Situation Report

A dead catfish is evident Wednesday in debris in Clear Creek near Pierce City

joplinglobe.com - by Wally Kennedy - May 28, 2014

‘COMPLETE KILL’

Pierce City, MO. - On May 16, an undisclosed quantity of Alimet, an amino acid compound that Tyson Foods uses as a feed ingredient for its poultry operations in the area, reportedly spilled at Tyson’s feed mill in Aurora.

Tyson workers captured most of the spilled compound and shipped it to its wastewater pre-treatment plant next to Tyson’s poultry-processing plant in Monett. Wastewater from the processing plant is pre-treated before it enters Monett’s municipal waste-treatment plant. Treated water from that plant flows into Clear Creek and is responsible for most of the flow in the creek.

The introduction of the chemical caused “a 100 percent kill” of the bacteria that process the effluent in Monett’s wastewater plant, according to Skip Schaller, utilities superintendent at Monett.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

submitted by Samuel Bendett

Washington Air National Guardsmen methodically make their way through the mud and wreckage left behind by the March 22 mudslide in Oso, Wash. (Photo by Spc. Matthew Sissel/122D PAOC)

By letting citizens live in vulnerable places even after disaster strikes, governments plant the seeds for future disasters.

emergencymgmt.com - by Donald F. Kettl - May 28, 2014

It didn’t take long after the tragedy of the Oso, Wash., March mudslide for everyone to wonder: Should local officials have done more to prevent people from building in harm’s way? . . .

. . . The feds often know a great deal about the risks but don’t have the authority to act. Local governments have the authority to act, especially through zoning requirements, but often don’t have the capacity to collect all the technical information or the will to interfere in local development.

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Image: The Dan River site.

ecowatch.com - May 22nd 2014 - Brandon Baker

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Duke Energy reached a deal Thursday afternoon to clean up one of the largest coal ash spills in U.S. history.

The deal comes after months of advocates demanding answers and residents calling for stricter enforcement.

As a result of Duke spilling thousands of tons of coal ash into the Dan River near Eden, NC in February, the EPA decided the company must:

    Perform a comprehensive assessment
    Determine the location of coal ash deposits
    Remove deposits along the Dan River as deemed appropriate by EPA, in consultation with the US Fish and Wildlife Service

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Firefighters have worried that in the event of a fracking chemical spill, without information on the chemicals they would not know the best way to respond. Photo courtesy Kaye Bewley, flickr creative commons

Legislators are pushing for a rule that would require fracking operators to provide information about the chemical contents of fracking fluid in the event of a spill.

northcarolinahealthnews.org - by Gabe Rivin - May 16, 2014

North Carolina - First responders are applauding a recent legislative proposal that would allow state officials to retain confidential information about hydraulic-fracturing chemicals, with the intention that the information reach those first responders quickly during an emergency.