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Mon, 2011-05-23 09:49 — mdmcdonald
Environment

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Corey Watts John Girard Kathy Gilbeaux Maeryn Obley mdmcdonald Miles Marcotte
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About 565,000 Pounds of Oiled Material from Deepwater Horizon Stirred Up by Hurricane Isaac

Sun, 2012-10-21 00:55 — Kathy Gilbeaux

      

Workers under contract to BP clean up tar balls that washed up on the shore of Elmer's Island in January 2011. 
Ted Jackson / The Times-Picayune archive

nola.com - by Jeff Adelson - The Times-Picayune - October 17, 2012

BATON ROUGE -- About 565,000 pounds of oiled material from the Deepwater Horizon spill was brought to the surface by Hurricane Isaac, more than had been collected in eight months before the storm, the state's coastal protection agency said Wednesday. The post-storm figures were announced as members of the state's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority sharply criticized continuing clean-up efforts by BP and the U.S. Coast Guard and called for more resources to deal with oil that is still below the surface of the gulf, an amount believed to be equal to about 1 million barrels.

Miracle-Grow Poisons Bird Feed, Violates Pesticide Laws

Mon, 2012-09-10 22:35 — Maeryn Obley

Lawn and garden products company Scotts Miracle-Gro will pay $12.5 million in fines for poisoning bird feed and violating pesticide laws. (photo: doncraft.com)Image: Lawn and garden products company Scotts Miracle-Gro will pay $12.5 million in fines for poisoning bird feed and violating pesticide laws. (photo: doncraft.com)

readersupportednews.org - September 10th, 2012 - Agence Frace-Presse

Lawn and garden products company Scotts Miracle-Gro will pay $12.5 million in fines for poisoning bird feed and violating pesticide laws, officials said Friday.

Scotts will pay record criminal and civilian penalties for a litany of pesticide violations, including "illegally applying insecticides to its wild bird food products that are toxic to birds," the Justice Department said in a statement.

The company pleaded guilty in February to that violation as well as falsifying pesticide registration documents, distributing pesticides with misleading and unapproved labels and distributing unregistered pesticides.

(VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Evacuation Ordered for Bayou Corne Community

Tue, 2012-08-14 23:14 — Kathy Gilbeaux

              

Advocate staff photo by BILL FEIG -- This is an aerial view of the 422-foot- deep sinkhole that emerged recently near Bayou Corne. The Texas Brine Co. LLC facility well pad for a plugged and abandoned salt cavern is at right; Crosstex Energy LP facility is in upper left, while the pipeline corridor is at far lower left.

fox8live.com - August 3, 2012

NAPOLEONVILLE, La. (AP) - Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency Friday in Assumption Parish after officials ordered an immediate evacuation of the Bayou Corne area because a slurry area appeared to be expanding.

"The fear of the unknown prompted the evacuation order," said John Boudreaux, director of the parish's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. "The fear of it possibly compromising either the nearby pipelines or cavern storage areas, that could cause a risk to the community."

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Climate change is here — and worse than we thought

Wed, 2012-08-08 13:34 — Corey Watts

image courtesy of Tom Toles

www.washingtonpost.com - published August 3, 2012 - by James E. Hansen (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies)

 When I testified before the Senate in the hot summer of 1988 , I warned of the kind of future that climate change would bring to us and our planet. I painted a grim picture of the consequences of steadily increasing temperatures, driven by mankind’s use of fossil fuels.

But I have a confession to make: I was too optimistic.

(VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Industry Money and Questionable Ethics Contaminate UT Austin Fracking Study

Mon, 2012-07-30 22:53 — Kathy Gilbeaux

Scientific American - by David Wogan - July 24, 2012

Remember that study out of The University of Texas last February that concluded there wasn’t a direct link between fracking and groundwater contamination? It caught flack for seeming to being too easy on the fracking industry by suggesting that there wasn’t a direct link between cracking shale and groundwater contamination. The study was great news for an industry fighting a PR battle over a politically-charged issue.

However, financial ties to the fracking industry were never mentioned in all of the announcements about the study, and not known until a new study put out Monday by the Public Accountability Initiative. The study’s leader, Dr. Charles “Chip” Groat has significant financial ties to the fracking industry, to the tune of a couple of million dollars.

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Swimming With the Trash: A Marine Drone Seeks to Scoop up Plastic

Thu, 2012-07-12 23:09 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Albert Gomez

      

good.is - July 11, 2012

While there's been plenty of media pointing out or raising awareness about the disaster submerged right beneath sea level— the mountain-sized patch of plastic and other garbage that's been collecting in oceans around the world, particularly in the Pacific—there's less attention to some of the solutions that are currently in the works. Part of the reason is that the problem seems so huge (indeed, it's beyond the point of return) and so distant that it's not necessarily the easiest to conceive of steps to take action against.

Yet a crew of big-thinking designers has a concept for a trash-skimming and sensor-equipped "marine drone" that could detect trash in the ocean and scoop it into its net to be recycled. The drone is designed to navigate the ocean for two weeks at a time and would use an infrasound system to keep fish at bay.

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We Were Wrong on Peak Oil. There's Enough to Fry Us All

Thu, 2012-07-12 00:24 — Kathy Gilbeaux

                  

'The great profusion of life in the past – fossilised in the form of flammable carbon – now jeopardises the great profusion of life in the present.' Illustration by Daniel Pudles

guardian.co.uk - by George Monbiot - July 2, 2012

The facts have changed, now we must change too. For the past 10 years an unlikely coalition of geologists, oil drillers, bankers, military strategists and environmentalists has been warning that peak oil – the decline of global supplies – is just around the corner. We had some strong reasons for doing so: production had slowed, the price had risen sharply, depletion was widespread and appeared to be escalating. The first of the great resource crunches seemed about to strike.

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Natural Resources Defense Council

Tue, 2012-07-10 22:00 — Kathy Gilbeaux

nrdc.org

Executive Overview

NRDC's annual analysis of water quality and public notification data at coastal U.S. beaches found that the number of beach closing and advisory days in 2011 reached the third-highest level in the 22-year history of our report, totaling 23,481 days (a 3% decrease from 2010). More than two-thirds of closings and advisories were issued because bacteria levels in beachwater exceeded public health standards, indicating the presence of human or animal waste in the water. The portion of all monitoring samples that exceeded national recommended health standards for designated beach areas remained stable at 8% in 2011, compared with 8% in 2010 and 7% for the four previous years. In addition, the number of beaches monitored in 2011 increased slightly (2%) from a five-year low in 2010. The largest known source of pollution was stormwater runoff (47%, compared with 36% last year). The 2011 results confirm that our nation's beaches continue to experience significant water pollution that puts swimmers and local economies at risk.

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Plastics pollution study will be conducted on Great Lakes

Mon, 2012-06-25 17:32 — Corey Watts

submitted by Albert Gomez

www.plasticstoday.com - by Heather Caliendo - June 22nd, 2012

While much talk and discussion centers on plastic waste in the Pacific gyre, a new study will be conducted this summer on the Great Lakes, including Lake Erie.

This study will assess for the first time the potential effect plastic pollution has on these bodies of water. It's expected to provide data regarding the levels of discarded plastics from trash to tiny particles found in the lakes, as well as examine their impact on food supplies, according to an article on Cleveland.com.

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Injection Wells: The Poison Beneath Us

Fri, 2012-06-22 20:00 — Kathy Gilbeaux

      

A class 2 brine disposal well in western Louisiana near the Texas border. The well sat by the side of the road, without restricted access. (Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica)

propublica.org - by Abrahm Lustgarten - June 21, 2012

Over the past several decades, U.S. industries have injected more than 30 trillion gallons of toxic liquid deep into the earth, using broad expanses of the nation's geology as an invisible dumping ground.

No company would be allowed to pour such dangerous chemicals into the rivers or onto the soil. But until recently, scientists and environmental officials have assumed that deep layers of rock beneath the earth would safely entomb the waste for millennia.

There are growing signs they were mistaken.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

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