored toxic fluids from oil- and gas-drilling operations was sentenced yesterday in Cleveland to 28 months in federal prison and fined $25,000.... "Clean air and fresh water is the birthright of every man, woman and child in this state," U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach said in a statement after the sentencing. "Intentionally breaking environmental laws is not the cost of doing business. It's going to cost business owners their freedom." ...
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And brine is exactly what he'll eat for lunch in prison.
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Mon, Feb 17, 2014
from Reuters:
Subpoena caps bad week for fossil fuel
Federal authorities have launched a criminal investigation into the massive coal ash spill into North Carolina's Dan River, targeting both the energy company responsible for the ash pond that leaked and the state's environmental regulator.
The subpoena of Duke Energy, the company at fault for the North Carolina spill, bookends a bad week for the U.S. fossil fuels industry, including a coal slurry spill in West Virginia and a fire at hydraulic fracturing well in Pennsylvania. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, pumps water and chemicals into the ground to release gas trapped in rock.
The coal ash spilled in North Carolina is a byproduct of burning coal to make electricity and contains harmful chemicals, including arsenic. So far, authorities do not believe the spill poses a threat to drinking water, although the ash spiked arsenic levels in the river, turning it into a chalky gray soup. ...
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Chalky gray soup is my favorite dish!
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Wed, Sep 18, 2013
from Agence France-Press:
Ecuador's Correa calls for Chevron boycott
Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa called Tuesday for a global boycott of Chevron, as part of a campaign to highlight Amazon pollution that Quito has attributed to the US oil giant.
Chevron has never worked directly in Ecuador but inherited a pollution lawsuit when it acquired Texaco in 2001, and has yet to pay an associated $19 billion fine.
"This is one of the biggest environmental disasters in the world," Correa said as he launched the campaign in the town of Aguarico, in the north Amazonian province of Sucumbios, where Texaco operated between 1964 and 1990.
"The tools that we will use to fight Chevron are the truth and a call for solidarity of citizens of the world to not buy Chevron products," he said. ...
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We citizens of the world have to get started somewhere.
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Wed, Nov 7, 2012
from Baltimore Sun:
'Superbug' found in US wastewater treatment plants
Hospitals aren't the only places where people can pick up a nasty "superbug." A University of Maryland-led team of researchers has found methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, at sewage treatment plants in the mid-Atlantic and the Midwest....
The study found MRSA in 83 percent of the raw sewage entering the plants, but the incidence declined as the sewage progressed through the treatment process. Only one plant still had the bacteria in its fully treated water, researchers found, and that facility did not regularly use chlorination to finish disinfecting its wastewater.
MRSA is a well-known problem in hospitals, where patients have picked up potentially fatal bacterial infections that do not respond to antibiotic treatment. But since the late 1990s, it's also been showing up in otherwise healthy people outside of health-care facilities, prompting a search for sources in the wider community. ...
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But I thought... when you flushed... it just went away!
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Wed, Oct 12, 2011
from Bangor Daily News:
Shellfish harvesters plagued by acidic 'dead muds'
They're called dead muds.
Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere combined with unregulated nitrogen pollution are having a deadly effect on Maine's shellfish, some researchers say.
Scientists are starting to measure the impact of increasingly acidic waters on coastal organisms, and what they've found is alarming. Formerly fertile shellfish flats are becoming uninhabitable wastelands of dreck....
"They call them dead muds," said Mark Green, an oyster grower and marine science professor at St. Joseph's College in Standish. "The darker muds and sulfur-rich muds don't have any clams, and those are the flats that have lower pH levels. Places where historically there have been great harvests that supported clammers for decades, you now see water quality changes that are reflected in the mud." The more acidic the water, the lower the pH.
In these places, researchers aren't finding dead or unhealthy shellfish. They're finding nothing at all. It is a complete eradication. ...
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"uninhabitable wastelands of dreck." Now that's writing!
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Fri, Mar 18, 2011
from Twin Falls Times-News:
Dairy industry pushes CAFO secrecy bill
BOISE -- An Idaho House committee supported Wednesday a move to seal off more data related to confined-animal feeding operations from the public eye, making it harder for the public to tell if state regulations are enforced.
A bill proposed by Rep. Judy Boyle, R-Midvale, would put all dairy nutrient management plans -- and related proprietary business information -- out of the public's eye.
The plans essentially detail what becomes of animal waste produced at the dairies, which if not properly disposed of can pollute groundwater and soils. ...
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I'd prefer they hide their shit... so it doesn't get in my eye.
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Wed, Feb 2, 2011
from San Francisco Chronicle:
Chevron files RICO suit in Ecuador case
Using a law written to prosecute the Mafia, Chevron Corp. on Tuesday filed a racketeering lawsuit against a team of lawyers who have been fighting the company over oil field pollution in Ecuador.
Chevron accused the lawyers - as well as their clients and their spokeswoman - of conspiring to extort up to $113 billion from the oil company, based in San Ramon.... As a verdict in the marathon lawsuit nears, Chevron has tried to prove corruption among the lawyers and Ecuadoran officials involved in the case.
Last year, Chevron persuaded judges in the United States to grant the company access to many of the lawyers' private documents, arguing that they could provide evidence of fraud.
Chevron also won access to outtakes from a documentary film about the lawsuit, despite the objections of the filmmaker and many media companies (including Hearst Corp., which owns The Chronicle).
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In a case like this it's hard to tell who's Mafia and who's not.
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Wed, Jan 19, 2011
from Politico:
More mountaintop mining decisions loom
The Obama administration is facing a string of politically difficult decisions over one of the country's most contentious environmental issues: mountaintop removal coal mining.
Few issues can generate equivalent outrage among the administration's environmentalist allies as does mountaintop removal, a mining technique common in West Virginia and other Appalachian states where operators use explosives to open mountaintops and access coal seams, and then dump the resulting waste in adjacent streams. Green groups say the practice is among the worst abuses of the fossil fuel industry, saying it is ruining Appalachia's ecosystems and poisoning its drinking water supplies.
But Appalachia's mining industry calls itself the economic lifeline to one of the country's poorest regions.
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Perhaps we can agree to call it an economic deathline.
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Tue, Oct 19, 2010
from AP, via HuffingtonPost:
Oil spill 6 months on: a 'concussion' not death blow
... The spill wasn't the near-death blow initially feared. Nor is it the glancing strike that some relieved experts and officials said it was in midsummer.
"It is like a concussion," said Larry McKinney, who heads the Gulf of Mexico research center at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. "We got hit hard and we certainly are seeing some symptoms of it."...
[T]he Georgia scientists say the samples smelled like an auto repair shop. They took 78 cores of sediment and only five had live worms in them. Usually they would all have life, said University of Georgia scientist Samantha Joye. She called it a "graveyard for the macrofauna."... "I think populations are going to be affected for years to come," said Diane Blake, a Tulane University biochemist. "This is going to cause selective (evolutionary) pressure that's going to change the Gulf in ways we don't even know yet."...
After 1989's much smaller Exxon Valdez spill, it took awhile for the effects on Alaska's herring to be noticed, but the once prolific species crashed to extremely low levels. While other species in Prince William Sound recovered, the herring population has yet to bounce back. And Gulf researchers are wondering if that sort of thing will happen again.
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Seems to me more like a stroke than a concussion.
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Tue, Oct 12, 2010
from Associated Press:
A toxic legacy: Eastern Europe dotted with disasters in waiting
Abandoned mines in Romania leach waters contaminated by heavy metals into rivers. A Hungarian chemical plant produces more than 100,000 tons of toxic substances a year. Soil in eastern Slovakia is contaminated with cancer-producing PCBs.
The flood of toxic sludge in Hungary is but one of the ecological horrors that lurk in Eastern Europe 20 years after the collapse of the Iron Curtain, serving as a reminder that the region is dotted with disasters waiting to happen. ...
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Sounds JUST like my body.
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Wed, Oct 6, 2010
from AP, via HuffingtonPost:
Hungary Flood Of Toxic Sludge An 'Ecological Disaster'
Hungary declared a state of emergency in three counties Tuesday after a flood of toxic red sludge from an alumina plant engulfed several towns and burned people through their clothes. One official called it "an ecological disaster" that may threaten the Danube and other key rivers.... Several hundred tons of plaster were being poured into the Marcal River to bind the toxic sludge and prevent it from flowing on, the National Disaster Management Directorate said.
So far, about 35.3 million cubic feet (1 million cubic meters) of sludge has leaked from the reservoir, affecting an estimated 15.4 square miles (40 square kilometers), Environmental Affairs State Secretary Zoltan Illes told the state news wire MTI.... The sludge, a waste product in aluminum production, contains heavy metals and is toxic if ingested. Many of the injured sustained burns as the sludge seeped through their clothes, and two faced life-threatening conditions.... The company also denied that it should have taken more precautions to shore up the reservoir.
"According to the current evaluation, company management could not have noticed the signs of the natural catastrophe nor done anything to prevent it even while carefully respecting technological procedures," MAL said in a statement. ...
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35 million cubic feet of toxic sludge: natural variation.
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Mon, Sep 13, 2010
from ABC News, via DesdemonaDespair:
Oil From the BP Spill Blanketing Bottom of Gulf
Professor Samantha Joye of the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Georgia, who is conducting a study on a research vessel just two miles from the spill zone, said the oil has not disappeared, but is on the sea floor in a layer of scum.
"We're finding it everywhere that we've looked. The oil is not gone," Joye said. "It's in places where nobody has looked for it."
All 13 of the core samples Joye and her UGA team have collected from the bottom of the gulf are showing oil from the spill, she said.... "If we're seeing two and half inches of oil 16 miles away, God knows what we'll see close in -- I really can't even guess other than to say it's going to be a whole lot more than two and a half inches," Joye said.
This oil remaining underwater has large implications for the state of sea life at the bottom of the gulf.... "There is nothing living in these cores other than bacteria," she said. "I've yet to see a living shrimp, a living worm, nothing." ...
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There's a dead fly in a dead frog in a dead log in the oil at the bottom of the sea....
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Fri, Jul 30, 2010
from Huffington Post:
China Oil Spill Far Bigger Than Stated, U.S. Expert Says
But Rick Steiner, a former University of Alaska marine conservation specialist, estimated 60,000 tons (18.47 million gallons) to 90,000 tons (27.70 million gallons) of oil actually spilled into the Yellow Sea.
"It's enormous. That's at least as large as the official estimate of the Exxon Valdez disaster" in Alaska, he told The Associated Press. The size of the offshore area affected by the spill is likely more than 400 square miles (1,000 square kilometers), he added.... The estimates, though rough, could complicate China's efforts to move on from its latest environmental disaster: Dalian's mayor already declared a "decisive victory" in the oil spill cleanup, state media reported this week....
Steiner, who worked on the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, announced the China estimates after touring the oil spill area as a consultant for the environmental group Greenpeace China.
"It's habitual for governments to understate oil spills," Steiner told a news conference. "But the severity of the discrepancy is unusual here."
An official with Dalian's propaganda department told The Associated Press he was not aware of Steiner's estimates and had no comment. ...
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When the propaganda department is speechless, it's serious!
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Want more context?
Try reading our book FREE online:
Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies!
More fun than a barrel of jellyfish!
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Mon, Jun 7, 2010
from Akron Beacon Journal:
EPA and Goodyear on Toxic Dump: Plan is to let nature clean up
It has taken 16 years, but the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. are inching closer to finalizing a remedy for a decades-old toxic waste dump in Springfield Township....
A small part of that tract is contaminated with low levels of industrial solvents, cyanide, heavy metals and polychlorinated biphenyls.
The EPA is reviewing the latest plan by Goodyear and its consultants to deal with the pollution in the soil and groundwater on a portion of the 94 acres where Summit County later built a sewage treatment plant.... The remedy is called natural attenuation and relies on naturally occurring bacteria to destroy the contamination.... The 7.5-acre dump site was first used in 1943 as a toxic waste dump by Goodyear Aircraft Corp. (later Goodyear Aerospace).
Goodyear disposed of waste solvents, heavy metals, plating and polishing wastes, and cyanides at the site until 1966.
The EPA is unsure how much or exactly what was dumped at the site. ...
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"Natural attenuation" of heavy metals and PCBs. The solution to pollution is dilution!
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Sat, May 8, 2010
from New York Times:
EPA Backed Off 'Hazardous' Label for Coal Ash After White House Review
U.S. EPA's proposed regulation of coal ash as a hazardous waste was changed at the White House to give equal standing to an alternative favored by the coal industry and coal-burning electric utilities. The Obama administration is now considering two competing rules for regulating the ash that contains toxins that include arsenic, lead and mercury. The first would set binding federal disposal requirements for the ash, and the second would label the ash nonhazardous and leave enforcement to the states (E&ENews PM, May 4).
EPA released the two-headed proposal Tuesday for public comments.... What changed in the six months that the proposal was in OMB's hands? Says EPA: Its administrator, Lisa Jackson, changed her mind about the hazardous-waste designation.
"After extensive discussions, the Administrator decided that both the [hazardous and nonhazardous] options merited consideration for addressing the formidable challenge of safely managing coal ash disposal," EPA said in a statement. ...
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I had no idea Obama's middle initial was "W."
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Tue, Apr 27, 2010
from NASA:
Satellite image: Huge Oil Slick from Damaged Well in Gulf of Mexico
An estimated 42,000 gallons of oil per day were leaking from an oil well in the Gulf of Mexico in late April, following an explosion at an offshore drilling rig on April 20, 2010. The rig eventually capsized and sank.... The oil slick may be particularly obvious because it is occurring in the sunglint area, where the mirror-like reflection of the Sun off the water gives the Gulf of Mexico a washed-out look. The close-up view shows waves on the water surface as well as ships, presumably involved in the clean up and control activities.... The slick may contain dispersant or other chemicals that emergency responders are using to control the spread of the oil, and it is unknown how much of the 700,000 gallons of fuel that were on the oil rig burned in the fire and how much may have spilled into the water when the platform sank. ...
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Luckily, there are two wildlife refuges nearby to absorb it.
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Wed, Mar 24, 2010
from Laura Bassett, via HuffingtonPost:
Even The Cows Have Cancer: EPA Weighs Tougher Regulation of Toxic Coal Ash
Young has no doubt about what she believes is causing all the cancer: coal. For the past 10 years she's lived in Meigs County, Ohio, home to four coal-fired power plants within an 11-mile radius, and has become an environmental activist.
"There isn't a house on this road that hasn't been touched by cancer... I had melanoma and I currently have two more precancerous conditions for breast and thyroid cancer, none of which are in my family," said Young, 47. "My dog died of cancer, my best friend died of cancer and her dog died of lymphoma. I just gave up a dog because I couldn't afford to take him into the vet. He was getting lumps on him."... John Wathen, an environmental investigator and clean water advocate for Perry County, says the toxic ash is being very sloppily handled at its new site.
"Literally within 100 feet of people's homes, they're dumping coal ash on the ground, allowing it to blow around," Wathen said.... Wathen said that anyone who claims that coal waste is non-hazardous hasn't had to stand near it. "I'm a healthy man and I literally break down and throw up every time I'm exposed to it," he said. ...
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But it's only poor people who live near coal ash, right? Do they count as much?
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Sat, Mar 6, 2010
from Associated Press:
Disposal of spilled coal ash a long, winding trip
More than a year after a Tennessee coal ash spill created one of the worst environmental disasters of its kind in U.S. history, the problem is seeping into several other states...After the spill, the TVA started sending as many as 17,000 rail carloads of ash almost 350 miles south to the landfill in Uniontown, Ala. At least 160 rail shipments have gone out from the cleanup site... The landfill operators first sent it to wastewater treatment plants -- a common way that landfills deal with excess liquid -- in two nearby Alabama cities, Marion and Demopolis.
After what the EPA calls unrelated problems with ammonia in Marion, the landfill in January started using a commercial wastewater treatment plant in Mobile, Ala., 500 miles from the original spill. ...
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Spreadin' the love...
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Sat, Feb 20, 2010
from Dredging Today, via DesdemonaDespair:
A more toxic picture of TVA coal ash spill, cleanup works estimated at $1 billion
The disastrous coal ash spill that occurred a year ago at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston power plant in eastern Tennessee dumped a whopping 2.66 million pounds of 10 toxic pollutants into the nearby Emory and Clinch rivers -- more than all the surface-water discharges from all U.S. power plants in 2007.
That's one of the findings of a new report from the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project based on toxics release inventory data filed by TVA with the Environmental Protection Agency. The 10 pollutants are arsenic, barium, chromium, copper, lead, manganese, mercury, nickel, vanadium and zinc -- chemicals that have been linked to cancer, neurological disorders and other serious health problems.
The report's release came in time for the hearing scheduled for today by the House Subcommittee on Water Resources and the Environment on the progress of the ash spill's cleanup.
"We believe the data makes a very strong case for EPA action on coal ash ponds," EIP Director Eric Schaeffer said during a telephone press conference held yesterday to announce the findings. ...
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Psst. TVA -- just call it an "act of God" and you won't have to pay for it.
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Tue, Jan 19, 2010
from DC Bureau:
Dirty Waters: Cashing in on Ocean Pollution
...The cruise line industry relies on pristine oceans, beautiful coral reefs and marine life to draw millions of travelers on cruise vacations each year. But the same ships that advertise excursions to untouched ocean scenery are threatening these very same natural resources with their standard practice of flushing harmful toxins, mostly as sewage and food waste, into the ocean.... The average cruise ship serves between 10,000 and 12,000 meals per day. On a ship of 5,000 people eating four to five meals a day, the total is closer to 25,000 meals. Food waste is then ground up, put into a holding tank and discharged as food slurry. The putrefying food waste creates acid. In the ocean, it lowers oxygen and increases nutrients in the water, based on an EPA report in 2008 on cruise ship pollution discharge. ...
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I'll just bet the giant jellyfish LOVE cruise ships.
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Thu, Nov 26, 2009
from ENS, via DesdemonaDespair:
Azeri fishermen lament vanished shrimp
"It's been two years since the shrimps vanished from the Apsheron shore of the Caspian. And in these last few days, I have been returning home with almost nothing. Maybe 200-250 grams of small shrimps end up in my nets, but no one buys them. I give them to friends who fish to use as bait."
From Pirallahi, which juts into the Caspian Sea from the Apsheron peninsula some 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Baku, oil platforms are visible a kilometer offshore, and ecologists blame the pollution caused by the oil industry for the collapse in the shrimp population.... He says shrimps rely on minute water plants and animals for food, but the sea floor has become heavily polluted with oil recently, meaning the micro-organisms have died.... ...
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The shrunken shrimp's shilent shriek.
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Tue, Nov 17, 2009
from San Francisco Chronicle:
Chevron sues former lawyer in Ecuador case
Chevron Corp. has sued a lawyer who used to represent the plaintiffs in a $27 billion pollution lawsuit against the oil company in Ecuador, hoping to cast doubt on the case.
Chevron on Friday filed a complaint for malicious prosecution against Cristobal Bonifaz, who worked on both incarnations of the long-running lawsuit up until 2006. The oil company, the nation's second largest, is seeking more than $4 million. Bonifaz was lead attorney for the original lawsuit, filed in New York in 1993, in which residents of Ecuador's oil-producing region claimed soil and water contamination ruined their environment and made them sick. Bonifaz also worked on the lawsuit's current version - filed in Ecuador - which could see a judgment next year.
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Four million is well along the way to recouping that 27 billion, Chevron!
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Mon, Nov 16, 2009
from POLITICO:
Chevron's lobbying campaign backfires
Facing the possibility of a $27 billion pollution judgment against it in an Ecuadorean court, Chevron launched an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign to try to prevent the judgment as well as reverse a deeply damaging story line.
Chevron's tactics -- ranging from quietly trying to wield U.S. trade policy to compel Ecuador's government to squelch the case, to producing a pseudo-news report casting the company as the victim of a corrupt Ecuadorean political system -- were designed to win powerful allies in Congress and the Obama administration as well as to shape public opinion and calm shareholders.
But many of the company's moves have backfired, drawing fire from environmentalists, media ethicists, state pension funds, New York's attorney general, members of Congress and even Barack Obama when he was a senator. ...
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How slick of Chevron.
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Thu, Oct 29, 2009
from San Diego Reader:
Tumors and sex changes: part deux
In spring of 2008, scientists from Cal Poly discovered that about 10 percent of goby fish collected in Morro Bay were plagued by bulbous liver tumors. At the time they hypothesized the gobies were being poisoned by sewage runoff and a common chemical found in everything from detergents to spermicides. After some preliminary research, it looks as though their first guess was right and, perhaps, not broad enough in scope.
The chemical in question is called nonylphenol (pronounced non-il-fe-NALL). It results from chemical breakdowns, most commonly during sewage treatment processes. In fact, beyond being a suspected goby carcinogen, nonylphenol has been linked elsewhere as causing gender changes in gobies. The European Union all but banned the chemical in most uses and Canada officials labeled it as toxic. In the United States, however, nonylphenol is considered an inert ingredient... ...
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Inert, my ass!
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Mon, Oct 12, 2009
from Great Falls Tribune:
Toxic coal ash piling up in ponds in 32 states, analysis shows
An Associated Press analysis of the most recent Energy Department data found that 156 coal-fired power plants store ash in surface ponds similar to one that ruptured last month in Tennessee. On Friday, a pond at a northeastern Alabama power plant spilled a different material.
Records indicate that states storing the most coal ash in ponds are Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama.... AP's analysis found that in 2005, the most recent year data is available, 721 power plants generating at least 100 megawatts of electricity produced 95.8 million tons of coal ash. About 20 percent --or nearly 20 million tons -- ended up in surface ponds. The remainder ends up in landfills or is sold for use in concrete, among other uses.... "There has been zero done by the EPA," said Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W. Va., chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. ...
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That was the past. Now we have clean coal. Right?
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Sun, Sep 6, 2009
from Cebu Daily News (Philippines):
Moratorium on coal ash dumping declared
A moratorium on coal ash dumping in Naga City, Cebu was declared last month by a regional environment official pending test findings of chemical and air pollution tests.
With this, Salcon Power Corp. and Korean Power Corp. are supposed to halt all indiscriminate disposal of coal ash waste from their power-generating plants.... In recent months, trucks have been unloading black soil-like material in open spaces, including a private subdivision, of Naga. Some residents welcomed the ash as filling materials for vacant property, unaware of warnings that coal ash was a pollutant and may contain heavy metals and toxic substances that endanger health.
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But it's so much cheaper to dump it willy-nilly.
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You're still reading! Good for you!
You really should read our short, funny, frightening book FREE online (or buy a print copy):
Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies!
We've been quipping this stuff for more than 30 months! Every day!
Which might explain why we don't get invited to parties anymore.
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Tue, Aug 11, 2009
from Than Nien News (Vietnam):
Slaps on the wrist as old hands pollute waters
In Dong Nai, the Tan Phat Tai Private Company in Bien Hoa Town, not far from HCMC, was last year caught twice by Dong Nai police discharging harmful waste including paint and oil into the land of nearby residents. The company was fined VND15 million (US$842).
Again on June 12 this year, the footwear company was caught releasing waste into a residential plot in Long Thanh District. It was fined VND10 million on July 3 only to be caught dumping around three cubic meters of wastewater from a tanker in Vinh Cuu District just four days later.
Since the company's license for transporting, treating and destroying waste was granted by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, authorities in Dong Nai said they can only impose cash penalties upon the polluter.... "The wastewater is black and smells like weed killer," a local resident had said in July, adding that she could hardly breathe when standing near the dumping site.
Test results later showed that the effluent contained cyanide, phenol, lead and other heavy metals.
Le Quang Thang, who drove the tanker that dumped the waste, said he had been doing so for two months, getting paid VND2 million for each trip. Thang said he was told where to throw the waste, and that he made three such trips a day. ...
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Fines of about twice what the truck driver was paid that day. Ouch! That's gotta hurt!
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Tue, Jul 14, 2009
from CNN:
Months after ash spill, Tennessee town still choking
Pamela Hampton stands at the kitchen sink, her gaze trained out of the window of her family's small hillside home. The disaster site is not visible from where she stands, but she knows it is there, down the hill, around a short stretch of highway, less than a mile away. Six months after the largest industrial spill in U.S. history, Hampton, her husband, Charles, and their three young children say they still do not feel comfortable going outside... "It's like dumping the periodic table into everyone's drinking water," said Anna George, a scientist with the Tennessee Aquarium Research Institute who has for months been testing the waters and fish near the spill site. ...
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That, my friend, is how you wield a metaphor!
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Tue, Jun 23, 2009
from New York Times:
Justices Say Waste Can Be Dumped in Lake
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Clean Water Act does not prevent the Army Corps of Engineers from allowing mining waste to be dumped into rivers, streams and other waters.
In a 6-to-3 decision that drew fierce criticism from environmentalists, the court said the Corps of Engineers had the authority to grant Coeur Alaska Inc., a gold mining company, permission to dump the waste known as slurry into Lower Slate Lake, north of Juneau.
"We conclude that the corps was the appropriate agency to issue the permit and that the permit is lawful," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority.
The corps permit, issued in 2005, said that 4.5 million tons of waste from the Kensington mine could be dumped into the lake even though it would obliterate life in its waters. The corps found that disposing of it there was less environmentally damaging than other options. ...
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"Greed is good." Technically.
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Wed, May 13, 2009
from The Nation:
Tennessee Spill: The Dredge Report
The Tennessee Valley Authority's efforts to clean tons of toxic coal ash are set to cause a "major toxic event" that could kill entire fish species and send a human health threat slinking up the food chain, according to scientists... A handful of scientists are saying that the river-clearing operation will unleash a deadly pulse of selenium, an element found in coal ash that's good for humans in small doses but toxic to people, fish and wildlife at high levels... The EPA's hazard summary cites long-term studies showing that exposure to high levels of selenium in food and water have led to discoloration of the skin, loss of nails and hair, excessive tooth decay and discoloration, listlessness and lack of mental alertness. ...
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Given my listlessness and lack of mental alertness I have nothing useful to say!
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Wed, Apr 1, 2009
from Helsingen Sanomat:
Russian burial ground for toxic waste seen as an environmental time bomb
Toxic waste from St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region have been taken to Krasnyi bor since 1969. About 1.5 million tonnes of chemicals, oil, and heavy metals have been buried in dozens of pits in an area of 70 hectares. Some of the waste is incinerated. Russia does not have a single modern facility for processing problem waste. Furthermore, in St. Petersburg, poisons are often left out in the open, or are disposed of in illegal dumping areas.
According to Dmitri Artamonov, the director of Greenpeace in St. Petersburg, not all pits have been covered up, and more waste is being transported to the area. Some of the pits have been sealed with clay. "Poisons evaporate into the air from liquid waste. In the rain, the pits can overflow, which means that all the makings of a disaster are ready", Artamonov says. ...
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Maybe it's time for central planning? Wait, that's what started the problem....
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Sat, Mar 21, 2009
from AP News:
Critics question safety of storing coal slurry in mines
Regulators in a handful of Appalachian states that let coal companies inject slurry into abandoned mines say they're confident the practice is safe, but an Associated Press survey shows they lack scientific data to answer citizens who believe aquifers, water wells and their own health are at risk.
None of the five states contacted by AP has studied the chemical composition of slurry, a byproduct left when clay, sulfur and other impurities are removed from coal to make it burn more efficiently. For decades, slurry has been injected into abandoned, underground mines in Appalachia as a cheap alternative to building massive dams or filtration and drying systems.
But hundreds of West Virginians are suing coal companies in two cases, claiming chemicals and metals in the slurry have leaked into aquifers, contaminated well water and caused health problems ranging from kidney disease to cancer. ...
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Seems like maybe we should just burn it instead. I'm confident that's safe.
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Sun, Feb 22, 2009
from The Center for Public Integrity:
Coal Ash: The Hidden Story
...For decades, the dangers of coal ash had largely been hidden from public view. That all changed in December 2008, when an earthen dam holding a billion gallons of coal ash in a pond collapsed in eastern Tennessee, deluging 300 acres in gray muck, destroying houses and water supplies, and dirtying a river.
But what happened in the Volunteer State represents just a small slice of the potential threat from coal ash. In many states -- at ponds, landfills, and pits where coal ash gets dumped -- a slow seepage of the ash's metals has poisoned water supplies, damaged ecosystems, and jeopardized citizens' health. In July 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency identified 63 "proven or potential damage cases" in 23 states where coal ash has tarnished groundwater and harmed ecology. Additional cases of contamination have since surfaced in states as far-flung as Maryland, New Mexico, Indiana, and Virginia. And in some locations, like Colstrip, the contamination has resulted in multimillion-dollar payouts to residents enduring the devastation.
Despite the litany of damage, there's no meaningful federal regulation of coal ash on the books; indeed, oversight of ash disposal -- much of it stunningly casual -- is largely left to the states. ...
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Looks like we all got coal ash in our Christmas stockings.
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Tue, Feb 10, 2009
from New York Times:
Oil Contaminates Des Plaines River
ROCKDALE, Ill. (AP)-- A holding tank at a Caterpillar facility in southwest suburban Chicago broke open early Sunday morning, spilling about 65,000 gallons of oil sludge and contaminating a three-mile section of the Des Plaines River, officials said.
"It is being contained, and there is no evidence of a fish kill or harm to water fowl," Maggie Carson, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, said by e-mail. ...
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I don't see any evidence of harm to anything.
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Sat, Jan 24, 2009
from Associated Press:
TVA memo spins environmental impact of coal ash disaster
The massive coal ash spill at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant last month wasn't so much "catastrophic" as it was a "sudden, accidental release."
That's according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press that was prepared by TVA's 50-member public relations staff for briefing news media the day after the disaster at the Kingston Fossil Plant, about 40 miles west of Knoxville. The nation's largest public utility has been accused by environmentalists and affected residents of soft-pedaling the seriousness of the flood of toxin-laden ash that filled inlets of the Emory River and swept away or damaged lakeside homes. ...
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Sounds like somebody peed their pants!
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Sun, Jan 11, 2009
from Associated Press:
Nation's largest utility grapples with 2 spills
STEVENSON, Ala. (AP) Standing on a porch near the Widows Creek power plant Saturday, Charlie Cookston took a drag off a cigarette and ticked off the reasons he distrusts the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Dead mussels in the mighty, meandering Tennessee River. Dwindling numbers of fish. Big, black piles of coal ash that seem to get larger every day.
As nearby residents await lab tests on the safety of drinking water, tempers are unsettled. Electric rates at the nation's largest utility have soared. A dike burst in Tennessee destroyed several homes, and on Friday, as much as 10,000 gallons of waste spilled into Widows Creek in northwestern Alabama.
The nation's largest utility, once was viewed as a savior to the region, bringing lights, thousands of jobs and progress since its creation as a New Deal program in 1933, has had a rocky few months. ...
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When it rains it pours, and when it spills it floods!
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Fri, Jan 9, 2009
from The Tennessean:
Second TVA spill reported in Alabama
TVA is investigating a leak from a gypsum pond at its Widows Creek coal-burning power plant in northeastern Alabama, a spokesman said at about 10:45 a.m. Central Time.
The leak, discovered before 6 a.m. has been stopped, according to John Moulton, with the Tennessee Valley Authority. "Some materials flowed into Widows Creek, although most of the leakage remained in the settling pond," he said. ...
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Don't bad things tend to come in threes?
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Wed, Jan 7, 2009
from New York Times:
Hundreds of Coal Ash Dumps Lack Regulation
The coal ash pond that ruptured and sent a billion gallons of toxic sludge across 300 acres of East Tennessee last month was only one of more than 1,300 similar dumps across the United States most of them unregulated and unmonitored that contain billions more gallons of fly ash and other byproducts of burning coal. Like the one in Tennessee, most of these dumps, which reach up to 1,500 acres, contain heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury and selenium, which are considered by the Environmental Protection Agency to be a threat to water supplies and human health. Yet they are not subject to any federal regulation, which experts say could have prevented the spill, and there is little monitoring of their effects on the surrounding environment. ...
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Maybe Obama better appoint an Ash Czar!
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Sun, Jan 4, 2009
from Huffington Post:
Tennessee's Toxic Nightmare: Arsenic Levels 35 to 300 Times EPA Standard for Drinking Water
Just-released independent water sampling data from the Tennessee coal ash disaster has shown alarmingly high levels of arsenic and seven other heavy metals, including cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and thallium.
"I've never seen levels this high," said Dr. Shea Tuberty, Assistant Professor of Biology at the Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry Lab at Appalachian State University. "These levels would knock out fish reproduction ... the ecosystems around Kingston and Harriman are going to be in trouble ... maybe for generations." ...
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This is the Exxon Valdez of 2008. But who's the drunken sailor?
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Tue, Dec 30, 2008
from Bloomberg News:
Texaco Toxic Past Haunts Chevron as $27 Billion Judgment Looms
Bolivar Cevallos walks around the farm where his family once lived amid the oil fields of Ecuador's Amazon rain forest. His boots sink ankle deep in tar. Everywhere he steps, oily muck seeps from the ground.
A gasolinelike smell hangs in the sweltering jungle air. The mess is a remnant of oil drilling in a 120-mile-long swath of the tropical jungle in northeastern Ecuador where Texaco Inc. and Ecuador's state-run oil company, PetroEcuador, have pumped billions of barrels of crude from the ground during the past 40 years. The ruined land around Cevallos's home is part of one of the worst environmental and human health disasters in the Amazon basin, which stretches across nine countries and, at 1.9 billion acres (800 million hectares), is about the size of Australia.
And depending on how an Ecuadorean judge rules in a lawsuit over the pollution, it may become the costliest corporate ecological catastrophe in world history.
If the judge follows the recommendation of a court-appointed panel of experts, he could order Chevron Corp., which now owns Texaco, to pay as much as $27 billion in damages. ...
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When it comes to oil, this is the Mother of All Craps.
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Tue, Dec 30, 2008
from New York Times:
At Plant in Coal Ash Spill, Toxic Deposits by the Ton
In a single year, a coal-fired electric plant deposited more than 2.2 million pounds of toxic materials in a holding pond that failed last week, flooding 300 acres in East Tennessee, according to a 2007 inventory filed with the Environmental Protection Agency. The inventory, disclosed by the Tennessee Valley Authority on Monday at the request of The New York Times, showed that in just one year, the plant's byproducts included 45,000 pounds of arsenic, 49,000 pounds of lead, 1.4 million pounds of barium, 91,000 pounds of chromium and 140,000 pounds of manganese. Those metals can cause cancer, liver damage and neurological complications, among other health problems.
And the holding pond, at the Kingston Fossil Plant, a T.V.A. plant 40 miles west of Knoxville, contained many decades' worth of these deposits. ...
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If this is "clean coal" I'd sure hate to know what's in dirty coal!
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Sat, Dec 27, 2008
from New York Times:
Tennessee Ash Flood Larger Than Initial Estimate
A coal ash spill in eastern Tennessee that experts were already calling the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States is more than three times as large as initially estimated, according to an updated survey by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Officials at the authority initially said that about 1.7 million cubic yards of wet coal ash had spilled when the earthen retaining wall of an ash pond at the Kingston Fossil Plant, about 40 miles west of Knoxville, gave way on Monday. But on Thursday they released the results of an aerial survey that showed the actual amount was 5.4 million cubic yards, or enough to flood more than 3,000 acres one foot deep. ...
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Somebody made an awfully big boo-boo!
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Tue, Dec 23, 2008
from Nashville Tennessean:
Flood of sludge breaks TVA dike
HARRIMAN, Tenn. Millions of yards of ashy sludge broke through a dike at TVA's Kingston coal-fired plant Monday, covering hundreds of acres, knocking one home off its foundation and putting environmentalists on edge about toxic chemicals that may be seeping into the ground and flowing downriver.
One neighboring family said the disaster was no surprise because they have watched the 1960s-era ash pond's mini-blowouts off and on for years. About 2.6 million cubic yards of slurry enough to fill 798 Olympic-size swimming pools rolled out of the pond Monday, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Cleanup will take at least several weeks, or, in a worst-case scenario, years. ...
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Sounds like a shovel-ready project to me!
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Wed, Sep 3, 2008
from AFP:
Ivory Coast's toxic waste trial to start September 29
The trial of 12 people charged with involvement in the 2006 toxic waste pollution scandal in the Ivory Coast is set to go ahead on September 29, according to court documents released Tuesday.
The 12 are charged with "poisoning or complicity to poison" in the illicit dumping of 500 tonnes of caustic soda and petroleum residues across more than a dozen open-air rubbish tips around the commercial capital Abidjan.
The toxic sludge, brought into Ivory Coast by Dutch-based multinational trading company Trafigura, killed 16 people and caused an estimated 95,000 people to seek medical attention. ...
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Not in my backyard.
In theirs -- they're poorer.
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Fri, Aug 29, 2008
from Wenachee World:
Investigators identify toxic goo, still looking for who dumped it
Nearly all of the 2,353 barrels contained industrial paint solvents and sludge, though more than half of the containers had deteriorated and spilled most or all of their contents. Some held medical waste and two barrels tested positive for low levels of radioactive materials.... Aquifers under the dump tested positive for high levels of organic compounds, metals, petroleum products, solvents, pesticides and other chemicals.... Officials believed the contamination was coming from the 55-gallon barrels, which were brought to the unlined landfill by a transport company in August 1975 and buried. But no records of what the barrels contained could be found.
The [transport] company paid $2 per barrel about $4,700 in all to bury the toxins. ...
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Zombie toxic barrels:
they just won't stay buried!
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Wed, Aug 13, 2008
from Blue Ridge Times-News:
Files Show Governor Intervened With Court regarding DuPont Judgment
When Gov. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia filed a friend-of-the-court brief in June arguing that the State Supreme Court should review a $382 million judgment against the DuPont Company, he said he was not taking sides, but acting in the interest of due process. Documents from the governor's office, however, show that Mr. Manchin had consulted with the company before filing the brief, and DuPont officials say the governor even asked them to provide him with a draft brief.
The case involves thousands of residents in and around Spelter, W.Va., where DuPont operated a zinc-smelting plant. Last October, a jury in Harrison County ruled that DuPont deliberately endangered those residents by dumping toxic arsenic, cadmium and lead at the plant... The revelations of Mr. Manchin's involvement in the DuPont case come against a backdrop of larger concerns raised recently about the independence of the state's legal system. In the last year, two Supreme Court justices have come under scrutiny for ties to company executives that had cases pending before the court. ...
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Corruption, graft, corporate favoritism:
It ain't just India.
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Sat, Aug 9, 2008
from London Daily Telegraph:
Amazonian Chernobyl -- Ecuador's oil environment disaster
"Once it was pristine rainforest. Now it has been described as an Amazonian Chernobyl. Millions of gallons of crude oil and toxic waste -- the legacy of an oil extraction programme -- has blighted 1,700 hectares of land and poisoned the rivers and streams in Sucumbios in the north-east corner of Ecuador... Indigenous Indian people blame the pollution on the US oil giant Chevron -- formerly Texaco -- and say it has caused a catalogue of health problems including severe birth defects, spontaneous miscarriages and cancers." ...
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It takes the power of human energy to so completely ruin a planet.
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Fri, Aug 1, 2008
from Raleigh WRAL News:
Hurricanes feed environmental fears about hog lagoons
"The destruction wrought on hog lagoons by Hurricane Floyd in 1999 prompted North Carolina's governor to vow to eliminate them.
However, ten years later, more than 3,800 hog lagoons still operate and are, increasingly, the target of environmental activists.
Flooding killed hundreds of swine and caused hog lagoons to overflow, contaminating nearby water supplies." ...
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"Environmental activists?" You mean those people who care if they're ingesting hogshit?
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Sun, Jul 27, 2008
from Birmingham Sunday Mercury:
Human sewage used on crops in the Midlands
"FARMERS are using treated human sewage as crop fertiliser on almost 3,000 Midland fields.
Severn Trent Water says demand for the waste has soared because it is now just a fifth of the cost of conventional animal-based fertiliser, which is closely linked to the price of oil.
The treated human sewage, known as sludge, is being used on fields to grow crops including maize, corn and oats." ...
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There's something sooooooo interconnected about this farming practice.
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Fri, Jul 18, 2008
from Economist:
Up to their necks in it
"Despite good laws and even better intentions, India causes as much pollution as any rapidly industrialising poor country... By official estimates, India has facilities to treat 18 percent of the 33,200m litres of sewage its cities produce every day. In fact, it treats only 13 percent, because of shortages of power, water and technical expertise in its sewage plants. These figures may underestimate the problem: measuring the output of 700m Indians who have no access to a toilet is tricky... In the words of Sunita Narain, a prominent environmentalist, mocking the tourist ministry's slogan: "Incredible India, drowning in its excreta." ...
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Can't they just hold it?
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Mon, Jul 7, 2008
from NineMSN (Australia):
Yarra River fish deaths worry protesters
The dredging of millions of tonnes of toxic sludge from Melbourne's Yarra River should stop until an investigation determines why fish are dying, protesters say.... "We're talking about exactly the same area and this is where they're dredging up that black toxic stuff which is full of heavy metals and who knows what else".... Almost three million cubic metres of toxic silt is being dredged from the Yarra River area and deposited in a containment "bund" in Port Phillip Bay as part of a $1 billion project to make way for larger ships. ...
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Can't stop the march of progress, can we?
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Tue, Jul 1, 2008
from Central Chronicle (India):
40 metric tons of toxic waste removed from Bhopal Union Carbide plant
"About 40 metric ton chemical waste and clay (lime sludge) was transported from Union Carbide Plant premises on June 27 to Pithampur. The work was executed under the eyes of experts and officials", said JT Ekka, Director, Gas Disaster & Relief Department on Tuesday.... Since the [Bhopal gas] tragedy, many NGOs ... have urged the State and Union Government to fulfil the demands of survivors [for] clean water in the gas-affected localities, and health care to the victims of gas tragedy.
Now the [NGOs] have begun questioning the State Government over the removal of toxic waste and its disposal in Pithampur.
"The entire dumping operation was carried under the cover of darkness. It's a big question that in what manner hazardous toxic waste was removed, transported and disposed in Pithampur plant", said Abdul Jabbar, convenor Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan (BGPMUS). ...
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See no evil, be no evil.
right?
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Sat, Jun 21, 2008
from CBC (Canada):
Dumping mining waste into lakes 'more responsible': fisheries minister
Tailing waste produced by mining companies is best stored in water, the federal fisheries minister said Tuesday, defending a planned move by bureaucrats to reclassify 16 Canadian lakes as toxic dump sites.... "It is much more responsible to store them in water," Hearn said. "Any damage done in relation to fish or fish habitat has to be mitigated where there is no net loss to either fish or fish habitat. There is a major environmental study done before any go-ahead is given," he said, adding that "every aspect is covered" before anybody could be in a position to damage the environment. ...
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Clearly a graduate of the
GWB School of Public Speeching.
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Sat, Jun 21, 2008
from Yorkshire Post (UK):
Sludge used on fields may strip crop of value
Farmers have been warned they could devalue their crops by fertilising them with sewage sludge.
Although partially retracted after being issued, the warning gave a rare glimpse of some unease in the food and drinks business about a practice which has been growing for 10 years.... "We are concerned that following the recent rise in fertiliser prices, some growers may be tempted to apply sewage sludge. The vast majority of our customers do not accept such treatment and a recent parcel of grain sold off water authority land that had been treated with sewage sludge attracted a price discount of £60 per tonne."
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They're just not marketing it right:
"Enriched with local resources."
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Wed, Jun 18, 2008
from Intelligencer-Journal, via RedOrbit:
Old Landfill Gunk Fouls Trail At Park
... A vegetation-free area extends for about 25 feet across the embankment... [The sign lists] a host of pollutants that might be present at various levels, including iron, nickel, mercury, zinc, arsenic, chloroethane and benzene... Jim Warner, executive director of the Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority, said leachates are an old story with old landfills.
There were no environmental safeguards, he said. Still, he noted, over many years, the sites do tend to flush themselves clean. ...
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Flush themselves clean to where, exactly?
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Tue, Jun 17, 2008
from CBC (Canada):
Lakes across Canada face being turned into mine dump sites
CBC News has learned that 16 Canadian lakes are slated to be officially but quietly "reclassified" as toxic dump sites for mines. The lakes include prime wilderness fishing lakes from B.C. to Newfoundland.
Environmentalists say the process amounts to a "hidden subsidy" to mining companies, allowing them to get around laws against the destruction of fish habitat.
Under the Fisheries Act, it's illegal to put harmful substances into fish-bearing waters. But, under a little-known subsection known as Schedule Two of the mining effluent regulations, federal bureaucrats can redefine lakes as "tailings impoundment areas." ...
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That is some fine print!
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Thu, Jun 12, 2008
from Daily Pilot:
Toxins up cost of bay project
Sediment and urban runoff containing nasty chemicals like those found in common ant and roach killers find their way from upstream into the harbor.
The presence of insecticides in the local waters containing a type of natural chemical compounds called pyrethrins mean costly federal environmental approvals before the city can begin dredging, said Newport Beach Assistant City Manager Dave Kiff.
The chemicals kill tiny organisms at the bottom of the food chain and need proper and expensive federally-approved disposal methods, Kiff said. ...
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Dredging up the past can be painful.
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Wed, Jun 4, 2008
from Stabroek News (Guyana):
Quartz Hill mining highlights environment threat
Breaches of the mining regulations were evident during a recent visit to Quartz Hill and nearby areas, resulting in pollution and fouling of waterways even as the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) strives to enforce the rules and advocate self-regulation.... Meanwhile, unsafe use of mercury, breached tailings ponds and mining activities close to water courses were some of the infringements....
As a result of the breached tailings ponds, a section of the Omai Creek was heavily discoloured with a yellow sludge, which made its way to the Essequibo River. ...
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We've noticed that when the profit motive is involved, self-regulation is appealing only to the profiteers.
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Sun, Jun 1, 2008
from In These Times, in AlterNet:
Will the Toxic Sludge Industry Be Held Accountable for Human Health Risks?
"... and we have precocious puberty, little girls developing breasts at 5 or 6 years old, little boys developing armpit hair. And that is something that people don't want to talk about," Holt says. "They will talk about their thyroid glands, their cancers, but they will not talk about early puberty. We are on a true toxic tilt."
For the first time since she became involved in the sludge issue, Holt is guardedly hopeful that her concerns will finally be addressed, and that the sulphurous alliance between the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), municipal sewer authorities and Synagro Technologies (the nation's largest sludge disposal firm, which was recently bought by the Carlyle Group) -- will be exposed for the blight it is.
In April, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, announced that her committee will hold hearings on the issue this summer. The catalyst is a confluence of recent news reports about sludge-related scandals. ...
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Who'd have thought that laying a bunch of toxic shit down would have consequences?
Note: the Carlyle Group is Poppy Bush's investment tribe.
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Mon, Apr 14, 2008
from Associated Press:
Sludge Fertilizer Program Spurs Concerns
"BALTIMORE - Scientists using federal grants spread fertilizer made from human and industrial wastes on yards in poor, black neighborhoods to test whether it might protect children from lead poisoning in the soil. Families were assured the sludge was safe and were never told about any harmful ingredients.
Nine low-income families in Baltimore row houses agreed to let researchers till the sewage sludge into their yards and plant new grass. In exchange, they were given food coupons as well as the free lawns as part of a study published in 2005 and funded by the Housing and Urban Development Department." ...
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This must be part of the trickle down effect.
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Sat, Mar 15, 2008
from Green Bay Press-Gazette:
Blocked study draws attention to PCBs
"It has been almost 20 years since the National Wildlife Federation issued its first fish consumption warning, drawing the public's attention to the effects of PCBs and mercury on Great Lakes fish.
Back then, it was met with strong opposition from sport and commercial fishermen, among others. The debate continues to rage today. A 400-page study on health and environmental hazards in the Great Lakes was blocked from publication by the CDC last year. Part of the report draws attention to the health risks associated with eating fish from the Lower Fox River and Green Bay." ...
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This is a Biome Breach scenario in two ways: 1) the presence of PCBs and 2) the public's right to know the truth has been breached by enforced secrecy.
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