Environment

cnn.com - by Nadia Kounang - March 30, 2018

For the past 20 years, Hope Workman has hustled up a dirt path on the side of a mountain in Lovely, Kentucky, just to get drinking water. She doesn't trust what comes out of her tap . . . 

 . . . Workman is not the only person in Martin County, Kentucky, or America for that matter, who struggles to get clean water. Two well-publicized crises include Flint, Michigan's, lead contamination and Puerto Rico's failing water systems in the wake of Hurricane Maria.

As our water infrastructure system ages, experts say, keeping America's water clean becomes increasingly challenging. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives the nation's drinking water infrastructure a grade of D.

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Hurricane Harvey’s toxic impact on Houston was more widespread than publicly reportted, an AP Houston Chronicle investigation has found.  In the more than 100 spills catalogued by reporters, environmental testing was limited.

apnews.com - by FRANK BAJAK of THE ASSOCIATED PRESS and LISE OLSEN of the HOUSTON CHRONICLE - March 23, 2018

HOUSTON (AP) — A toxic onslaught from the nation’s petrochemical hub was largely overshadowed by the record-shattering deluge of Hurricane Harvey as residents and first responders struggled to save lives and property.

More than a half-year after floodwaters swamped America’s fourth-largest city, the extent of this environmental assault is beginning to surface, while questions about the long-term consequences for human health remain unanswered.

County, state and federal records pieced together by The Associated Press and The Houston Chronicle reveal a far more widespread toxic impact than authorities publicly reported after the storm slammed into the Texas coast in late August and then stalled over the Houston area.

An aggregation of methane ice worms seen on a methane hydrate in the Gulf of Mexico. Image: NOAA

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Limited contribution of ancient methane to surface waters of the U.S. Beaufort Sea shelf

earther.com - by Maddie Stone - January 18, 2018

There’s been loads of media hype regarding the Arctic “methane bomb,” an idea that rising temperatures could cause a pulse of ancient methane, locked in permafrost and frozen hydrates on the ocean floor, to escape to the atmosphere, triggering catastrophic global warming. Well, we have some positive news for you: a new study finds little evidence to support this scenario playing out in at least one fast-warming part of the world . . .

 . . . “Our data suggest that even if increasing amounts of methane are released from degrading hydrates as climate change proceeds, catastrophic emission to the atmosphere is not an inherent outcome,” lead study author Katy Sparrow of the University of Rochester said in a statement.

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Image: Map of active north California wildfires as of Monday October 9th 2017. By The New York Times | Sources: NASA MODIS, Santa Rosa Fire Department.

nytimes.com - Thomas Fuller, Jonah Engel Bromwich, Julie Turkewitz - October 10th 2017

Wine country was shrouded in a thick layer of smoky haze here on Tuesday as firefighters continued to battle wildfires that have left at least 15 people dead and have damaged or destroyed more than 1,500 structures, including wineries, homes and resorts.

State fire officials estimated that 17 separate fires, the first group of which began Sunday night, had burned about 115,000 acres over eight counties. More than 100 people had been taken to hospitals by Tuesday morning, and officials said that the tallies of the dead and injured were likely to rise.

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