Some things that have recently been changed to insanity – plus a first quick note about one thing that can be done about it – something called Salons or Paris Salons where people meet and strategize to combat these inappropriate and in some cases, insane policies from the Trump administration and GOP power drunk Congress and Senate.
Salons first gained fame in France during the Enlightenment, with citizens gathering to engage in political conversations and arguments; they acted as a place to plan revolution and discuss philosophy. The concept has continued ever since, with the author Gertrude Stein and the former secretary of state Madeleine Albright both known to have hosted them.
The March for Science demonstrates our passion for science and sounds a call to support and safeguard the scientific community. Recent policy changes have caused heightened worry among scientists. The incredible and immediate outpouring of support has made clear that these concerns are also shared by the support of hundreds of thousands of people around the world.
The mischaracterization of science as a partisan issue, which has given policymakers permission to reject overwhelming evidence, is a critical and urgent matter. It is time for people who support scientific research and evidence-based policies to take a public stand and be counted.
ON APRIL 22, 2017, WE WALK OUT OF THE LAB AND INTO THE STREETS.
We are people who value science and recognize how science serves. We come from all races, all religions, all gender identities, all sexual orientations, all abilities, all socioeconomic backgrounds, all political perspectives, and all nationalities. Our diversity is our greatest strength: a wealth of opinions, perspectives, and ideas is critical for the scientific process. What unites us is a love of science, and an insatiable curiosity. We all recognize that science is everywhere and affects everyone.
The March for Science is an international movement, led by organizers distributed around the globe. This movement is taking place because of the simultaneous realization by thousands of people who value science in their lives that staying silent is no longer an option. There are marches being planned across the United States and internationally.
from – (please visit this page link below to find March for Science events near you throughout the world and across the United States April 22, 2017.)
When it comes to science, there are few winners in US President Donald Trump’s first budget proposal. The plan, released on 16 March, calls for double-digit cuts for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It also lays the foundation for a broad shift in the United States’ research priorities, including a retreat from environmental and climate programmes.
Senators voted 54-45 Thursday to kill an Obama administration coal mining rule, giving President Trump his first chance to formally take off the books an environmental rule from the previous administration.
The Congressional Review Act (CRA) challenge passed by the Senate undoes the Interior Department’s Stream Protection Rule, a regulation requiring coal firms to clean up waste from mountaintop removal mining and prevent it from going into local waterways.
President Trump Signs First Congressional Review Act Disapproval Resolution in 16 Years
Thursday, February 16, 2017
On February 14, 2017, President Donald Trump signed a resolution nullifying a Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) regulation that required energy companies to disclose foreign payments. [. . . ]
Congress’s first CRA target was an SEC regulation that would have required energy companies to disclose payments made to foreign governments. The rule, which implemented a provision in the Dodd-Frank Act, was intended to fight perceived corruption in countries with extensive oil, gas, coal, and mineral resources.
As we noted previously, House Republicans have targeted a wide array of Obama-era financial regulations for nullification under the CRA. Furthermore, the Trump Administration issued an executive order that establishes a framework to roll back the financial regulations imposed under the Dodd-Frank Act.
Sen. Benjamin J. Cardin (D-Md.), who co-wrote with then-Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) Section 1504 of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that created the requirement, said, “It should be lost on no one that in less than 48 hours, the Republican-controlled Senate has confirmed the former head of ExxonMobil to serve as our Secretary of State, and repealed a key anti-corruption rule that ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute have erroneously fought for years.”
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) has reintroduced legislation aimed at giving states and communities more time to implement 2015 ground-level ozone limits under National Ambient Air Quality Standards. The measure, S. 452, also would revise the US Environmental Protection Agency’s existing timeline for reviewing NAAQS and air-quality criteria from 5-year intervals to 10-year intervals.
Behind the scenes, the war has started over the main Senate bill to roll back the administrative state.
And House Republican leaders and rank-and-file members are beginning to strategize on employing the Congressional Review Act to attempt to block dozens more of President Obama’s regulations. The leader of the conservative House Freedom Caucus said the group hopes 300 rules can be scrapped with that parliamentary maneuver.
The “Midnight Rules Relief Act,” H.R. 21, introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), would bundle final rules under one expanded Congressional Review Act joint resolution of disapproval, allowing for the en bloc disapproval of multiple regulations that would otherwise be subject to individual review under a simple CRA.
The CRA only requires a simple majority to pass, making it an ideal vehicle for roll-back supporters.
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Environment, energy and health
The House passage of the “Midnight Rules Relief Act,” with the “REINS Act” likely to follow, has many environmental and public health advocates nervous.
Harold Wimmer, national president and CEO of the American Lung Association, is urging members to reject the “REINS Act,” calling it “a dangerous attack on public health protections.”
In addition to delaying or stopping meaningful oversight of tobacco products, the “REINS Act” would block critical clean air protections, he said.
“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has a track record of cost-effectively saving lives and improving public health under the Clean Air Act. The REINS Act would block or delay critical clean air protections against deadly pollutants, as well as the pollution that causes climate change,” Wimmer said in a statement.
Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union for Concerned Scientists, called the “REINS Act” and the “Midnight Rules Relief Act” two “egregious” attacks on science-based safeguards.
“It’s very discouraging to see this Congress, in its first week, launching this attack on science-based policies. Americans didn’t vote to have public health and environmental protections gutted,” he said. “They didn’t vote to give corporations yet another tool to nullify the laws that keep our homes, neighborhoods and workplaces safe. But that’s what these two bills would do.”
Conversely, the industry-backed American Energy Alliance supported passage of the “Midnight Rules Relief Act” and is asking members to vote in favor of the “REINS Act,” saying the measures would increase accountability and transparency in the federal regulatory process and roll back “overbearing” regulations. The group said it would consider the measure a “key vote” that would be used on a scorecard of lawmakers.
Back in 2015, President Obama signed into law the Water of the United States Rule, a provision that restricts pollution in streams and tributaries that flow into lakes and rivers. It took years and years of studies by both the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers to compile the data the rule is based on, which essentially boils down to this: Shit flows downhill.
To be more specific, pollution flows from small rivers to large ones, then into the ocean or lakes.
This probably shouldn’t have been a shock, but there you have it. A rule was put in place that basically codified common sense, so, naturally, businesses that make a living involving work with oil, chemicals, mining tailings, fertilizers, and other nasty pollutants near waterways immediately hated the rule. Especially Scott Pruitt—the new head of the EPA—who sued the EPA over the rule back when he was Attorney General of Oklahoma.
Pres. Trump will sign an executive order today ordering the EPA to “review” the rule, which is wonky language for “figure out how to work around it or get rid of it altogether,” and, as far as I’m concerned, Pruitt should recuse himself from any say in this since he already tried to sue the very agency he leads over the implementation of the rule.
President-elect Donald Trump aims to open up federal lands to more energy development, tapping into a long-running and contentious debate over how best to manage America’s remaining wilderness.
The U.S. government holds title to about 500 million acres of land across the country, including national parks and forests, wildlife refuges and tribal territories stretching from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico. They overlay billions of barrels of oil and vast quantities of natural gas, coal, and uranium.
[. . . ]
In December, Trump nominated U.S. Representative Ryan Zinke of Montana, who backs coal mining on federal lands, to lead the Interior Department. Officials for Zinke and Trump declined to comment.
Trump has vowed to lift the coal moratorium – imposed in 2016 as part of Obama’s broader plan to combat climate change – within 100 days of taking office.
Separately, a coalition appointed by Trump’s team to guide his Native American policy is researching proposals to ease energy development on tribal lands – including the controversial idea of transferring them to private ownership. [nL5N1DZ0OY]
U.S. crude oil stocks rose to a fresh record last week, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday, as a surge in imports and rising domestic production more than offset a hike in refinery runs.
SINGAPORE Oil prices recovered on Thursday from losses chalked up the session before, but the market remained under pressure as bloated U.S. crude inventories and rising output dampen OPEC-led efforts to curb global production.
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Congress just made it easier to sell off federal land, including national parks
In the midst of highly publicized steps to dismantle insurance coverage for 32 million people and defund women’s healthcare facilities, Republican lawmakers have quietly laid the foundation to give away Americans’ birthright: 640m acres of national land.
In a single line of changes to the rules for the House of Representatives, Republicans have overwritten the value of federal lands, easing the path to disposing of federal property even if doing so loses money for the government and provides no demonstrable compensation to American citizens.
At stake are areas managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), National Forests and Federal Wildlife Refuges, which contribute to an estimated $646bn each year in economic stimulus from recreation on public lands and 6.1m jobs. Transferring these lands to the states, critics fear, could decimate those numbers by eliminating mixed-use requirements, limiting public access and turning over large portions for energy or property development.
[ . . . ]
Republican eagerness to cede federal land to local governments for possible sale, mining or development is already moving states to act. Western states, where most federal land is concentrated, are already introducing legislation that pave the way for land transfers.
In Wyoming, for example, the 2017 senate has introduced a joint resolution that would amend the state constitution to dictate how public land given to the state by the federal government after 2019 is managed. It has little public support, but Wyoming Senate President Eli Bebout said that he thought the state should be preemptively thinking about what it would do with federal land.
The Congressional devaluation of national property is the most far-reaching legislative change in a recent push to transfer federal lands to the states. Because of the Republican majority in Congress, bills proposing land transfers could now swiftly diminish Forest Service and BLM lands across the country. [JUST GO READ IT]
The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a rules change this past week by a vote of 234 to 193, that would allow Congress the ability to essentially give away federal lands and buildings for free. The new rule, authored by GOP Rep. Robert Bishop of Utah, Chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, codifies that any legislation to dispose of federal land and natural resources would have a net sum zero cost to taxpayers. As the rule applies only to the House legislative rules, it is not subject to approval by the Senate or a presidential signature and is effective immediately.
[ . . . ]
Since the House is required to account for any cost associated with any legislation it considers under Congressional Budget Office accounting rules and guidelines, legislation put forward now shall skip several steps in the normal legislative process, coming up for a vote without any discussion of the costs and benefits. This means that the House does not need to render an assessment or cost analysis of estimated financial losses resulting in legislation giving away public lands or buildings.
In the last two weeks, the House has passed several Congressional Review Act resolutions undoing Obama-administration environmental regulations, including several opposed by industry groups and land reformers.
One of those resolutions ends a Bureau of Land Management rule restricting venting and flaring at natural gas drilling sites on public land. The rule would limit methane pollution, but industry groups say it would be duplicative, unnecessary and costly.
[… ]
Activists pushing their allies to hold the line against the GOP are working to kick up grassroots opposition to public land changes, an effort that they say has had at least some success so far.
Conservationists blistered a House rule change in January that makes it easier for the government to shed its public land holdings. And, earlier this month, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) was forced to rescind a bill to sell off millions of acres of federally owned land after a backlash from sportsmen’s groups.
Trump said to pick drilling advocate Cathy McMorris Rodgers for Interior
Donald Trump has chosen Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), a member of the GOP congressional leadership and a strident advocate for increased oil and gas drilling on federal lands, to head the Interior Department, according to multiple news reports.
McMorris Rodgers, the highest ranking Republican woman in the House of Representatives, would take the helm of a 70,000-person agency that manages hundreds of millions of acres of federal lands, including the National Parks system. She would be charged with implementing Trump’s plan to aggressively roll back many of the environmental restrictions the Obama administration has placed on federal lands, which the president-elect wants to open up for substantially more drilling and mining.
[ . . . ]
“Selling off our public lands to the highest bidder and opening them to drilling, mining and logging is not in the best interest of our country,” said a statement from Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune, “but that is exactly what Rep. McMorris Rodgers has voted to do over and over again.”
In the 24 days since President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Republican-controlled Congress has already moved to overturn four major rules that the oil, gas, and coal industries spent millions of dollars fighting during the Obama administration. First, Congress eliminated the Stream Protection Rule, which would prevent toxic mine waste from being dumped in streams. Then Congress voted to get rid of a rule that limited bribery and corruption in oil operations around the world. And in the coming days, the U.S. Senate is scheduled to vote to overturn a rule that limits methane pollution when oil and gas companies drill on public lands and to eliminate a rule that increases public input in public lands management decisions.
Of the more than 40 Obama administration environment and energy-related rules that anti-environment advocates have identified for Congress to consider for elimination under the Congressional Review Act, or CRA, why have Republican leaders in Congress chosen these four as their first targets?
Which environmental rules is Congress scrapping—and why?We examined each of the four CRA resolutions that have received votes by at least one chamber in this new Congress to better understand special interests’ role in pushing for their repeal. Below is a summary of our findings:
(check the article for detailed explanation of each)
Rogue Scientists Race to Save Climate Data from Trump
AT 10 AM the Saturday before inauguration day, on the sixth floor of the Van Pelt Library at the University of Pennsylvania, roughly 60 hackers, scientists, archivists, and librarians were hunched over laptops, drawing flow charts on whiteboards, and shouting opinions on computer scripts across the room. They had hundreds of government web pages and data sets to get through before the end of the day—all strategically chosen from the pages of the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—any of which, they felt, might be deleted, altered, or removed from the public domain by the incoming Trump administration.
Their undertaking, at the time, was purely speculative, based on travails of Canadian government scientists under the Stephen Harper administration, which muzzled them from speaking about climate change. Researchers watched as Harper officials threw thousands of books of aquatic data into dumpsters as federal environmental research libraries closed.
But three days later, speculation became reality as news broke that the incoming Trump administration’s EPA transition team does indeed intend to remove some climate data from the agency’s website. That will include references to President Barack Obama’s June 2013 Climate Action Plan and the strategies for 2014 and 2015 to cut methane, according to an unnamed source who spoke with Inside EPA. [ . . .]
Alarmed that decades of crucial climate measurements could vanish under a hostile Trump administration, scientists have begun a feverish attempt to copy reams of government data onto independent servers in hopes of safeguarding it from any political interference.
The efforts include a “guerrilla archiving” event in Toronto, where experts will copy irreplaceable public data, meetings at the University of Pennsylvania focused on how to download as much federal data as possible in the coming weeks, and a collaboration of scientists and database experts who are compiling an online site to harbor scientific information.
Magerman told the Wall Street Journal that Mercer’s political opinions “show contempt for the social safety net that he doesn’t need, but many Americans do.” He also said that Mercer wants the U.S. government to be “shrunk down to the size of a pinhead.” Several former colleagues of Mercer’s said that his views are akin to Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Magerman told me, “Bob believes that human beings have no inherent value other than how much money they make. A cat has value, he’s said, because it provides pleasure to humans. But if someone is on welfare they have negative value. If he earns a thousand times more than a schoolteacher, then he’s a thousand times more valuable.” Magerman added, “He thinks society is upside down—that government helps the weak people get strong, and makes the strong people weak by taking their money away, through taxes.” He said that this mind-set was typical of “instant billionaires” in finance, who “have no stake in society,” unlike the industrialists of the past, who “built real things.”
Another former high-level Renaissance employee said, “Bob thinks the less government the better. He’s happy if people don’t trust the government. And if the President’s a bozo? He’s fine with that. He wants it to all fall down.”
[ . . . ]
Press accounts speculated that Robert Mercer may have targeted DeFazio because DeFazio had proposed a tax on a type of high-volume stock trade that Renaissance frequently made. But several associates of Mercer’s say that the truth is stranger. DeFazio’s Republican opponent was Arthur Robinson—the biochemist, sheep rancher, and climate-change denialist. The Mercers became his devoted supporters after reading Access to Energy, an offbeat scientific newsletter that he writes. The family has given at least $1.6 million in donations to Robinson’s Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. Some of the money was used to buy freezers in which Robinson is storing some fourteen thousand samples of human urine. Robinson has said that, by studying the urine, he will find new ways of extending the human life span.
Robinson holds a degree in chemistry from Caltech, but his work is not respected in most scientific circles. (The Oregon senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat, has called Robinson an “extremist kook.”) Robinson appears to be the source of Robert Mercer’s sanguine view of nuclear radiation: in 1986, Robinson co-authored a book suggesting that the vast majority of Americans would survive “an all-out atomic attack on the United States.” Robinson’s institute dismisses climate change as a “false religion.” A petition that he organized in 1998 to oppose the Kyoto Protocol, claiming to represent thirty thousand scientists skeptical of global warming, has been criticized as deceptive. The National Academy of Sciences has warned that the petition never appeared in a peer-reviewed journal, though it is printed in “a format that is nearly identical to that of scientific articles.” The petition, however, still circulates online: in the past year, it was the most shared item about climate change on Facebook.
[ . . . ]
By 2011, the Mercers had joined forces with Charles and David Koch, who own Koch Industries, and who have run a powerful political machine for decades. The Mercers attended the Kochs’ semiannual seminars, which provide a structure for right-wing millionaires looking for effective ways to channel their cash. The Mercers admired the savviness of the Kochs’ plan, which called for attendees to pool their contributions in a fund run by Koch operatives. The fund would strategically deploy the money in races across the country, although, at the time, the Kochs’ chief aim was to defeat Barack Obama in 2012. The Kochs will not reveal the identities of their donors, or the size of contributions, but the Mercers reportedly began giving at least a million dollars a year to the Kochs’ fund. Eventually, they contributed more than twenty-five million.
[ . . . ]
The Mercers’ investment in Breitbart enabled Bannon to promote anti-establishment politicians whom the mainstream media dismissed, including Trump. In 2011, David Bossie, the head of the conservative group Citizens United, introduced Trump to Bannon; at the time, Trump was thinking about running against Obama. Bannon and Trump met at Trump Tower and discussed a possible campaign.
[ . . . [
David Magerman, in his essay for the Inquirer, notes that Mercer “has surrounded our President with his people, and his people have an outsized influence over the running of our country, simply because Robert Mercer paid for their seats.” He writes, “Everyone has a right to express their views.” But, he adds, “when the government becomes more like a corporation, with the richest 0.001% buying shares and demanding board seats, then we cease to be a representative democracy.” Instead, he warns, “we become an oligarchy.”
Already, some of our fears are being realized. On Monday, federal staff leaked news that the EPA had frozen its grant funding program, while USDA scientists have had their research funds frozen and were initially told to stop speaking to the media (although that order has since been rescinded.) Meanwhile, the EPA has reportedly been instructed to remove the climate change page from its website.
The Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) has formed as an organized response to the Trump administration’s plan to undermine federal environmental science resources. Because access to and control over data is a key piece of effective regulation, we have taken action to systematically archive valuable environmental datasets, create usable nongovernmental data access, and preserve records of wide-ranging, ephemeral, web-based policy and program information. This monitoring and tracking work has also created an opportunity for providing rapid analysis of environmental regulation during the transition.
Trump has also hand-picked a wide range of extremists when it comes to environmental policy, from climate-change-denier Scott Pruitt, his nominee to head the EPA, to ex-Koch Industries lobbyist Thomas Pyle, who is the transition leader for the Energy Department transition. These are not just pro-business conservatives trying to keep environmental costs down. These are hardcore anti-environment appointees, many of whom have strong records of anti-science denial and obstructionism. This, coupled with indications that the administration will be working rapidly to roll back federal environmental policy, points toward a wholesale attack on environmental governance, with federal environmental science a key target.
This is where EDGI comes in. Formed as a decentralized team of about fifty social scientists and researchers immediately after the election, EDGI has focused on these two primary goals: documenting and analyzing the transition, and publicly archiving federally maintained data.
Every other year a team of geophysicists and weather geeks told the Bloomberg administration about the storm surge that would come and why it would be exceptionally flooding to areas of the city. They explained why protection was necessary while there was still time to do something about it and why it was needed. They used charts and briefs with clear explanations but each time were sent away with nothing done, not one thing accomplished. When Hurricane Sandy came, there was no protection whatsoever.
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In the late 60’s, the scrubbers being requested of oil industry facilities and other high polluting industries would’ve cost between $30 and $60 per smokestack and effluent release pipe – but, no – they wouldn’t do any of it and hired millions of dollars worth of lawyers, pr firms, lobbyists and “experts” to prevent having to do anything.
In the 70’s, it would have cost about $80 each to put that same filter on each stack and about $120 each for the effluent streams. In the 80’s, it would’ve cost about $300 each and $450, respectively. Then in the 90’s, it would’ve been from $600 to $3,000 depending on the system required to be placed, based upon the chemicals being discharged into the air, soil or water by the industry. But, no.
After the year 2000, some of those prices actually went down because of better and cheaper systems and materials with a much better understanding of treating whole systems in a more integrated way – but still, no. All the while, the damage was being done to the environment, to people, to communities and to entire regions of our nation.
And, all the time this damage was continuing to be done to the environment on massive scales across multiple industries, they were spending literally hundreds of millions of dollars on not doing anything. Industries, both individually and collectively as well as their industry associations spent far more on not doing anything or not being required by government to do anything than would’ve been spent if they had simply done something appropriate about it at any given point.
In some jurisdictions, in some states, EPA standards were applied but in many, many others, they were not. After 9/11 because of demand for filtration systems to prevent possible terrorist attacks or at least ameliorate them, and because the value of our US dollar having changed generally negatively, those 1960’s $30 scrubber filters would’ve cost more like $12,000 – $18,000 each even with the newer materials and methods.
Industries and industry groups spent decades of spending what became billions, maybe even trillions of dollars all told, across all of the polluting industries. These costs for attorneys’ fees, fines (occasionally), paying lawyers to appeal the fines till hell freezes over, retaining pr firms, supporting climate denial think tanks, hiring lobbyists and paying lobby firms retainers, supporting PACs, making campaign contributions to anti-EPA and climate denial candidates, and paying “experts” to discredit and decimate the reputations of climate change supporting scientists far exceed the imagination. And, industries supporting those costs spent real money far in excess by many times over what it would’ve ever cost to have stopped sending pollutants into the air, water, soil and forever altering the environment with it.
Thirty something years too late to fix it and now, they’re saying they want to be responsible corporate citizens as politicians they’ve bought are starting to say we might ought to do something about this. As our weather becomes more extreme by each day forward, as our sea levels rise and flooding entrenches entire areas of our country month after month where it had not been expected but once every hundred years or thousand years, when rains come with twenty inches or more in numbers of hours over a couple days rather than across months or weeks, and as arctic glaciers melt that have been there longer than humanity has existed – yeah, now it becomes a thing. It is too late. We have passed the tipping point and it is way too late to worry about it now.
Tree huggers they laughed and smirked, mocking the shunned hippy folks they thought them to be. But now, as it turns out – trees lower the temperature of the climate by two degrees. And, wouldn’t that be handy about now? But the corporate giants of industry cut all the old growth forest and jungles down that they could get their hands on and still to this day, what is left of them are being cut down, clear cut, burned into more carbon in the atmosphere across the globe as if there is not one reason not to do it. And today, see this if nothing else –
Apr 20, 2016 – Australia’s National Coral Bleaching Task Force has surveyed 911 coralreefs by air, and found at least some bleaching on 93 percent of them.
Apr 19, 2016 – Almost 93% of reefs on the Great Barrier Reef have been hit by coral bleaching, according to a comprehensive survey revealing the full extent ..
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AND FOR AT LEAST ONE SOLUTION – INDUSTRY COULD NOW BE USING THIS –
New material shown to remove CO2 from smokestack effluent and other sources
Aug 17, 2015 – Turning CO2 emissions into plastic with algae? It may not be as crazy as it sounds. Niina Heikkinen, E&E reporter. ClimateWire: Monday …
Mar 9, 2016 – Renewable plastic made from carbon dioxide and plants … CO2 required to make PEF could be obtained from fossil-fuel power plant emissions …
completely metabolize them to carbon dioxide (and water). … Life cycle analyses show that bioplastics can reduce CO2 emissions by 30-80 percent compared to …
Sep 22, 2014 – Not only is carbon dioxide readily abundant, it is three to 10 times cheaper than other feedstocks used to make plastics and chemicals, according to Cole. … Eventually, it hopes to harness carbon emissions there and convert it …
Artificial photosynthesis breakthrough turns CO2 emissions into plastics and biofuel. Dario Borghino April 23, 2015. 3 pictures. Researchers have developed an …
Feb 26, 2014 – Could future clothes, bottles and chairs be made from carbonemissions? … The vast majority of plastic is produced from petroleum, which means that … By combining methane and carbon dioxide with a proprietary catalyst, …
Oct 26, 2015 – Energy-Related Carbon Dioxide Emissions at the State Level, 2000- …plastics are subtracted from reported emissions for the states where they …
Oct 27, 2015 – Watch this video. Could plastic trees end air pollution? … As air flows over the plastic resin sails, they grab CO2 and hold on to it. CO2 binds to …
Converting Pollution Into Sustainable Polymers and Chemicals … proprietary catalyst system that transforms waste carbon dioxide (CO2) into high performance, …
Aug 19, 2014 – … a way to make plastic from carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. ….. Ocean Plastic Pollution Costs $13 Billion a Year, and Your Face …
Oct 28, 2015 – Pellets of urea fertilizer are made from carbon dioxide in a plant in … can convert CO2 emissions from coal and natural-gas power plants into useful … fuels and raw material for the manufacture of plastics and other chemicals.
Worldwide, we consume approximately 100 million tons of plastic each year. From the EPA’s more conservative estimate to the more liberal one, that’s anywhere from 100 million tons of carbon dioxide emitted to 500 million tons.
NOAA-supported scientists, led by Nancy Rabalais, Ph.D. from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, found the size of this year’s Gulf of Mexico dead zone to be smaller than forecasted, measuring 3,000 square miles. However the dead zone, which is usually limited to water just above the sea floor, was severe where it did occur, extending closer to the water surface than in most years.
Earlier this summer, NOAA-sponsored forecast models developed by R. Eugene Turner, Ph. D. of Louisiana State University and Donald Scavia, Ph.D. of the University of Michigan, predicted a larger than normal dead zone area of between 7,450 – 8,456 square miles. The forecast was driven primarily by the high nitrate loads and high freshwater flows from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers in spring 2009 as measured by the U.S. Geological Survey.
Rabalais believes the smaller than expected dead zone is due to unusual weather patterns that re-oxygenated the waters, among other factors.
“The winds and waves were high in the area to the west of the Atchafalaya River delta and likely mixed oxygen into these shallower waters prior to the cruise, thus reducing the area of the zone in that region,” said Rabalais. “The variability we see within each summer highlights the continuing need for multiple surveys to measure the size of the dead zone in a more systematic fashion.”
“The results of the 2009 cruise at first glance are hopeful, but the smaller than expected area of hypoxia appears to be related to short-term weather patterns before measurements were taken, not a reduction in the underlying cause, excessive nutrient runoff,” said Robert Magnien, Ph.D., director of NOAA’s Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research. “The smaller area measured by this one cruise, therefore, does not represent a trend and in no way diminishes the need for a harder look at efforts to reduce nutrient runoff.”
The average size of the dead zone over the past five years, including this cruise, is now 6,000 square miles. The interagency Gulf of Mexico/Mississippi River Watershed Nutrient Task Force has a goal to reduce or make significant progress toward reducing this dead zone average to 2,000 square miles or less by 2015. The Task Force uses a five year average due to relatively high interannual variability.
The dead zone is fueled by nutrient runoff, principally from agricultural activity, which stimulates an overgrowth of algae that sinks, decomposes, and consumes most of the life-giving oxygen supply in the water. The Gulf of Mexico dead zone is of particular concern because it threatens valuable commercial and recreational Gulf fisheries that generate about $2.8 billion annually.
The models used to forecast the area of the dead zone are constructed for understanding the important underlying causes to inform long-term management decisions, but they do not include short-term variability due to weather patterns.
Prior to the Louisiana consortium cruise, NOAA’s Southeast Monitoring and Assessment Program found a similar sized dead zone during its annual five-week summer fish survey.
NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.
The size of dead zones fluctuates throughout any
given year with the largest dead zones appearing in
summer months. The hypoxic area in the Gulf of
Mexico has more than doubled in size since the late
1980s. Initial forecasts for the size of the 2009 dead
zone in the Gulf estimated it to be around 7,500 –
8,500 square miles, however scientists found the dead
zone to be 3,000 square miles.
The result appears hopeful as on average the size
of the dead zone is estimated to be 6,000 square
miles. However this smaller than expected result is
believed to be related to short-term weather patterns
before measurements were taken and not a reduction
in excessive nutrient runoff. The largest dead zone on
record occurred in 2002, measuring 8,484 square miles.
Hypoxia, or low oxygen, is an environmental phenomenon where the concentration of dissolved oxygen in the water column decreases to a level that can no longer support living aquatic organisms. Hypoxic areas, or “Dead Zones,” have increased in duration and frequency across our planet’s oceans since first being noted in the 1970s.
The largest hypoxic zone currently affecting the United States, and the second largest hypoxic zone worldwide, is the northern Gulf of Mexico adjacent to the Mississippi River.
What is the Gulf of Mexico dead zone?
Tue, Jul 28 2009 at 9:30 AM EST
From red tides in the Atlantic to a furry blob in Alaska, seaweed seems to be invading the U.S. from all sides. But the country’s worst algae onslaught, even after a quiet summer, still lingers at the mouth of the Mississippi.
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[from recent press releases on the above site -]
Low oxygen levels have returned to the Gulf of Mexico along the coast of Texas
By Patrique Ludan, The BATALLION ONLINE, College Station, Texas
7/16/09 Low oxygen levels have returned to the Gulf of Mexico along the coast of Texas, indicating the return of a dead zone, according to Texas A&M researchers.
Steve Dimarco, associate professor of oceanography, said that a dead zone is an area in an ocean, lake, bay or estuary, where hypoxia, or an oxygen concentration of less than 2 milligrams per liter, is found.
In 2007, a research group, including Dimarco, found a dead zone off the coast of Freeport, Texas.
The newly detected dead zone is off the coast of south Galveston. The hypoxia contained within the water is already below levels that are considered harmful to marine life.
The researchers used a water-quality monitoring system to detect the dead zone. The system provides hourly updates on water salinity, temperature, oxygen and other data.
The current research is funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research, CSCOR, Dimarco said.
There are an estimated 200 dead zones located throughout the world as of 2006, according to a 2008 UN Environmental Program report entitled “In Dead Water.”
One of the largest dead zones predicted this year is off the coast of Louisiana, separate from the Texas dead zone, according to NOAA-CSCOR. The Louisiana dead zone is predicted to measure around 7,450 to 8,456 square miles, or an area roughly the size of New Jersey.
The largest dead zone recorded in the Gulf occurred in 2002 off the coast of Louisiana. Currently NOAA has not estimated the size of the dead zone near the coast of Texas.
The first observations of a dead zone near the Texas coast were made in 1970 by Don Harper, a professor at Texas A&M University-Galveston.
“Those observations did not allow us to determine how long it lasted, how big of an area it covered, or what definitively caused it,” Dimarco said.
The observations made currently are designed to show how frequently hypoxia occurs near coastal Galveston.
“This is important because it will provide valuable information for coastal managers to make decisions concerning coastal fisheries and other living resources,” Dimarco said. “In a broader sense, it will also provide extremely valuable data to determine the causes of coastal hypoxia and potentially to model its effects on marine organisms.”
Dead zones are caused by nutrient runoff, which comes from different types of agricultural activity. This stimulates an overgrowth of algae, which then sinks, decomposes and finally consumes most of the life-giving oxygen supply in the water.
Other causes of these dead zones come from climate change, or in other words global warming, according to a United Nations report.
“There is general consensus that different climate change scenarios could affect the dead zone of the northern Gulf of Mexico (which includes both Texas and Louisiana),” Dimarco said. “More rainfall could make it worse, changing wind patterns could make it worse or better depending on the character of the change; a warming climate could make it occur more frequently.”
Researchers are not certain how to reverse the process of dead zones.
“There is likely a human component, but there is good evidence that this is a natural condition which has been going on for a long time (more than
1,000 years off of Louisiana),” said Dimarco.
Right now the Texas Sea Grant College Program is reviewing a proposal by Dimarco and his team for additional funding, said Texas Sea Grant College Program director Robert Stickney.
“His work is extremely important and we are very supportive of it,” Stickney said.
The Texas Sea Grant College Program partially funded Dimarco’s research in 2007.
A dead zone also underlies much of the main-stem of Chesapeake Bay, each summer occupying about 40% of its area and up to 5% of its volume. The above map shows measurements of hypoxia in the bay in 2003.
Study Shows Continued Spread Of ‘Dead Zones’; Lack Of Oxygen Now A Key Stressor On Marine Ecosystems
ScienceDaily (Aug. 15, 2008) — A global study led by Professor Robert Diaz of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William and Mary, shows that the number of “dead zones”—areas of seafloor with too little oxygen for most marine life—has increased by a third between 1995 and 2007.
Diaz and collaborator Rutger Rosenberg of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden say that dead zones are now “the key stressor on marine ecosystems” and “rank with over-fishing, habitat loss, and harmful algal blooms as global environmental problems.”
[etc.]
The study, which appears in the August 15 issue of the journal Science, tallies 405 dead zones in coastal waters worldwide, affecting an area of 95,000 square miles, about the size of New Zealand. The largest dead zone in the U.S., at the mouth of the Mississippi, covers more than 8,500 square miles, roughly the size of New Jersey.
Diaz began studying dead zones in the mid-1980s after seeing their effect on bottom life in a tributary of Chesapeake Bay near Baltimore. His first review of dead zones in 1995 counted 305 worldwide. That was up from his count of 162 in the 1980s, 87 in the 1970s, and 49 in the 1960s. He first found scientific reports of dead zones in the 1910s, when there were 4. Worldwide, the number of dead zones has approximately doubled each decade since the 1960s.
Virginia Institute of Marine Science (2008, August 15). Study Shows Continued Spread Of ‘Dead Zones’; Lack Of Oxygen Now A Key Stressor On Marine Ecosystems. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 7, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080814154325.htm
Gasping for Breath
An ocean “dead zone” has been discovered off the Pacific Northwest. The water has so little oxygen that it “kills any marine animals that cannot swim or scuttle away,” says Jane Lubchenco of Oregon State University. She and her colleagues analyzed 60 years of data and found that oxygen levels dropped in 2002. Most of the hundreds of dead zones worldwide are caused by pollution. But this one was caused by winds and currents that disrupted the ecosystem and fueled oxygen-depleting bacteria.
Hello! Welcome to Breakthroughs, a site devoted to sharing with you the latest, greatest advancements from the College of Science at Oregon State University. From breakthroughs in research to transformational philanthropy to interesting tidbits from the daily life of the College, we’ll post frequently to keep you up-to-date. Please visit often and absolutely let us know what you might like to learn more about. Enjoy, and of course, GO BEAVS!
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SCIENCE FOCUS: DEAD ZONES
Creeping Dead Zones
This is not the title of a sequel to a Stephen King novel. “Dead zones” in this context are areas where the bottom water (the water at the sea floor) is anoxic — meaning that it has very low (or completely zero) concentrations of dissolved oxygen. These dead zones are occurring in many areas along the coasts of major continents, and they are spreading over larger areas of the sea floor. Because very few organisms can tolerate the lack of oxygen in these areas, they can destroy the habitat in which numerous organisms make their home.
The cause of anoxic bottom waters is fairly simple: the organic matter produced by phytoplankton at the surface of the ocean (in the euphotic zone) sinks to the bottom (the benthic zone),where it is subject to breakdown by the action of bacteria, a process known as bacterial respiration. The problem is, while phytoplankton use carbon dioxide and produce oxygen during photosynthesis, bacteria use oxygen and give off carbon dioxide during respiration. The oxygen used by bacteria is the oxygen dissolved in the water, and that’s the same oxygen that all of the other oxygen-respiring animals on the bottom (crabs, clams, shrimp, and a host of mud-loving creatures) and swimming in the water (zooplankton, fish) require for life to continue.
The “creeping dead zones” are areas in the ocean where it appears that phytoplankton productivity has been enhanced, or natural water flow has been restricted, leading to increasing bottom water anoxia. If phytoplankton productivity is enhanced, more organic matter is produced, more organic matter sinks to the bottom and is respired by bacteria, and thus more oxygen is consumed. If water flow is restricted, the natural refreshing flow of oxic waters (water with normal dissolved oxygen concentrations) is reduced, so that the remaining oxygen is depleted faster.
Many of the areas where increasing bottom water anoxia has recently been observed are near the mouths of major river systems. While the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) can’t see the bottom of the ocean, it can see the surface, where sediments from rivers mix with ocean waters. The images shown here are SeaWiFS observations of the Mississippi River delta, the Yangtze River mouth in China (The Yangtze River mouth is not currently identified as an area with an associated dead zone, but such conditions could develop there in the future), and the Pearl River mouth in China, near Hong Kong.
SeaWiFS can also observe areas where water flow is restricted, such as the Baltic Sea in Europe. The image on the left features Denmark after strong storms caused flooding and increased sediment suspension in the Baltic. On the right is an overview of the Baltic Sea, including a plankton bloom in the Skagerrak just north of Denmark.
The apparent cause of the creeping dead zones is agriculture, specifically fertilizer. While fertilizer is necessary to foster bumper agricultural crops, it also runs off the fields into the streams and rivers of a watershed. When the fertilizer reaches the ocean, it just becomes more nutrients for the phytoplankton, so they do what they do best: they grow and multiply. Which leads to more organic matter reaching the bottom, more bacterial respiration, and more anoxic bottom water.
These effects can be magnified by catastrophe. When the heavy rains of Hurricane Floyd caused extensive flooding in North Carolina in September 1999, the heavy load of nutrients (from dead animals, flooded animal waste ponds, and numerous other sources) reached the sounds that lie between the coast and the Outer Banks, oxygen levels in the water plummeted. The picture at the top of the page shows the heavy load of sediments flowing into Pamlico Sound. SeaWiFS captured a remarkable image on September 23, 1999, when the sediment-laden water was carried into the Gulf Stream. In this image, note the turbidity in the sounds and the deep brown color at the river mouths. In some areas of the Neuse River, the water actually turned red.
In Europe, the flow of water into and out of the Baltic Sea is naturally restricted by the islands and narrow channels around Denmark. Thus, any increase in nutrients which augments biological productivity can be a problem — and that’s what is being observed in the Baltic. The situation at the mouths of major rivers is similar: the area covered by anoxic bottom water appears to be increasing every year.
Dr. Robert Diaz of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) has created a map of dead zones throughout the world (a version of this map also appeared in the March 2000 issue of Discover magazine). Diaz estimates that the number of such sites will double within a decade.
There is another interesting aspect to zones of anoxia—not all areas with anoxic bottom water are caused by pollution. The largest “dead zone” on the planet is the entire Black Sea below a depth of about 150 meters. Due to the fact that the exchange of water in the Black Sea with the Mediterranean Sea is limited to the flow through the narrow Bosporus, all of the mixing of freshwater and seawater takes place in the upper 150 meters, because the freshwater entering from rivers is less dense than seawater.
Below the pycnocline (a density boundary where the water density increases abruptly), the Black Sea water column is entirely anoxic, down to the bottom 2000 meters below. SeaWiFS can’t see that deep, either, but it can get a good image of the Black Sea on a clear day. Note the Bosporus in the lower-left corner of the image, and the delta of the Danube River on the western coast of the sea.
Recently, geologists Walter Pitman and William Ryan suggested that the Black Sea had been a freshwater lake at one time, and it became an anoxic marine basin fairly recently. Around 5600 B.C., as sea levels rose due to glacial melting, a flood of seawater broke through the Bosporus and inundated the Black Sea basin. The influx of Mediterranean seawater raised the level of the lake about 150 meters, and created the density difference that prevented mixing. Once the Black Sea was filled, the development of anoxia would have happened relatively quickly. One indication of the event is the age of freshwater mussels that died as oxygen concentrations fell. The anoxic bottom waters also hold the promise of preserving ancient wooden vessels, and even buildings in coastal communities that existed before the flood.
(NOTE, November 2003: As scientific examination of this hypothesis has progressed since it was first proposed by Ryan and Pitman, the dramatic rapid infilling scenario can no longer be supported. See the Black Sea section of the “Associated URLs” below for a recent report on the status of understanding the paleohistory of the Black Sea and surrounding regions. There may have been a much more powerful flood earlier in time, approximately 15-16,000 years ago, resulting from the overflow of the Caspian Sea into the ancient Black Sea basin. The Ryan and Pitman event, while still appearing to have occurred, did not involve as much water or as large a rise in the level of the Black Sea as first proposed.)
Dr. Robert Ballard, famed as the discoverer of the wreck of the Titanic , searched the Black Sea in 1999 and found indications of the ancient shoreline of the freshwater lake. In 2000, Ballard found evidence of ancient settlements on the underwater shore of this ancient lake, well-preserved due to the anoxic conditions, which preserve organic matter well. (Ryan and Pitman proposed that the sudden filling of the Black Sea was the basis for the Noah’s Flood story in the Bible, but we won’t get into that debate here.)
Another naturally occurring anoxic basin is the Cariaco Basin, near the coast of Venezuela. Because the sediments in anoxic basins are also without oxygen, they preserve organic matter which is normally consumed by bacteria. Thus, the Cariaco Trench is a natural sediment trap, recording how much organic matter is produced in the overlying waters year after year. Researchers are using SeaWiFS data to observe the productivity cycles in the surface water and then correlating these observations with the record preserved in the organic-rich botto sediments.
Finally, one other anoxic zone. The Saanich Inlet on Vancouver Island, Canada, has a “sill” near the mouth of the inlet, about 70 meters deep, which restricts the exchange of water from the Pacific Ocean and the bottom of the inlet. For the same reasons given above, the bottom waters of the Saanich below 100 meters are also anoxic, and sediments from the Saanich have been studied to provide information about changing environmental conditions on the western coast of Canada. The Saanich sediments are particularly valuable because the have annual layers (varves). The study of the Saanich sediments can be compared to tree rings from trees over 12,000 years old that were found in a nearby lake.
This article is about the oceanic phenomenon. For other uses, see Dead Zone.
Dead zones are often caused by the decay of algae during algal blooms, like this one off the coast of La Jolla, San Diego, California.
Dead zones are hypoxic (low-oxygen) areas in the world’s oceans, the observed incidences of which have been increasing since oceanographers began noting them in the 1970s. These occur near inhabited coastlines, where aquatic life is most concentrated. (The vast middle portions of the oceans which naturally have little life are not considered “dead zones”.) The term can also be applied to the identical phenomenon in large lakes.
In March 2004, when the recently-established UN Environment Programme published its first Global Environment Outlook Year Book (GEO Year Book 2003) it reported 146 dead zones in the world oceans where marine life could not be supported due to depleted oxygen levels. Some of these were as small as a square kilometre (0.4 mi²), but the largest dead zone covered 70,000 square kilometres (27,000 mi²). A 2008 study counted 405 dead zones worldwide.[1][2]
Aquatic and marine dead zones can be caused by an increase in chemical nutrients in the water, known as eutrophication. Eutrophication leads to harmful algal blooms (HABs). When algal blooms die off, oxygen is used to decompose the algae which creates hypoxic conditions. Chemical fertilizer is considered the prime cause of dead zones around the world. Runoff from sewage, urban land use, and fertilizers can also contribute to eutrophication. [3]
The Pacific Coast of the United States has a 1120 square mile (2900 km²) dead zone caused by stronger winds that many associate with global warming. [4]. This dead zone has recurred between June and September every year since 2002. [4]
Additionally, natural oceanographic phenomena can cause deoxygenation of parts of the water column. For example, enclosed bodies of water such as fjords or the Black Sea have shallow sills at their entrances causing water to be stagnant there for a long time. The eastern tropical Pacific Ocean and Northern Indian Ocean have lowered oxygen concentrations which are thought to be in regions where there is minimal circulation to replace the oxygen that is consumed (e.g. Pickard & Emery 1982, p 47).[5]
Remains of organisms found within sediment layers near the mouth of the Mississippi River indicate four hypoxic events before the advent of artificial fertilizer. In these sediment layers, anoxia-tolerant species are the most prevalent remains found. The periods indicated by the sediment record correspond to historic records of high river flow recorded by instruments at Vicksburg, Mississippi.
Effects of dead zones
Underwater video frame of the sea floor in the Western Baltic covered with dead or dying crabs, fish and clams killed by oxygen depletion
Low oxygen levels recorded along the Gulf Coast of North America have led to reproductive problems in fish involving decreased size of reproductive organs, low egg counts and lack of spawning.
In a study of the Gulf killifish by the Southeastern Louisiana University done in three bays along the Gulf Coast, fish living in bays where the oxygen levels in the water dropped to 1 to 2 parts per million (ppm) for 3 or more hours per day were found to have smaller reproductive organs. The male gonads were 34% to 50% as large as males of similar size in bays where the oxygen levels were normal (6 to 8 ppm). Females were found to have ovaries that were half as large as those in normal oxygen levels. The number of eggs in females living in hypoxic waters were only one-seventh the number of eggs in fish living in normal oxygen levels. (Landry, et al., 2004)
Fish raised in laboratory-created hypoxic conditions showed extremely low sex-hormone concentrations and increased elevation of activity in two genes triggered by the hypoxia-inductile factor (HIF) protein. Under hypoxic conditions, HIF pairs with another protein, ARNT. The two then bind to DNA in cells, activating genes in those cells.
Under normal oxygen conditions, ARNT combines with estrogen to activate genes. Hypoxic cells in a test tube didn’t react to estrogen placed in the tube. HIF appears to render ARNT unavailable to interact with estrogen, providing a mechanism by which hypoxic conditions alter reproduction in fish. (Johanning, et al., 2004)
It might be expected that fish would flee this potential suffocation, but they are often quickly rendered unconscious and doomed. Slow moving bottom-dwelling creatures like clams, lobsters and oysters are unable to escape. All colonial animals are extinguished. The normal re-mineralization and recycling that occurs among benthic life-forms is stifled.
Locations of dead zones
In the 1970s, marine dead zones were first noted in areas where intensive economic use stimulated “first-world” scientific scrutiny: in the U.S. East Coast’s Chesapeake Bay, in Scandinavia’s strait called the Kattegat, which is the mouth of the Baltic Sea and in other important Baltic Sea fishing grounds, in the Black Sea, (which may have been anoxic in its deepest levels for millennia, however) and in the northern Adriatic.
Other marine dead zones have apparently appeared in coastal waters of South America, China, Japan, and southeast Australia. A 2008 study counted 405 dead zones worldwide.[1][2][6]
Oregon
Sediment from the Mississippi River carries fertilizer to the Gulf of Mexico
Off the coast of Cape Perpetua, Oregon, there is also a dead zone with a 2006 reported size of 300 square miles (780 km²).[7] This dead zone only exists during the summer, perhaps due to wind patterns.
Gulf of Mexico
Currently the most notorious dead zone is a 22,126 square kilometre (8,543 mi²) region in the Gulf of Mexico, where the Mississippi River dumps high-nutrient runoff from its vast drainage basin, which includes the heart of U.S. agribusiness, the Midwest. The drainage of these nutrients are affecting important shrimp fishing grounds. This is equivalent to a dead zone the size of New Jersey. A dead zone off the coast of Texas where the Brazos River empties into the Gulf was also discovered in July 2007.[8]
Reversal of dead zones –
Dead zones are reversible.
The Black Sea dead zone, previously the largest dead zone in the world, largely disappeared between 1991 and 2001 after fertilizers became too costly to use following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the demise of centrally planned economies in Eastern and Central Europe. Fishing has again become a major economic activity in the region.[9]
While the Black Sea “cleanup” was largely unintentional and involved a drop in hard-to-control fertilizer usage, the U.N. has advocated other cleanups by reducing large industrial emissions.[9] From 1985 to 2000, the North Sea dead zone had nitrogen reduced by 37% when policy efforts by countries on the Rhine River reduced sewage and industrial emissions of nitrogen into the water. Other cleanups have taken place along the Hudson River[10] and San Francisco Bay.[1]
Diaz, R.J., and Rosenberg, R. 2008. Spreading dead zones and consequences for marine ecosystems. Science 321(5891): 926-929. Abstract
Osterman, L.E., et al. 2004. Reconstructing an 180-yr record of natural and anthropogenic induced hypoxia from the sediments of the Louisiana Continental Shelf. Geological Society of America meeting. Nov. 7-10. Denver. http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2004AM/finalprogram/abstract_75830.htm Abstract.
Pickard, G.L. and Emery, W.J. 1982. Description Physical Oceanography: An Introduction. Pergamon Press, Oxford, 249 pp.
Landry, C.A., S. Manning, and A.O. Cheek. 2004. Hypoxia suppresses reproduction in Gulf killifish, Fundulus grandis. e.hormone 2004 conference. Oct. 27-30. New Orleans.
Johanning, K., et al. 2004. Assessment of molecular interaction between low oxygen and estrogen in fish cell culture. Fourth SETAC World Congress, 25th Annual Meeting in North America. Nov. 14-18. Portland, Ore. Abstract.
Taylor, F.J., N.J. Taylor, J.R. Walsby 1985. A bloom of planktonic diatom Ceratulina pelagica off the coastal northeastern New Zealand in 1983, and its contribution to an associated mortality of fish and benthic fauna. Intertional Revue ges. Hydrobiol. 70: 773-795.
Morrisey, D.J. 2000. Predicting impacts and recovery of marine farm sites in Stewart Island New Zealand, from the Findlay-Watling model. Aquaculture 185: 257-271.
NutrientNet, an online nutrient trading tool developed by the World Resources Institute, designed to address issues of eutrophication. See also the PA NutrientNet website designed for Pennsylvania’s nutrient trading program.
[2] Reyes Tirado (July 2008) Dead Zones: How Agricultural Fertilizers are Killing our Rivers, Lakes and Oceans. Greenpeace publications. See also: [3]
Flotsametrics and the Floating World: How One Man’s Obsession with Runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science is a 2009 book by Curtis Ebbesmeyer and Eric Scigliano. Ebbesmeyer and his team of volunteers used flotsam to study oceanic currents.
The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) is a publicly available database from the EPA that contains information on toxicchemical releases and other waste management activities reported annually by certain covered industry groups as well as federal facilities. This inventory was first proposed in a 1985 New York Times op-ed piece[1] written by David Sarokin and Warren Muir, researchers for an environmental group, INFORM. TRI was established under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 (EPCRA), and later expanded by the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990. The law grew out of concern surrounding Union Carbide’s releases of toxic gases in the 1984 Bhopal disaster and a smaller 1985 release in Institute, West Virginia[2]
Each year, companies across a wide range of industries (including chemical, mining, paper, oil and gas industries) that produce more than 25,000 pounds or handle more than 10,000 pounds of a listed toxic chemical must report it to the TRI. The TRI threshold was initially set at 75,000 pounds annually. If the company treats, recycles, disposes, or releases more than 500 pounds of that chemical into the environment (as opposed to just handling it), then they must provide a detailed inventory of that chemical’s inventory.
Proposed changes in late 2005 would lower the reporting standards for TRI. Several state attorney generals wrote the EPA asking that the standard not be altered. This move came under fire from Eliot Spitzer who said “”Public disclosure has proven to be a strong incentive for polluters to reduce their use of toxic chemicals, this move by EPA appears to be yet another poorly considered notion to appease a few polluting constituents at the expense of a valuable program.” [3] EPA originally proposed to reduce the required reporting frequency from every year to every other year. This drew intense criticism, and the idea was dropped.
However, the EPA went forward with another part of the plan that initially did not receive much attention. Companies were previously required to disclose any release over 2000 pounds (907 kg) on a more detailed “Form R” rather than the less detailed “Form A”. With the new regulations, the minimum reporting requirements for Form R have been increased to 5000 pounds (2268 kg), thus reducing the amount of information available. Although this move was widely criticized by the public as well as many officials, EPA went ahead with the new rule anyway.[4] EPA claimed that the comments submitted opposed to the Form R requirements were invalid because nearly all the people who had commented did so on both the change in reporting frequency as well as the minimum amounts required for Form R.
The data in the Toxic Release Inventory is available to the public, but accessing has until recently been a difficult task. In recent years, the EPA and several other organizations has made the task much easier.
Mapping Systems
In 2007, three organizations released tools for mapping the TRI data to particular locations. These tools also allow the user to view some of the information in the database.
MapEcos, A Map of Industrial Environmental Performance
MapEcos.org is a browser-based tool. It allows users to access an interactive map of the US showing the most recent TRI data. The map can be searched for locations of interest. At lower zoom levels, it allows the user to get information on pollution from particular facilities. This site was created by faculty and students at Dartmouth College, Harvard Business School, and Duke University.[5]
The Commission for Environmental Cooperation has created a downloadable File for Google Earth which shows all of the most recent reports to the TRI database. It also includes locations from the equivalent Canadian and Mexican pollution inventory. The system currently only maps the locations and links to data at the national registries.[6]
DotGovWatch offers a simple browser-based map of TRI data. The map can be searched by city, address, and each facility’s detailed emissions are available.
TRI.NET is a new application developed by EPA that supports complex adhoc queries of TRI data. TRI.NET maps facilities using Google Maps, Google Earth, or Virtual Earth. Additional data layers allow TRI data to be analyzed with respect to other factors such as Environmental Justice, Chemical Toxicity, and Tribal and U.S. Mexico Border geographies. Uses powerful drill-downs and advanced trends to spot trends and hot spots. [7]
Public Portals
Scorecard.org For those seeking detailed information, the easiest access to the data is at scorecard.org. This site also provides information about a variety of other pollution issues, but it has not been updated since 2002. This site was created by a team at Environmental Defense. It is now run by the Green Media Tool Shed.
Research Oriented Portals
RTKnet.org Run by an OMB watch, this site provides access to current to a variety of EPA data, including data for the TRI. Queries allow users to download files with the raw data.
The EPA also provides access to the raw data through their Envirofacts site. As with RTK net, queries to the underlying relational database produce downloadable text documents.
#ClimateFact: Since the 1980’s we’ve lost almost 2/3rds of the volume of sea ice that used to be in the Arctic http://bit.ly/1pIsO9o
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Ohio bill drops one attack on science education, picks up another
Recently, we covered a bill that was introduced in Ohio to deemphasize teaching the scientific process and open the door for people to object to scientific instruction on political grounds. While under consideration, the text of the bill has been modified considerably. Gone is the language about politics, and in its place is a provision that uses language promoted by a think tank that supports intelligent design.
Six of 19 beached whales dead, some to be euthanased (2013) [South Africa]
Sapa | 24 March, 2013 15:33
Some of the pilot whales that beached at Noordhoek Beach on Sunday morning will be put to death, the National Sea Rescue Institute said.
Six of the 19 stranded whales had already died.
Earlier, police, sea rescue and other services were on scene trying to hose down the surviving whales. The beach has been closed.
Residents were urged to stay away from the beach.
The beaching of the pilot whales was possibly the first-ever mass stranding of these creatures on the South African coast.
“I don’t think we’ve had a mass stranding of pilot whales before,” said a marine life expert, . . .
Scientific American on its website said some environmental activists had suggested that mass strandings of dolphins, whales, and other marine mammals were as a result of human impacts of pollution, shipping noise and, in some cases, military sonar.
California’s sea lions, usually celebrated for their entertaining, prankster ways and doglike barks, are making very different headlines right now. Young pups are washing up dehydrated and dying, from Monterey to San Diego, in record numbers.
So far, more than 1,100 of these emaciated, underweight marine mammals have come ashore – more than ten times the normal rate for this time of year. As startled residents cope with these sickly animals on local beaches, overwhelming marine mammal rescue facilities, scientists are scrambling to decipher the mysterious message behind these strandings.
Gulf Of Mexico Dolphin Deaths Point To Continued Effects Of BP Oil Spill, Group Alleges (2013) [US]
AP | By By JANET McCONNAUGHEY Posted: 04/02/2013 4:22 pm EDT
Continuing deaths of dolphins and sea turtles are a sign that the Gulf of Mexico is still feeling effects from the 2010 spill that spewed 200 million gallons of oil from a well a mile below the surface, a prominent environmental group said Tuesday.
The deaths — especially in dolphins, which are at the top of the food chain — are “a strong indication that there is something amiss with the Gulf ecosystem,” said National Wildlife Federation senior scientist Doug Inkley.
“Both species [dolphins, turtles] have very high mortality the first year, slightly lower the second year and the third year even lower, but still well above average,” Inkley said. “To have these deaths above average for so long a period of time is unprecedented.”
The federation’s report, “Restoring a Degraded Gulf of Mexico: Wildlife and Wetlands Three Years into the Gulf Oil Disaster,” was based on previously reported research by other scientists, including NOAA’s updates on the dolphin and sea turtle strandings.
Kelly’s Korner: Jersey shore mayor plays by own rules (2013) [New Jersey, US]
Originally Published: 4/15/2013
Mahaney said he was leaving City Hall to make our meeting when a few staffers mentioned that there was a baby seal stranded on the Queen Street jetty. Mahaney said recent efforts to restore the beaches after Superstorm Sandy partially covered the jetty with sand.
“The baby seal probably came up to sun itself on the jetty and when the tide went out it got caught between the rocks,” Mahaney explained.
Mahaney said it is rare for seals to get beached in Cape May. He said there is a pod of dolphins that harbor near Cape May Point, a town north west of Cape May, that swim by every now and then, but not many seals.
Algae Bloom Kills Over 240 Manatees In Florida (2012-2013) [US]
Posted: April 6, 2013
The record number of manatees killed by the algae bloom is not surprising. Last month researchers announced that they expected the death toll to exceed the previous record of 151, which was set in 1996.
Most of the algae bloom manatee deaths happened along Florida’s lower west coast, near Fort Myers. The algae bloom in that area started last fall and was more severe and long-lasting than normal — a situation that has scientists confused. The algae bloom largely dissipated by mid-March, but the manatees’ food supply was still tainted by toxins.
While the tide has claimed 241 of Florida’s roughly 5,000 manatees, there is no word on when the death toll numbers will stop rising.
Algae Bloom Kills Record Number Of Florida Manatees (2013) [Florida, US]
March 28, 2013 4:15 PM
Florida Fish and Wildlife officer Steve Rice routinely scours the Caloosahatchee River in southwest Florida for dead manatees. He has found more than 20 in the past few weeks.
More than 200 manatees have died in Florida’s waterways since January from an algae bloom called red tide, just as wildlife officials try to remove the marine mammal from the endangered species list.
“I think that it’s terrible. Red tide is something that is not good for the ecosystem overall and obviously not for these animals that are dying from it,” Martell says.
“It actually causes seizures,” Rice says. “When we get in the water to try and rescue them, we can actually feel them seizing as we hold their head up to help them breathe.”
Hundreds of dead fish found in the River Stour at Ashford (2013) [UK]
Thursday, April 18 2013
Pollution is believed to have killed hundreds of fish spotted floating along the River Stour in Ashford
Lewis Brown from the Environment Agency said: “The Environment Agency was made aware of a pollution incident on the River Stour in Ashford yesterday afternoon.
Videos have surfaced on YouTube in recent days, including one showing many dead walleye in shallow waters along the lake.
Some fishermen are blaming the province for the fish kill, but officials say the fish are getting trapped under the ice because of the lack of spring runoff and the fact that there is still a lot of ice.
Topping said when officials lowered the reservoir levels, they had thought the spring runoff would have arrived by now.
In the past five days, the local government has hauled about 250 kilograms (550 pounds) of what the Shanghai-based Global Times newspaper describes as “putrid, dead fish” from a river in the city’s Songjiang district.
Just as officials said the pig carcasses posed no threat to the city’s water supply, the official China Daily newspaper is quick to reassure us that there’s no reason to be concerned about the safety of the water, notwithstanding the stinky dead fish. “The water quality is stable and safe,” an official from the local water authority told the newspaper. This official, identified only by surname (Zhang), suggested the cause of death was “illegal fishing by electrocution and poisoning,” the newspaper reported.
(also found in this article – )
Increased demand [for milk and infant formula] comes at a time when the world’s largest exporter, New Zealand, is enduring the worst drought in 30 years, a disaster that has hit the country’s dairy farmers especially hard.
Since January 12, 179 dolphins have been found stranded on the sandy shores, mud flats, and shallow waters of Cape Cod, unable to swim back to sea.
Strandings have been recorded for centuries on Cape Cod; an average of 228 marine animals — that includes dolphins, whales, porpoises and seals — are beached on Cape Cod during an average year. But the magnitude — more than half the annual average in one month alone — has baffled marine experts, along with the strange fact that it’s been limited exclusively to one species: the common dolphin.
Warmer water temperatures and behavior of the animals’ prey have also been cited as possible factors.
Of the 179 stranded, 108 were found dead, according to the latest data from the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Among the 71 remaining, 53 were successfully released and 18 died, including three that were released and then restranded and four that were euthanized, due to severe injury.
Dolphin Stranding In Brazil Triggers Mad Dash To Save Animals (VIDEO) (2012) [Brazil]
Huffington Post David Freeman First Posted: 03/ 9/2012 7:19 am Updated: 03/11/2012 11:42 am
It was just another day at the beach–or so it seemed till dozens of dolphins suddenly swam in with the surf and got stranded in the sandy shallows. The dramatic video of the stranding in the Brazilian town of Arraial do Cabo — now a YouTube sensation — shows humans rushing to help their fellow mammals, pushing and pulling hard to help the animals reach deeper water.
Strandings of dolphins and whales are more common than is commonly realized, according to Dr. Ketten–with 1,000 or so animals a year stranding themselves in U.S. coastal waters. Statistics show frequent strandings among seals and turtles as well as marine mammals.
Whale, dolphin beached again after mass stranding (2012) [Tasmania]
Updated Sun Nov 4, 2012 1:20pm AEDT
More animals have again stranded themselves on an island off Tasmania’s north-west coast, a day after about 80 whales and dolphins beached themselves there.
Yesterday 60 pilot whales and 20 bottlenose dolphins were found on New Years Island, just a day after 13 other dolphins beached in Quarantine Bay on nearby King Island.
Saturday’s stranding is one of the largest in Tasmanian waters since 2009, when about 200 whales and dolphins beached on King Island.
Shanghai’s rivers are in hot water for the second time this year after hundreds of kilos of dead fish were found rotting in one of the mega-city’s waterways.
Just weeks after over 16,000 putrefying pigs were pulled from Shanghai’s Huangpu river, more than 250kg [550 lbs] of dead carp had to be retrieved from a river in the city’s Songjiang district.
China has become notorious for its polluted rivers, largely as a result of decades of unbridled economic growth. Last year a senior official conceded 20 percent of the country’s rivers had become “too toxic for human contact”.
Nor was there a connection between the dead carp and the thousands of rotting pig carcasses pulled from Shanghai’s Huangpu last month, local environmental official Liu Fengqiang said.
More dolphins, fish wash up dead (2013) [Southern Australia]
Justine Northey, 7News Adelaide, Yahoo!7 April 15, 2013, 6:29 pm
The South Australian Government insists it in not downplaying a statewide marine crisis after the discovery of thousands more dead fish and another three dolphin carcasses.
Thousands of dead fish have washed up on South Australian beaches in recent weeks, along with dolphins and some penguins
Most recently, a young dolphin carcass was discovered by a surf school at Southport this morning, while a dead dolphin calf was spotted in the Port River yesterday, being pushed along by its grieving mother.
The National Marine Mammal Stranding Network administered by NOAA Fisheries’ Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program consists of over 120 organizations partnered with NOAA Fisheries Service to investigate marine mammal strandings. These stranding network organizations are established in all coastal states and are authorized through Stranding Agreements from NOAA Fisheries Service’s regional offices. They consist of professionals and volunteers from nonprofit organizations, aquaria, universities, and state and local governments who are trained in stranding response, animal health, and disease. Through a National Coordinator and six regional coordinators, NOAA Fisheries Service oversees, coordinates, participates in, and authorizes the response activities and provides training to personnel.
To the deep dismay of stranding response organizations around the U.S., NOAA’s FY2013 budget request did not include funding for the John H. Prescott Grant Program. Because the Prescott Grant is the primary source of financial support for stranding network activities nationwide, it’s hard to imagine how stranding responses will be conducted without this critical support.
On the bright side, this was not a final funding decision, but rather the Administration’s budget proposal to Congress. It is the responsibility of Congress to make final funding decisions regarding appropriation bills and that process is still underway. Jim Rice and Bruce Mate of the Marine Mammal Institute drafted a letter and gathered 55 co-signatures in support of the reinstitution of Prescott funding, which has been sent to key legislators. You can read the letter here.
Declaration of 2011 Pinniped Unusual Mortality Event in the Northeast {Harbor Seals} (2011) [US]
On November 3, 2011, a marine mammal “Unusual Mortality Event” was declared for Maine, New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts for a high number of seal deaths between September 1, 2011 and the present. As of September 1, 2011, 162 harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) are included in the Unusual Mortality Event, most under six months old.
There have been 11 previous Unusual Mortality Events in the Northeast, 2 have been attributed to infectious diseases and 8 cases have unknown causes.
The investigation into the current Unusual Mortality Event is ongoing and no definitive cause has yet been identified for the increase in harbor seal mortalities in this area over the past two months.
To date [2011], 57 Unusual Mortality Events have been formally declared in U.S. waters since 1991 (including the current Unusual Mortality Event), and 11 of these Unusual Mortality Events have occurred in the Northeast (6 involved cetaceans, 4 were specific to seals only, and 1 involved both taxa).
Scientists still don’t know why nearly 1,300 sickly sea lions have beached themselves on the shores of southern California since the beginning of the year. However, they think some weird oceanic phenomenon may be blocking off the sea lion pups’ source of food, scientists reported today (April 17).
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declared an “unusual mortality event” last month in light of the spike in strandings. Since the beginning of the year, 1,293 sea lions have washed ashore from San Diego County to Santa Barbara County. That’s more than five times higher than the region’s historical average of 236, averaged from the same period of time (January through April) from 2008 to 2012, said Sarah Wilkin, NOAA’s marine mammal stranding coordinator for California.
The problem is most pronounced in Los Angeles County, where 459 strandings have been reported this year as of April 14. During the same period last year, 60 strandings were reported.
‘Tonnes’ of dead fish found on Swedish lake (2013) [Sweden]
Published: 8 Apr 13 07:57 CET
The Dannemore lake, near Östhammar in the east of Sweden, was discovered to be covered with floating fish this weekend as the ice began to melt. Among the dead fish were pike, perch, roach, and bream.
“It was not a pleasant sight, there were tonnes on fish on the lake,” Timo Hakulinen, who made the discovery, told the Aftonbladet newspaper.
Hakulinen guessed that the fish had suffocated after a particularly long winter had left ice on top of the lake for longer than usual.
“It’s been cold and no water has come. The lake was frozen to the bottom and the fish were trapped,” he added.
Mass Stranding Of Pilot Whales In Northern Scotland (2011) – see entry below for more about this event –
Despite 25 whales failing to survive, the rescuers who took part in the operation led by BDMLR managed to prevent a further 44 whales becoming stuck on the shoreline and guided them back out to sea.
“As a deep diving and sociable species, pilot whales are very vulnerable to human activities, and especially noise pollution. Reportedly, old munitions were being blown up off Cape Wrath, an MOD bombing range that is routinely used for such purposes. However, the way the pathologists will approach this is to collect as many samples from as many dead animals as possible and do a thorough investigation for ALL causes of death.”
They were sinking into the mud, and it was a distressing couple of hours before a vet could reach them through the dangerous terrain and assess them. All were humanely euthanized. We breathed a sigh of relief that their suffering was over.
Our thoughts have to remain with the survivors. It’s a horrible event, and every death is sad and painful, but of 50-60 animals more than half, 40+ of them made it back to the sea. This is a fantastic success. Everyone worked tirelessly, despite the cold, lack of sleep and difficult conditions. I for one think exhaustion and aching muscles are worth it to rescue such beautiful, special creatures.
Thousands of dead fish are washing up on the Lake Erie shoreline in the Buffalo area
Residents living along a stretch of shoreline in the Angola area of the town of Evans tell YNN cable television news that the fish jump out of the water and die by the thousands along the beaches lining the southern Erie County shoreline. Dead fish are also being found farther north to where the lake empties into the Niagara River at Buffalo.
More fish turning up dead on the Big Eau Pleine (2013) [Wisconsin, US]
Posted: Apr 12, 2013 11:33 PM EDT By Nate Barrett
MOSINEE (WAOW) – More and more fish are turning up dead in a popular central Wisconsin fishing spot.
This is happening at the Big Eau Pleine Reservoir outside Mosinee. All the dead fish are causing quite a smell for neighbors and businesses
“We’ve seen thousands of fish out there dead on top of the ice,” said Hotchkiss. “We had anglers out there. They were ice fishing purposely for the carp and everywhere they would drill a hole, they would bring up dead carp.”
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources first noticed a problem with the reservoir in January.
They say low oxygen levels during the winter caused fish to die.
Oil Spill Impacts on Sea Turtles (2010 – 2013) [Gulf of Mexico, US]
During the six months following the start of the Gulf oil disaster, 1,066 sea turtles were collected in the spill area. Of those, more than 450 showed clear signs of oiling.
These numbers include all sea turtles collected in the oil spill area. While the actual cause of death has yet to be determined for most of the animals, it is clear that a large proportion of the deaths and injuries were related to the oil spill, as the number of animals collected–especially the birds and sea turtles–was far beyond what is usually found in that area.
Unfortunately, the sea turtle species that was hardest hit by the spill was the Kemp’s Ridley, the most endangered sea turtle in the world, and one that can least afford to suffer such losses. Of the more than 600 dead sea turtles, nearly 500 were Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles.
On average, a total of 468 sea turtles strand in North Carolina each year. Biologists from the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission are responsible for tending to and collecting data from these strandings.
Some studies have suggested that approximately 20-30% of all deceased turtles actually strand and are recovered; the other 70-80% either drift out to sea, sink to the ocean bottom, are eaten by scavengers, or strand on remote shorelines and are never reported.
In North Carolina, sea turtles can strand just about anywhere. They are found along the full 315 miles of beach, as well as along inlets, along the Intracoastal Waterway, on banks and shoals in sounds and bays, and have even been found many miles inland along riverbanks.
UK: Envirionmentalists Sound Alarm After Thousands Of Dead Crabs, Lobsters, Mussels, Fish, Birds And More Wash Up On East Coast (2013) [UK]
04-09-2013
The ‘mass mortality’ has been put at an estimated 150,000 velvet swimming crabs, 10,500 edible crabs, 2,000 common lobsters and a staggering 635,000 mussels in just one 10-mile stretch from Barmston to Bridlington along the Holderness Coast – in all around 800,000 individuals.
Cuttlefish bones have been recorded along the length of the East Coast, as well as increased numbers of dead harbour porpoises on Lincolnshire beaches.
The death of hundreds of seabirds, found washed up on beaches from Aberdeenshire to North Yorkshire, has also been blamed on the weather, with over 200 dead or dying puffins recorded on Yorkshire beaches alone between Scarborough and Withernsea.
The RSPB have described it as the worst puffin ‘wreck’ seen for half a century, with around 10 per cent of the puffin population lost at Bempton.
The Natural History Museum Strandings team says over 150 porpoises have washed up along the East Coast this year, with 12 reported on the Lincolnshire coast.
Thousands of dead prawns wash up on beach in Chile (2013) [Chile]
Posted on March 21, 2013 March 21, 2013 – CHILE – (includes a photo of massive numbers of dead shrimp on the beach.)
Thousands of dead prawns have washed up on a beach in Chile, sparking an investigation.
Hundreds of dead crabs were also washed ashore in Coronel city, about 530km (330 miles) from the capital, Santiago.
“I’m 69 years old and started fishing when I was nine, but as a fisherman, I never saw a disaster of this magnitude,” Gregorio Ortega told local Radio Bio Bio.
Marisol Ortega, a spokeswoman for the fishermen, said she feared the deaths would affect the livelihood of their community. “The way everything is being destroyed here, come the high season in November, we’re already thinking we won’t have anything to take from the sea,” she said. –BBC
Birds fell from the sky to their deaths in the Ark., La. and Sweden, dead fish are floating around in Md. and Brazil, and most recently, over 40,000 dead devil crabs have washed up along the Kent coast in the U.K.
The media started paying to attention to mass mortalities after a flock of blackbirds fell from the sky in Ark., crashing into homes, cars and each other before dying. Doug Inkley, senior scientist at the National Wildlife Federation, told CBS News that blackbirds don’t have very good night vision and that they were simply frightened.
As for the fish and the crabs, the cause of the fish die-off in Brazil is yet to be determined, but officials in Md. told the Baltimore Sun the sensitive spot fish were most likely killed by cold water. According to the Daily Mail, environmental experts believe lower than average temperatures are to blame for the crab deaths.
2010-2013 Cetacean Unusual Mortality Event in Northern Gulf of Mexico – {Dolphins, Whales} (2013) [US]
Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 (as amended), an Unusual Mortality Event (UME) has been declared for dolphins and whales (cetaceans) in the northern Gulf of Mexico (Texas/ Louisiana border through Franklin County, FL) from February 2010 through the present.
These numbers are preliminary and may be subject to change. As of April 14, 2013, the UME involves 945 Cetacean “strandings” in the Northern Gulf of Mexico (5% stranded alive and 95% stranded dead). Of these:
THOUSANDS of fish have died in the Vasse estuary at Wonnerup.
Other water species such as crabs have also died.
Conservationists Phillip Moore and Beverley Sykes, who were among the first to find the fish on Saturday morning estimate that between 7000 and 8000 fish have died – the major kill being in a lagoon near their property.
“They are mainly black bream and mullet – various other species including Blue Manna crabs also died,” Phillip said.
“By Sunday evening more fish – far worse than what we saw on Saturday morning, had surfaced,” he said.
Loggerhead Turtle Deaths a Mystery (1998) [Atlantic Coast, US]
By Jennifer Lenhart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 27, 1998; Page B1
Dead turtles are washing up in record numbers along the Virginia coast and in the Chesapeake Bay. And no one knows why.
“The signs point to it not being a natural death,” said Mark Swingle, a marine biologist and curator of the Virginia Marine Science Museum’s stranding center in Virginia Beach. The center has found 122 dead loggerheads so far this season, and an additional 28 or so have been found by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester Point.
The reddish-brown reptiles can grow as large as 300 pounds and live as long as 50 years. Most of the dead ones are juveniles 10 to 15 years old, too young to mate. They have been showing up on the shores of Virginia Beach, Hampton, Norfolk and Fisherman’s Island and all around the lower Chesapeake Bay.
“Normally, an animal that’s feeding and otherwise healthy doesn’t just keel over and die,” Swingle said. “If a turtle is diseased, it’s thin and clearly not nutritionally well off, and we’re not seeing that. These turtles aren’t thin.”
In addition, there have been no telltale traces of collisions with boats, such as propeller marks or cracked shells.
“These turtles look fine,” Swingle said. “They don’t have any external signs of trauma.”
*(In all of 1997, the crew at the Virginia Marine Science Museum, which consists of three staff members and 120 volunteers, responded to 115 strandings.)
The Peruvian government has released a report on the mass mortality of at least 900 dolphins along the coast of Peru that states that “natural causes” and “evolutionary forces” were the cause of death.
During February 2012 rumors began circulating that hundreds of dolphins were dying along the northern coast of Peru. But the beaches are remote and no one had actually confirmed the rumors and certainly not made a reconnaissance.
BlueVoice Executive Director Hardy Jones flew to Peru where he joined Dr. Carlos Yaipen Llanos of the marine rescue organization ORCA. In order to verify the number of dolphins stranding on the northern beaches of Peru they traveled north from Chiclayo/San Jose. They counted 615 dead dolphins in 135 kilometers. They thus verified that the die-off that had been rumored was a tragic reality.
• Between March 26th and April 26th, 2012, in a coordinated effort with the Peruvian Ecological Police, ORCA and BlueVoice.org made several expeditions to the “Stranding Zone”, covering up to 135 km of deserted beaches and confirming the largest mass stranding of dolphins ever in South America.
A Deadly Toll: The Gulf Oil Spill and the Unfolding Wildlife Disaster (2011 forward) [US]
A Center for Biological Diversity Report — April 2011
Last year’s BP Deepwater Horizon catastrophe spilled 205.8 million gallons of oil and 225,000 tons of methane into the Gulf of Mexico. Approximately 25 percent of the oil was recovered, leaving more than 154 million gallons of oil at sea. In addition to the oil, nearly 2 million gallons of toxic dispersants were sprayed into the Gulf’s waters. This did not actually reduce the amount of oil left in the ocean, but merely broke it into smaller particles, which may actually make the oil more toxic for some ocean life and ease its entry into the food chain.
A year after the April 20, 2010, explosion that caused the well to leak oil for months, the ultimate toll on people and wildlife is still not fully understood. But one thing is clear: The number of birds, sea turtles, dolphins and other animals sickened or killed and tallied as part of the government’s official count represents a small fraction of the total animals harmed by this disastrous spill.
The toll on wildlife continues to mount. Dead turtles, marine mammals, birds and fish are still washing up on beaches. Dolphins are miscarrying, and pelicans are attempting to nest on beaches polluted with tar balls and subsurface oil. The impacts of previous oil disasters show that wildlife in the Gulf will continue to be affected by this spill for decades. Lingering pollution from a 1969 spill in Massachusetts, for example, is still affecting fiddler crabs. Likewise, oysters and mangroves in Mexico are still affected by pollution from the 1979 Ixtoc spill in the Gulf, and oil remains on Alaskan beaches from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill with continuing impacts on birds and fish.
In total, we found that the oil spill has likely harmed or killed approximately 82,000 birds of 102 species, approximately 6,165 sea turtles, and up to 25,900 marine mammals, including bottlenose dolphins, spinner dolphins, melon-headed whales and sperm whales. The spill also harmed an unknown number of fish — including bluefin tuna and substantial habitat for our nation’s smallest seahorse — and an unknown but likely catastrophic number of crabs, oysters, corals and other sea life. The spill also oiled more than a thousand miles of shoreline, including beaches and marshes, which took a substantial toll on the animals and plants found at the shoreline, including seagrass, beach mice, shorebirds and others.
(etc.)
The price paid by wildlife in the Gulf for the BP oil spill will continue to rise. Although it is the largest to date, the Gulf oil spill was simply the latest in a string of ongoing and inevitable spills produced in the Gulf. More than 320 known spills involving offshore drilling have occurred there since 1964. Spills massively degrade ecosystems and all of the wildlife dependent on those ecosystems in the Gulf. Clean-up efforts only remove a fraction of the persistent oil and gas spilled. The remainder of the oil, including millions of gallons remaining in the Gulf, will continue to poison wildlife for generations. Besides the direct harm to wildlife, the spill impoverishes the people of the Gulf and the nation, who depend on this rich body of water for food, culture, environmental enrichment and recreation.
Another sign of the (heat) times: thousands of dead fish (2012) [US]
7 July 2012 2:56pm, EDT
By Miguel Llanos, NBC News
In lakes and rivers across parched areas of the U.S., heat and lower water levels are reducing oxygen levels — and killing fish populations by the thousands.
At one lake in Delaware, up to 6,000 dead gizzard shad and 600 perch were found floating this week.
In South Carolina, some 500 fish died at Lake Hartwell.
Across South Dakota, fishermen have reported thousands of fish kills in multiple lakes and rivers.
And in Tennessee, a fish kill on Butterfly Lake left a horrid stench in one Knoxville neighborhood.
Some 10,000 bluegills were thought to have died, and city workers were tasked with the cleanup even though the lake is on private property.
Not All Monarchs Make it to Mexico (2002) [Panama City Beach, Florida, US]
What Do Florida Tagging Results Suggest?
October 2002
On October 10, 2002, Ms. Laura Witkiewicz witnessed one of the hazards of migration when visiting Panama City Beach, Florida. Thousands of dead monarchs littered the beach. (an expert quoted in the story conjectured that it was caused by a storm from the week before)
Importantly, of the nearly 12,500 monarchs he has tagged at St. Marks Refuge in ten years, only three have been found in Mexico. This is far, far below the ratios recorded elsewhere. According to Dr. Chip Taylor of Monarch Watch, nearly 1% of all monarchs tagged are found at the sanctuaries in Mexico.
A two-day clean-up effort has recovered 3,323 dead pig bodies from the Huangpu River, which cuts through the middle of Shanghai. Local media are reporting that the pigs came from Jiaxing, in Zhejiang province, where over 20,000 pigs have been found dead in villages since the beginning of the year because of swine flu [zh]. While the public is very anxious about the potential pollution caused by the decaying pig carcasses, local authorities quickly asserted that the dead pigs had not polluted the water supply. Shanghai’s water comes from Yangtze River and authorities claim the pigs died of cold weather, not a virus
Liu Junluo (劉軍洛）wondered [zh] why the local authorities did not release the details concerning the dead pigs in advance:
[Responsibility concerning the dead pigs incident] According to Jiaxing Daily, the dead pigs in Huangpu River came from a virus in Jiaxing. In January, 10,078 pigs were found dead in a village. In February 8,325 more were dead. In the past few days, on average 300 pigs were dead everyday. The village has kept digging holes to bury the pigs. So far around 1,200 were found in the river. Had other dead pigs been served at people’s dinner tables? Why doesn’t the government alert people about this news?
Weibo user Changan Xianling (@长安县令) added more background information about the incident:
Many people have raised questions concerning the dead pig incident in Huangpu River. How did the 3,000 pigs make it to Shanghai? Usually, they would have ended up in people’s stomachs. The reason is that not long ago, people who had sold pork from dead pigs were tried and convicted. Last November, a court case in Jiaxing tried 17 people who had sold 77,000 dead pigs for 8.65 million RMB (1.4 million USD). The main perpetrators, Dong, Chen and Yao have received life imprisonment.
Dead Birds On Wasaga Beach, Georgian Bay: Cleanup Of Thousands Of Waterfowl Begins, Botulism Suspected (2011) [Ontario, Canada]
First Posted: 10/23/11 02:51 PM ET
WASAGA BEACH, Ont. –
Thousands of dead birds that washed ashore along a stretch of Georgian Bay were to be picked up starting Monday, said a spokesman for Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources.
Initial estimates pegged the number of dead waterfowl as high as 6,000, but Cooper said ministry staff were going to do an updated assessment on Monday.
Bottom-feeding fish ingest toxins that cause botulism and the birds feast on the dead or dying fish. Fish react to the toxin by becoming erratic, making them an easier prey target for a loon or duck that’s looking for something to eat, Cooper said.
The die-offs along a roughly three kilometre stretch on Georgian Bay is the largest Ontario officials have seen in many years. About a decade ago some 25,000 birds died on Lake Erie from eating botulism-laced fish.
EL ROSARIO, MEXICO — The dead butterflies came up to his ankles, an ocean of orange and black that extended as far as he could see.
On a mountaintop in central Mexico, Bill Toone stepped lightly. He had helped save the California condor. He had protected species around the world. But he was not prepared for this. The piles of monarch butterflies — estimates would put the figure at 250 million dead — were so thick that they were composting at the bottom.
(etc. – this article includes a great deal of what may have caused this event)
A higher than normal number of dolphin deaths is under investigation right now. From November 2011 to March 2012 a total of 123 dolphins washed up along the Texas coastline.
Of the dozens of dolphins, only four were found alive, but later died. Scientists say all of the dolphins shared the same symptoms: including lung infection and discolored teeth. Roughly 40 percent of dolphins washed up along our the shores of Aransas, Calhoun and Kleberg counties.
Heidi Whitehead with the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network says, “From November to March we recovered 123 dolphins, which was in a five month period and typically, that is what we recover in a year’s time.”
There have only been 5 unusual mortality events recorded in Texas in 32 years. The most recent were in 2007 and 2008. Scientists could not find a cause for the increased dolphin deaths for those years. They say that’s because most dolphins found were severely decomposed and that makes it harder to get answers.
Strandings of dolphin, whales and porpoises ‘very unusual’ (2013) [Ireland]
February 8, 2013
The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group says the stranding of high numbers of common dolphins and other species, which has become apparent over the past two weeks here, is “very unusual”.
An apparently otherwise healthy dolphin along with two pilot whales have now been washed up at Cuas Croom near Cahirciveen and there have been continuous strandings of dolphins, particularly in Mayo and Donegal. At the end of January at least eight common dolphins have been found dead on the beaches of Achill Island, Co Mayo.
Dead salmon found along silt-choked Elwha River after hatchery release
April 12, 2013
By Jeremy Schwartz
Peninsula Daily News
NORTH OLYMPIC PENINSULA, WASHINGTON STATE, USA –
PORT ANGELES — Piles of dead year-old chinook salmon, numbering at least in the hundreds, were found along the Elwha River’s lower banks and mouth after hatchery smolts were released last week.
Sediment from the river clogged the gills of most he examined, said Mike McHenry, a fish biologist and habitat manager for the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe, who saw the dead fish at the river’s mouth and on sandbars Monday and Tuesday.
Staff at the department’s Elwha Channel hatchery released 196,575 juvenile fish, ranging from 4 inches to 8 inches in length April 5, about 3½ miles from the mouth of the river, said Randy Aho, hatchery operations manager for the Fish and Wildlife region that stretches from the Long Beach Peninsula to the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
“We feel that these” — the dead fish — “are fish released from our facility,” Aho said.
Silt in the river increased rapidly after the fish were released, according to U.S. Geological Survey data.
All across the country, evidence of environmental degradation was appearing everywhere, and everyone noticed except the political establishment. The environmental issue simply was not to be found on the nation’s political agenda. The people were concerned, but the politicians were not.
( . . .)
Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.
This is one of a number of stories about hundreds of dolphins stranded or found dead on beaches in the past year -this one from Peru, but they have been found on US shores en masse, too . . .
Mystery surrounds deaths of 877 dolphins washed ashore in Peru
By Marilia Brocchetto, CNN
updated 12:25 PM EDT, Sun April 22, 2012
Quijandria said Thursday that 877 dolphins have washed up in a 220-kilometer (137-mile) area from Punta Aguja to Lambayeque, in the north of the country.
More than 80% of those dolphins were found in an advanced state of decomposition, making it difficult to study their deaths, according to Andina.
( . . . )
The dolphin deaths in Peru are just the latest in a worldwide trend.
In February, 179 dolphins –108 of which were dead — washed ashore in Cape Cod, in eastern United States, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Marine biologists are still trying to determine the cause of those deaths.
An earth day tshirt for everyday – it says – “After all the trees are gone, what’s the next plan?”
Which is only too true – that our trees seem to be prevalent and yet, they are being removed at a staggering rate after taking many years to grow in the first place . . . and blights are striking them from the chemicals around us every day – in the air, in the soil and in the water.
Look at any satellite map in real time and there are huge areas of clear cutting, and smoke from fires where they are burning the wood taken down there – around the world. Every day there are hundreds of these, not just a few and it has been that way for so many years without slowing down any . . .
**
So, I want to add this –
Over 35 years ago, the pollution of our rivers, streams and air was vicious and substantial. On any day in our cities, it could easily be seen. There was a push to get industries to stop pouring their industrial waste chemical products into our streams, rivers, creeks, harbors and oceans – but the only real result is that these industries moved their operations to other countries and other parts of our country to continue doing things in the exact same way or even to a greater extent without regard for the damaging nature of what they were doing.
There was also a push to get industries to put filters on their smokestacks to remove the chemicals that were being poured into the air every moment of every day and night – at that point, over thirty years ago – those filters and filter systems would have cost about $200 each per smokestack, but industries and corporations in America didn’t want to do that. They considered it a prohibitive and an unreasonable request being placed upon them and so instead of spending something less that $30,000 to put filters on every smokestack or air release of their chemical by-products across the nation, they spent millions instead on lawyers, lobbyists and political campaigning, public relations propaganda efforts against having to install the filters and eventually, on fighting fines for doing it . . .
Why would that have ever made sense?
In the 80’s, it would have cost about $1200 per filter system for each smokestack and still they would not do it – and spent even more millions on lobbying, lawyers to fight the application of any anti-pollution rules on them, millions more as individual companies and industry associations to fight against having these regulations put into effect and on pr campaigns, ads and disinformation campaigns to persuade the public that these kinds of regulations were harmful to their own economic well-being.
Well, when the industries finally had to put filters on their plants – many of the corporations (American corporations, born, built and bred in America) decided to take their operations to other countries and used our tax money to help them do it – and then continued polluting in the same manner. (Or in some cases, the companies put their operations in states where they could continuously put off abiding by any and all of these regulations and requirements which has left much of the Southern states in an unalterable state of pollution long after the North’s industrial states refused to put up with it any longer . . . )
My question on this Earth Day – is why can’t it be both? But, it just never is . . . Why couldn’t companies and industries have simply put the filters on their plants in the first place when it was easy enough to look outside or across any city in America and see the smog as deep as brown muck could possibly be across the entire sky? They spent thousands of times more in fighting against adding those filters and not dumping their waste products into the ground or streams than it would’ve ever cost them just to have done things a little differently in the first place . . .
And, now – those same corporations have taken those operations for the last twenty years into every other area of the planet to pollute these as well in the same ways that thirty plus years ago, they already knew beyond any doubt – were harmful to people, to animals, to continued survival of life in those areas over any appreciable time period and known to be damaging for multiple generations, sometimes even hundreds of years beyond today.
That corporate players would choose to do that, their shareholders consider it to be okay and decision-makers in the countries around the world would put up with it – is beyond my understanding. The industrialized China leaves a trail of the same toxic bed that we have destituted our own nation doing over so many years from Detroit to Los Angeles . . .
When I saw “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” with its vast images of unsurpassed beauty of China’s natural, un-industrialized, unpolluted wild spaces, I remembered what America would have looked like at one time, when the water was clean, the air breathable and the soil a place where children could play without taking lead into every pore of their skin . . .
But, in my lifetime – America has lain a toxic bed over its toxic bed from a hundred years ago, with corporate choices still being made that defy all good sense about it. And, if it was only a choice about money – then the millions upon millions – and even hundreds of millions that corporations are spending fighting against not polluting water sources, soil and air would be exchanged for adding the fourteen things they need to do to simply not pollute as a part of their operations (which would cost in the hundreds of thousands one time and last for years, save money and not require millions to be spent on lobbying and lawyers to continue fighting against all of us who want a better future for our country and for our planet.)
**
Instead of Los Angeles getting cleaner air – which was nothing but muck in the 1960’s where people couldn’t walk to school or work regularly, and where people weren’t supposed to go outside or allow their children to go outside to play or walk most days of the year –
what we have now –
is an entire planet that way, plus much of the rural Southern US with the same heavy layer of smog across places from Carrollton, Ga. to Mobile, Ala. and throughout Louisiana and Texas . . with massively polluted air, soils and streams AND with extreme weather events that go beyond our human tolerance range commonly occurring. . .
(that human tolerance and survival range is actually a pretty slim range) . . .
Damn.
**
From Bhopal to West Virgina –
…..
And it has only grown worse. Happy Earth Day 2012.
– cricketdiane
**
NEW ORLEANS — A new study finds that Louisiana’s second Gulf of Mexico dead zone stretches at least from the Chandeleur Sound off Louisiana to Alabama’s Dauphin Island — and could be bigger.
( . . .)
In 2010, the foundation checked a 1,050-square-mile area in the Chandeleur Sound and found that it held too little oxygen to support life. The area found last July was 250 square miles.
“This is four times larger than the region found in 2010, because a much larger area was surveyed,” Lopez wrote in a news release. A wider look is likely to find a still bigger area, possibly extending into the area off the Florida Panhandle, he said in an interview.
Monthly checks at two waterbottom sites off of Alabama, 12 and 25 miles out in the Gulf, also have found low oxygen levels “with some regularity” during the summer, said Ron Kiene, a marine sciences professor at the University of South Alabama and a faculty member at Dauphin Island Sea Lab. Another half-dozen stations closer to shore occasionally show hypoxia, he said.
When Congress considered whether to regulate more closely the handling of wastes from oil and gas drilling in the 1980s, it turned to the Environmental Protection Agency to research the matter. E.P.A. researchers concluded that some of the drillers’ waste was hazardous and should be tightly controlled.
But that is not what Congress heard. Some of the recommendations concerning oil and gas waste were eliminated in the final report handed to lawmakers in 1987.
E.P.A. officials told her, she said, that her findings were altered because of pressure from the Office of Legal Counsel of the White House under Ronald Reagan. A spokesman for the E.P.A. declined to comment.
“It was shameful,” Weston Wilson, the E.P.A. whistleblower, said in a recent interview about the study. He explained that five of the seven members of that study’s peer review panel were current or former employees of the oil and gas industry.
Politics Seen to Limit E.P.A. in Regulation of Natural Gas
Published: March 3, 2011 (NY Times)
For example, the agency had planned to call last year for a moratorium on the gas-drilling technique known as hydrofracking in the New York City watershed, according to internal documents, but the advice was removed from the publicly released letter sent to New York.
(from the first page of the article above)
***
My Note –
I watched Dick Morris last night on O’Reilly over on the FoxNews broadcast repeat, “No Compromise,” “No Compromise,” when they were talking about the current Republican efforts and plans in Wisconsin and in Washington and elsewhere. (generally – it would be worth going back to find the exact moments when he said it because the facial expressions and interaction with O’Reilly along with Dick’s body language say a lot.)
He was also there promoting his book which Mr. Morris claims is the plan to be taken for the Republicans to win in 2012 and in every state where these barely won elections have given them a place to push their agenda to specifically gut all the programs in place now.
As I was reading some of the things about hydrofracking the other day, (which was an thoroughly extensive article, I’ll go get the link) and thinking that they’ve known these things the whole time, why wasn’t something created to fix this. And, then found this article today which explains a lot. A program that is forced to alter scientific and researched results cannot possibly define what the problems are that must be addressed and “fixed”.
When the EPA and other scientists were not allowed to report their findings compelling action based on the science and the actual facts of the situation, it left problems unaddressed, unsolved and unfunded for the solutions to be developed.
At any time, our universities could have researched solutions for these waste products from hydrofracking, it could very easily be solved with an addition of a system, process or neutralizing effort to reclaim those contaminants from the water. Our business leaders could have encouraged the finding of those solutions to be added to what is being used by the natural gas drillers that are using hydrofracking processes. Right now, each one spends something around $2 million dollars a year to have the waste water dumped into the rivers or water treatment systems which are not capable of handling it. For $2 million dollars, surely there are systems which could be defined, created and added which would reclaim the radioactive and other toxic chemical products from the water before adding it to the existing water systems and rivers.
In fact, it probably wouldn’t cost $2 million dollars and it would provide excess revenue streams to collect and sell these other “elements” to industries who are desperate to have them. It isn’t good thinking, nor good business to create the problems, pretend the problems don’t exist, pressure Congress and the EPA to hinder the facts about these problems being reported or studied and defined, nor to ignore these problems in need of solutions.
It says that the intentions of the Republican Party members now planning to further their previous agendas with the same heavy hand as always with an insistence on “No Compromise” – will end with no loss for profit-makers, no requirements for change to how profit-makers are doing things now and no regulations to force them to take into account the science and safety and pollution of what they are doing in order to do it a different way or add solutions to accommodate fixing those problems (issues).
That has already been a costly way to do things. And, what I don’t think the Republicans understand whose power plays are now creating chaos, distraction and waste of Congressional and state resources in time and decision-making, is that we are all on the same team. We all want natural gas prices and production costs to be kept low to have it available to us at the most reasonable price possible. But, we don’t want to pollute the bed where we all most sleep and thoroughly contaminate the only water we have to drink.
The Republicans have cut the super fund cleanup funding for many, many years. And, they forced certain research, studies and science about these chemicals involved in the need for superfund cleanup to be “edited” in their content. The only thing that has done is to leave the problems to us now, including the health disasters that have been created. There is no escape from it.
If the rules of this war the Republicans have declared on America are “no compromise” as we have seen for the last two years with their complete “no” to everything that needed to be done for regulating the financial system gamers, for food safety inspections, for consumer safety commission working for the safety of American citizens rather than for the industries they are supposed to watchdog, etc., etc., etc., – then “no compromise” for our safety needs to be what America’s citizens and communities demand too.
No more compromise on wastes being sent into our water systems that have any harmful, toxic chemicals in them. The industries who are doing that can simply stop doing it right now. No compromise.
Mayor Bloomberg is very staunch about non-smoking in his city because of his concerns about the cancer it can cause. He was on the show about the Tobacco Wars on cnbc broadcast yesterday, describing how important to stop this because of cancer. So, why is there a petroleum cesspool in Brooklyn that hasn’t been cleaned up for over fifty years? He’s so concerned. Everyone that has lived in those areas that have been exposed to it have either died of cancer or get cancer or watch their children die from cancer – there are birth defects that are known to be higher in that area, cancers higher in that area and he is worried about the people smoking?
It doesn’t make any sense. And, there are places in the New York City area which will be affected by the hydrofracking wastes that are going into the water table, going into the rivers untreated to take out the radioactive and chemical wastes that are dumped by hundreds of millions of gallons into it, and sure to make its way into the drinking water available to every single member of Mayor Bloomberg’s New York City.
Surely he would find that an abomination. Any Republican that would sit in Washington and decide to fight against the EPA having power to do something about it also wouldn’t want their own children to drink that water downstream from these dumping sites and then watch the results over the course of their lives. They certainly wouldn’t want to drink that water everyday, cook with it, wash their collards with it, wash themselves in it and feed it to those they love.
See, this could be fixed. It just needs to be shown for what it is, the problems defined, funded and fixed. The business owners need to be reasonable and seek solutions that work better and more cheaply than what they are doing already which is known to be polluting (and is expensive, as well.) Funding for solutions can be offered when the problems are defined by the science unfettered, unedited and unhindered. The goals are the same. We all want a better, safer place to live to raise our families and we want cheap natural gas as a fuel and heating source. Can’t we do both?
Aren’t we smart enough to do both?
– cricketdiane
***
Also mentioned in the New York Times article –
“I am confident this study, if truly focused on hydraulic fracturing,” wrote Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, last April to the E.P.A. administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, “will prove the process indisputably safe and acceptable.”
Last September, Senator James M. Inhofe, also a Republican from Oklahoma, wrote to agency officials to offer his guidance about who should be allowed to review the research.
“We caution against potential panelists who have been longtime critics of hydraulic fracturing,” he wrote in a letter.
Over their careers, the two lawmakers from Oklahoma, a major drilling state, have been among the Senate’s top 20 recipients of oil and gas campaign contributions, according to federal data.
(and)
These topics were cut from the current study plan, even though E.P.A. officials have acknowledged that sewage treatment plants are not able to treat drilling waste fully before it is discharged into rivers, sometimes just miles upstream from drinking water intake plants. While the current study plan clearly indicates that the agency plans to research various types of radioactivity concerns related to natural gas drilling, this river modeling, which E.P.A. scientists say is important, has been removed.
The risks are particularly severe in Pennsylvania, which has seen a sharp increase in drilling, with roughly 71,000 active gas wells, up from about 36,000 in 2000. The level of radioactivity in the wastewater has sometimes been hundreds or even thousands of times the maximum allowed by the federal standard for drinking water.
The Times also found never-reported studies by the E.P.A. and a confidential study by the drilling industry that all concluded that radioactivity in drilling waste cannot be fully diluted in rivers and other waterways.But the relatively new drilling method — known as high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking — carries significant environmental risks. It involves injecting huge amounts of water, mixed with sand and chemicals, at high pressures to break up rock formations and release the gas.
With hydrofracking, a well can produce over a million gallons of wastewater that is often laced with highly corrosive salts, carcinogens like benzene and radioactive elements like radium, all of which can occur naturally thousands of feet underground. Other carcinogenic materials can be added to the wastewater by the chemicals used in the hydrofracking itself.
Regulation Lax as Gas Wells’ Tainted Water Hits Rivers
***
¶More than 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater was produced by Pennsylvania wells over the past three years, far more than has been previously disclosed. Most of this water — enough to cover Manhattan in three inches — was sent to treatment plants not equipped to remove many of the toxic materials in drilling waste.
¶At least 12 sewage treatment plants in three states accepted gas industry wastewater and discharged waste that was only partly treated into rivers, lakes and streams.
¶Of more than 179 wells producing wastewater with high levels of radiation, at least 116 reported levels of radium or other radioactive materials 100 times as high as the levels set by federal drinking-water standards. At least 15 wells produced wastewater carrying more than 1,000 times the amount of radioactive elements considered acceptable.
Mr. McCurdy, whose plant discharges into the Clarion River, which flows into the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, said his plant was taking about 20,000 gallons of drilling waste per day.
Like most of the sewage treatment plant operators interviewed, Mr. McCurdy said his plant was not equipped to remove radioactive material and was not required to test for it.
Documents filed by drillers with the state, though, show that in 2009 his facility was sent water from wells whose wastewater was laced with radium at 275 times the drinking-water standard and with other types of radiation at more than 780 times the standard.
***
I really want anyone interested in this and in their quality of life to go read this entire article above and the one from the New York Times at the beginning of this post. Do not take these few excerpts by my interest in it as the only important parts of these articles. They are well written, well- researched and hold a lot of critical information that the public (everyone in the public) needs to know. I’m using these for a specific line of thought that I have right now, which is that the creation of solutions to treat this wastewater need to be developed right now which will reclaim the toxic and radioactive elements from it before being sent into our water systems. It looks like a pressing need, the politics involved with what our Republican leaders backed by the oil and gas industry are trying not to get done with it make this very dangerous to the public throughout the country, and I think it can be fixed because I want to believe that. I don’t want my family dealing with the results of doing nothing but what they are doing already. Enough is enough.
– cricketdiane
***
And I noticed this the other day which is very important – (from the EU_)
Use of hazardous chemicals to be made safer
Published: 06 January 2011
In a drive to improve worker safety and consumer protection, the EU’s chemicals watchdog is set to publish in the coming months an inventory of over 20,000 chemicals declared hazardous by manufacturers and importers.
The inventory “will significantly improve safety by providing up-to-date information on all the hazardous substances that are on the EU market today,” said Geert Dancet, executive director of the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA).
(etc.)
An EU regulation on the classification, labelling and packaging of chemical substances and mixtures (CLP) requires companies to classify, label and package appropriately hazardous chemicals before placing them on the market.
It aims to protect workers, consumers and the environment by means of labelling which reflects the potential hazardous effects of dangerous substances.
The regulation will implement at EU level the United Nations’ Globally Harmonised System (GHS) for classification and labelling of chemical substances and mixtures.
European agency calls for limiting use of eight chemicals
20 December 2010, 17:11 CET
“These substances are in wide dispersive use, which means that not only are they used everywhere, but there is also a risk of exposure to humans and the environment,” the head of ECHA’s risk management unit Remi Lefevre told AFP.
The agency is calling for the chemicals, which are either cancer-causing or harmful to reproduction, to be used only with express permission from the European Commission.
All but one of the chemicals are used in large volumes in Europe, including chemicals found in various pigments and plasticisers, and one substance used in explosives.
Chemicals/REACH: six dangerous substances to be phased out by the EU
EU News – 18 Feb 2011 08:22
Six substances of very high concern will be banned within the next three to five years unless an authorisation has been granted to individual companies for their use.
These substances are carcinogenic, toxic for reproduction or persist in the environment and accumulate in living organisms.
European Commission Vice President Antonio Tajani, responsible for industry and entrepreneurship said: “Today’s decision is an example of the successful implementation of REACH and of how sustainability can be combined with competitiveness. It will encourage industry to develop alternatives and foster innovation.”
The following 6 chemicals are the first entrants in the Annex XIV:
5-ter-butyl-2,4,6-trinito-m-xylene (musk xylene),
4,4′-diaminodiphenylmethane (MDA),
hexabromocyclododecane (HBCDD),
bis(2-ethylexyl) phthalate (DEHP),
benzyl butyl phthalate (BBP) and
dibutyl phthalate (DBP).
***
Big oil’s big cleanup in Brooklyn (or lack thereof, my note) –
October 20, 2010|By Allan Chernoff, CNN Senior Correspondent
Beneath the Brooklyn neighborhood of Greenpoint, New York, is a giant oil spill that BP, ExxonMobil and Chevron are slowly cleaning up.
The oil companies have been at it for three decades, putting into perspective BP’s pledge to residents of the Gulf states that its cleanup of the Deepwater Horizon spill will go on for “as long as it takes” to “make this right.”
This spill is different though. The oil is trapped in the ground, sitting on top of the water table, across more than 50 acres of residential and industrial blocks. In some areas it’s 3 feet under; at other points it’s as much as 50 feet underground. And some of the oil has been sitting there for 150 years.
(and)
But to neighborhood residents who complain of health effects, the cleanup is far too slow.
“This is Patrick McManis and he had stomach cancer. And this is my mother. My mother had the cervix cancer,” said Theresa Breznak shuffling through rosary cards of family and friends on Diamond Street who have been stricken with cancer.
“A lot of breast cancer. This is one of my best friends, she had breast cancer. And now her sister has it.” Breznak counts 40 people on the block who have either battled or died from cancer. (etc.)
The environmental mess goes back to the 1860s when oil refineries dotted the landscape along Newtown Creek (which the Environmental Protection Agency recently declared a Superfund site.) For a century, oil companies operated in the neighborhood, allowing petroleum to seep into the ground and spill into the water.
(also)
“It’s emissions that are coming out of the ground. Some of them have been known to be benzene fumes, which is a known carcinogen,” complains Tommy Stagg, another life-long resident of Diamond Street.In all, the energy companies have extracted more than 11 million gallons of petroleum since the early ’80s. But, last year New York state estimated there was still about 14 million gallons of oil remaining below the ground here.
The companies are extracting oil at a rate of about 900,000 gallons a year by injecting water into the ground at various sites around the neighborhood, then pumping out petroleum. At that rate, it’ll be well over a decade before the neighborhood is cleaned up.
My Note –
Okay, the New York City residents and leaders do understand that ground water doesn’t stay in the boroughs where they’ve made lines on a map between them, right? I mean – they understand that water, air, underground water, streams, water table resources and anything contaminating them – migrates wherever, right?
– cricketdiane
***
I am adding the category “Democracy” to this post because when people cannot safely live where they live – there isn’t any democracy, liberty or freedom being insured to these American citizens. Whether it is the love canal mess, or the disaster in the making all this time in Brooklyn and now from these wastewater disposal disasters as by-products of hydrofracking, the sicknesses and ill health generally takes away all the freedoms, liberty, democracy and opportunities guaranteed to individual citizens of America, as well as destroying personal potentials to a great life or accomplishment or enjoyment or the pursuit of happiness and any of a vast number of other things.
(scroll down the page under the map for sites with why they have been removed from the superfund cleanup lists either through actual remediation or political pressure)
***
(They’ve been finding these WWI munitions, arsenic, lewisite and other chemical weapons components on Washington, D.C.’s American University campus and the surrounding neighborhood since 1993, including some Lewisite and buried lab contents recently in September and October of 2009. The area is still filled with arsenic from the WWI chemical weapons lab and test firing compound that were originally in the area. – my note)
Washington D.C. Chemical Munitions
EPA ID# DCD983971136
NPL Status: Not on NPL
50th and Massachusettes
Washington, DC 20015
District of Columbia
Contacts
Remedial Project Manager
Steven Hirsh
215-814-3352
hirsh.steven@epa.gov
Community Involvement Coordinator
William Hudson
215-814-5532
hudson.william@epa.gov
Region 3 | Mid-Atlantic Cleanup | Mid-Atlantic Superfund |EPA Home | EPA Superfund Homepage
Washington, D.C. Army Chemical Munitions (Spring Valley)
Current Site Information
EPA Region 3 (Mid-Atlantic)
Delaware
New Castle County
2 miles southwest of the City of New Castle
EPA ID# DCD983971136
1st Congressional District
Last Update: January 2009
Other Names
Spring Valley
Current Site Status
( . . . )
The USACE (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) completed excavation of a a munitions pit on a residential property adjacent to, and owned by the American University. USACE is completing test trenching and arsenic contaminated soil removal at this and the adjoining property. All work at these two properties is expected to be complete in the fall of 2009. USACE is planning for destruction of recovered chemical and conventional munitions.
The USACE has sampled approximately 1,500 for arsenic to date. Twenty seven additional properties were added to the site in 2006 based on a review of real estate records. Sampling of these properties and land owned by the District within the site is complete. EPA and the District Department of Environment are issuing comfort letters to property owners where sampling and any required remediation has been completed. USACE is attempting to gain access to all properties not previously sampled (approximately 10), and 5 properties where sampling revealed arsenic above 20ppm, the site cleanup goal.
In September of 2005 ATSDR issued a Health Consultation for the Spring Valley Site. ATSDR recommended additional sampling of soil, groundwater and air in specific locations within the Spring Valley Site. The DC Council approved funding for a health study and a contract was awarded to Johns Hopkins for that study, and a report was released in 2007. The report concludes that the health of Spring Valley residents is good; better than National averages and consistent with a reference community with similar demographics. Additional DC funding may be allocated for follow-on work in FY’2010.
In late 2003 perchlorate was discovered in groundwater at the site. A groundwater study is underway. Thirty nine monitoring wells have been installed near the Dalecarlia reservoir, adjacent to waste and munition disposal sites in the Spring Valley neighborhood and in other selected locations. Groundwater sampling data collected between 2005 and 2007 has identified two locations in the site where groundwater is contaminated with perchlorate, and one location where groundwater is contaminated with arsenic at elevated levels. The groundwater study continues in 2009 and 2010 with installation of additional monitoring wells including four deep wells and another round of well and surface water sampling.
RAB meetings over the past year have focused the arsenic clean-up; disposal of recovered munitions, chemical sampling other than arsenic, completing site work and pursuit of additional funding to accelerate the cleanup. For more detailed information and updates on RAB issues, public meetings, and background, please access USACE’s web site by clicking on the Spring Valley internet site below:
The Army maintains a Spring Valley internet site.
Site Description
Spring Valley is located in the Northwest section of the District of Columbia, including the American University. During WWI this area was known as the American University Experimental Station and Camp Leach, a 660-acre facility used as a research and test center for chemical weapons. The experimental station and chemical laboratories were located on American University property.
In January, 1993 a contractor who was digging a utility trench unearthed World War I munitions in the Spring Valley area of the District of Columbia. During further investigations, munitions were discovered in pits located on the Korean Ambassador property, adjacent to American University and additional pits were also found on the adjacent residential property. The pit excavation and other work at the Korean property has been completed. An additional pit on the adjacent residence found numerous additional munitions and the work has not been completed yet. That work began in 2007 and was completed in 2009.
Arsenic-contaminated soil has been removed from the Child Development Center play area on American University. Soil removal actions have been completed on several American University Lots and at approximately 90 residential properties. Approximately 50 residential properties still require soil removal. All soil removal at residential properties should be complete in 2009. Soil remediation at Federal and District owned property is scheduled for 2010.
The site-wide soil cleanup standard for arsenic has been finalized at 20 ppm by EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers and the DC Health Department. The Mayor’s Science Advisory Panel has approved this standard. The arsenic contamination is the result of chemical warfare research carried out at the American University Experimental Station during WWI.
The Army Corps of Engineers budget for this site is approximately $11 million dollars per year. Site work is expected to continue thru 2011.
The USACE has completed excavation of lab waste and debris in an area near the boundary of the American University known as Lot 18. Numerous empty (scrap) munition and several intact bottles were removed from the site. One of the bottles was found to contain a small amount of Lewisite, a blister agent used at the site; a second bottle was found to contain mustard gas. Other chemical agent degradation products have been found in sealed containers. The USACE began excavation of additional lab debris in an adjacent area of the American University in 2008 and will complete the action in 2009.
Contaminant descriptions and risk factors are available from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, an arm of the CDC.
The chemicals date to WWI, during which chemical weapons resulted in a million casualties and about 26,000 deaths. This area, Spring Valley, is home to Diane Feinstein and AG Eric Holder. Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and George HW Bush all lived there before entering the White House.
The yard that causes the most concern is between the official residence of South Korea’s ambassador, Han Duk-soo, and the white-columned house of American University’s president, Cornelius Kerwin. Previous digs unearthed more than 300 munitions and chemical weapons debris on the South Korean property and toxic chemicals beside the AU house. (and the playground where children were playing and soccer had been practiced for years by University students, my note – and homes in the area where the toxic stuff was eeking up into their homes.)
A little more about the Washington, D.C. / Spring Valley toxic site –
Norton (D-D.C.) was given a status report by the corps, which has been directing the $170 million, 16-year cleanup of the munitions that are buried in scattered sites in the District’s Spring Valley neighborhood.
This month, workers were surprised when they found a flask containing residue of the blistering agent mustard buried in the yard of a vacant house in the 4800 block of Glenbrook Road NW. Officials said they had thought cleanup at that site was almost finished.
During World War I Spring Valley was an undeveloped area that the army used for testing chemical weapons. During excavations for new construction workers found unexploded ordnance, and scientists have found high levels of arsenic in the soil. The Army Corps of Engineers has undergone extensive testing and clean-up efforts in select parts of Spring Valley, a process that has been going on for years.
Several embassy residences are located in the neighborhood, such as the ambassador’s houses of South Korea, Bahrain, Qatar, and Yemen. Spring Valley’s median home sale price in 2007 was US$2.725 and in 2008 $3.022 million.[2]
[ All Sites | District of Columbia | Delaware | Federal Facilities | Maryland | Pennsylvania | Virginia | West Virginia ]
Site Name EPA ID NPL Status City County Zip State
Once a busy cargo transportation hub, the canal’s fate has mirrored the decline of domestic shipping via water. A legacy of serious environmental problems has troubled the area from the time the canal was first built out of the local tidalwetlands and fresh waterstreams. In recent years, there has been a call once again for environmental cleanup. In addition, development pressures have brought speculation that the wetlands of the Gowanus should serve waterfront economic development needs which may not be compatible with environmental restoration.
With much fanfare the US Army Corps of Engineers completed their last dredging of the canal in 1955 and soon afterward abandoned its regular dredging schedule, deeming it to be no longer cost effective. Brooklyn’s fuel trade was already converting from coal and artificial gas to petroleum, which was served by the wider and deeper Newtown Creek, and natural gas, which arrived by pipeline. With the early 1960s growth of containerisation, New York’s loss of industrial waterfront jobs during this period was evident on the canal and, with the failure of the city sewage and pump station infrastructure along the canal, Gowanus was used as a derelict dumping place. Remaining barge traffic mostly carried fuel oil, sand, gravel and scrap metal. At this point, the issue of revitalizing of the Gowanus area was raised.
In 1975 the City of New York established a Gowanus Industrial Renewal Plan for the area, which remains in effect until the year 2011. Since 1975, the surrounding community has been calling for the city, state, and federal governments to bring the full power of the Clean Water Act to bear on the environmental conditions left behind in this once thriving urban/industrial waterway.
The opaqueness of the Gowanus water obstructs sunlight to one third of the six feet needed for aquatic plant growth. Rising gas bubbles betray the decomposition of sewage sludge that on a ripe, warm day produces the canal’s notable stench. The murky depths of the canal conceal the remnants of its industrial past: cement, oil, mercury, lead, PCBs, coal tar, and other contaminants. In 1951, with the opening of the elevated Gowanus Expressway over the waterway, easy access for trucks and cars catalyzed industry slightly, but with 150 thousand vehicles passing overhead each day the expressway also deposits tons of toxic emissions into the air and water beneath.[6]
( . . . )
In 2002, the United States Army Corps of Engineers entered into a cost-sharing agreement with the DEP to collaborate on a $5 million Ecosystem Restoration Feasibility Study of the Gowanus Canal area to be completed in 2005, studying possible alternatives for ecosystem restoration such as dredging, and wetland and habitatrestoration. Discussions turned to breaking down the hard edges of the canal in order to restore some of the natural processes to improve the overall environment of the Gowanus wetlands area. The DEP also initiated the Gowanus Canal Use and Standards Attainment project, to meet the City’s obligations under the Clean Water Act. As of the summer 2009, the joint NYC/Army Corps Feasibility study has not been completed.[1]
In February 2009, the city of New York granted a zoning change to the developer, Toll Brothers Inc., allowing for a 480-unit, twelve-story, super-block residential project, the first permitted along the waterway.
In April 2009, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed that the canal be listed as a Superfund cleanup site.[14] This action was supported by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, which had requested help from EPA to address the canal’s environmental problems. In May 2009, the city stepped forward to oppose the Superfund listing and offered, for the first time, to produce a Gowanus cleanup plan that would match the work of a Superfund cleanup, but with a promise to accomplish it faster. The city stated that it could now achieve a faster cleanup than EPA because the city would fund the cleanup through taxpayer dollars from the state and city levels, while the EPA would seek its funding from the polluters.[15] On March 4, 2010, the EPA announced that it had placed the Gowanus Canal on its Superfund National Priorities List. [16][17]
A comprehensive survey of the drinking water for more than 28 million Americans has detected the widespread but low-level presence of pharmaceuticals and hormonally active chemicals.
Little was known about people’s exposure to such compounds from drinking water, so Shane Snyder and colleagues at the Southern Nevada Water Authority in Las Vegas screened tap water from 19 US water utilities for 51 different compounds. The surveys were carried out between 2006 and 2007.
The 11 most frequently detected compounds – all found at extremely low concentrations – were:
• Atenolol, a beta-blocker used to treat cardiovascular disease
• Sulfamethoxazole, an antibiotic used against the Streptococcus bacteria, which is responsible for tonsillitis and other diseases
• TCEP, a reducing agent used in molecular biology
• Trimethoprim, another antibiotic
Christian Daughton of the EPA’s National Exposure Research Laboratory says that neither this nor other recent water assessments give cause for health concern. “But several point to the potential for risk – especially for the fetus and those with severely compromised health.”
Daughton says the contamination surveys help people realise how they are intimately and inseparably connected with their environment. “The occurrence of pharmaceuticals in the environment also serves to make us acutely aware of the chemical sea that surrounds us,” he says.
About the above chemicals and pharmaceuticals found in water and the idea that it really makes no difference – the words to apply are “cumulative effects.” No one is drinking just one drop of water like that which they analyzed. The amount of water consumed in a day isn’t even accurate because of how many things were cooked in water, grown with water from public water sources, how many water sources permeated the skin each day, how many days, months and years these things were continuously consumed or a part of everyday living and the manner in which these chemicals and pharmaceuticals interact with the existing body chemistry and cell metabolism. It isn’t just a problem for those with compromised health, babies and children – it is affecting everyone negatively.
And, since that isn’t the only thing in the ground water being used to water our fields, nor is it the only toxic chemistry in our drinking water and the water sources where our drinking water is derived – the chemical questions it raises are phenomenal. And, they are phenomenal in very bad health consequences for nearly all of our population, all of our children, all of our wildlife, and all of our future generations in the United States. This might need to get fixed right now instead of waiting another thirty years to do it.
“Drinking water with elevated levels of radium and uranium – which are found in … and water – may cause cancer after several years,” the US Environmental …
BELLINGHAM, Wash., March 1 (UPI) — Scientists say a pioneering system providing safe drinking water for millions of people in Asia is now being tested in …
A new health study found drinking water in 31 out of 35 U.S. cities contaminated by a dangerous form of chromium known as hexavalent chromium.
The recent studies by environmental and public health groups shed new light on the extent of drinking water contamination in America and the potential sources of that contamination. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) commissioned water sampling and testing for hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium-6. The results, published in the report Chromium-6 in U.S. Tap Water, found that more than 26 million people are serviced by the water utilities in the 31 cities where chromium-6 was detected. However, the report represents a one-time “snapshot” of the water quality in 35 cities, and without regular monitoring, the full threat to public health is unknown.
Chromium is found in many forms, and the two most prevalent forms are trivalent chromium (chromium-3) and chromium-6. In small amounts, chromium-3 is a vital nutrient needed for healthy human metabolism, but chromium-6 is a known carcinogen and dangerous even in small amounts. Chromium-6 was the toxin contaminating the drinking water of Hinkley, CA, the case made famous by the 2000 film Erin Brockovich. California is currently the only state that requires water utilities to test for hexavalent chromium.
California environmental officials recently revised a proposed “public health goal” for chromium-6 in drinking water. The state’s environmental agency originally proposed a goal of 0.06 parts per billion (ppb) of hexavalent chromium in tap water. That figure was lowered to 0.02 ppb to better protect vulnerable populations such as children. However, the EWG report states that California’s water testing methods cannot detect levels of hexavalent chromium in amounts below 1 ppb, 16 times higher than what the state considers the maximum safe level. (etc.)
The report, EPA’s Blind Spot: Hexavalent Chromium in Coal Ash, draws on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports and other studies to identify 28 coal ash dump sites in 17 states that have contaminated groundwater with chromium at levels far above the public health goal proposed by the state of California. According to the report’s authors, the contaminated coal ash dump sites “are likely the tip of the iceberg,” and EPA regulators are operating with a “blind spot” that misses this significant source of water contamination.
The report also uncovered a study by an electric utility industry group, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), that found that 97 to 100 percent of the chromium leaching from coal ash impoundments is the deadly chromium-6. This industry study tested water at 29 coal ash landfills and ponds, finding chromium-6 at 15 coal ash dump sites at levels hundreds of times greater than the proposed California goal. However, the locations of these dumps are unknown, identified only by a number.
The other gross source of Hexavalant Chromium is in the mixing facilities for cement and concrete, especially the high white variety and through the processes in use today in nearly every community – these sources become easily airborne. These could be fixed easily, but in more communities they are allowed to become airborne and fill the air and homes in the surrounding neighborhoods, (and schools, and businesses, and anywhere the citizens might be breathing or ingesting things that have been coated with it when the dust settles from the air.)
– cricketdiane
***
Also – from recent budget hearings for the EPA opening comments by Barbara Boxer (D, Calif.) –
In stark contrast to the President’s support for EPA’s essential work to protect our children and families, the recently passed House Continuing Resolution would cut EPA’s overall budget — and the critical public health protections EPA provides — by 30 percent this year. This represents the largest cut to any Federal agency.
It would cut an astounding $2 billion from EPA’s water infrastructure and water quality protection programs. These cuts mean that our drinking water has a far greater chance of contamination. These cuts also mean thousands of jobs lost – jobs that relate to clean water infrastructure.
The CR would cut funds to clean up and redevelop brownfields by 30 percent from 2010 enacted levels – threatening the 5,000 jobs that EPA estimates this program supports.
The House budget would slash 45 percent from the 2010 enacted level for federal aid to state, local and tribal governments to protect our communities from dangerous pollution.
It also includes backdoor efforts to undermine EPA authorities that protect the air we breathe and the water we drink.
These attempts to undercut landmark public health protections comes as EPA just released a new report showing that the Clean Air Act provides $30 in benefits for every $1 invested. This report also shows that the Clean Air Act prevented 160,000 cases of premature mortality, 130,000 heart attacks, 13 million lost work days and 1.7 million asthma attacks in the year 2010 alone.
We are facing tough economic times, but tough times call for intelligent decision-making and wisdom, not reckless cuts that will do more harm than good – cuts that will lead to illness and premature death.
We must protect the health of our children, while also building clean technology industries that can fuel the nation’s economy in the coming decades.
We have seen that protecting the health of our families and economic growth go hand in hand. Since the year Congress enacted the Clean Air Act, US GDP has risen by 207 percent.
The United States is also the world’s largest producer and consumer of environmental technology goods and services. This industry has approximately 119,000 firms. It supports almost 1.7 million jobs and generates $300 billion in revenues — including $43.8 billion in exports. Why take an axe to these industries?
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BARBARA BOXER FULL COMMITTEE HEARING: “HEARING ON THE PRESIDENT’S PROPOSED EPA BUDGET FOR FY 2012”
States News Service
March 2, 2011
***
The characteristic greenish-gray to brown color of ordinary Portland cement derives from a number of transitional elements in its chemical composition. These are, in descending order of coloring effect, chromium, manganese, iron, copper, vanadium, nickel and titanium. The amount of these in white cement is minimized as far as possible. Cr2O3 is kept below 0.003%, Mn2O3 is kept below 0.03%, and Fe2O3 is kept below 0.35% in the clinker. The other elements are usually not a significant problem. Portland cement is usually made from cheap, quarried raw materials, and these usually contain substantial amounts of Cr, Mn and Fe.
In Scandinavia, France and the UK, the level of chromium(VI), which is considered to be toxic and a major skin irritant, may not exceed 2 ppm (parts per million).
“The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality was informed this week that the Arizona Portland Cement Co. failed a second round of testing for emissions of hazardous air pollutants at the company’s Rillito plant near Tucson. The latest round of testing, performed in January 2003 by the company, is designed to ensure that the facility complies with federal standards governing the emissions of dioxins and furans, which are byproducts of the manufacturing process.” [14] Cement Reviews’ “Environmental News” web page details case after case of environmental problems with cement manufacturing.[15]
CEMEX (BMV: CEMEX / NYSE: CX) is the world’s largest building materials supplier and third largest cement producer.[1] Founded in Mexico in 1906, the company is based in Monterrey, Mexico. CEMEX has operations extending around the world, with production facilities in 50 countries in North America, the Caribbean, South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa.
As of late 2003, CEMEX had annual cement production capability of 82 million tons and over 25,000 employees. Lorenzo Zambrano is the current chairman and chief executive officer. About one-third of the company’s sales come from its Mexico operations, a quarter from its plants in the U.S., 15% from Spain, and smaller percentages from its plants around the world.[citation needed]
CEMEX currently operates on four continents, with 66 cement plants, 2,000 ready-mix-concrete facilities, 400 quarries, 260 distribution centers and 80 marine terminals.[2] The company’s world headquarters are in San Pedro Garza García, a city that is part of the Monterrey metropolitan area in the northeastern Mexican state of Nuevo León. [3][4][5][6][7]
CEMEX has been accused of violating environmental laws in the United States. Environmental watchdog groups and the United States Environmental Protection Agency are threatening to file suit claiming the company has committed numerous violations of the Clean Air Act in Lyons, Colorado.[19] The United States Environmental Protection Agency has also filed suit against CEMEX in Victorville, California, claiming the company failed to install modern air pollution controls, despite spending millions in renovations.[20]
In the United Kingdom, CEMEX was originally fined £400,000 on October 2006 after hazardous dust was deposited up to three miles (5 km) away from its Rugby works. The fine was the highest ever given under the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control regulations, and was also the highest for an Environment Agency prosecution for six years.[21]. The fine was however judged excessive by the Court of Appeal and so reduced to £50,000.[22].
During tests conducted from June 10 to August 5, 2008, the Monterey Bay (California) Unified Air Pollution Control District reported high levels of Chromium VI, also known as Hexavalent Chromium, a cancer causing chemical agent, at an elementary school and fire department in Davenport, California. Chromium VI is the contaminant that inspired the movie, “Erin Brockovich“. The toxic substance apparently originated from dust emitted by the Cemex Cement plant in Davenport, as the levels of Chromium VI measured eight times the air district’s acceptable level at Pacific Elementary School and 10 times at the Davenport Fire Department. Both are located less than a half-mile from CEMEX.[23] Chromium VI may have been unwittingly produced at the CEMEX plant in Davenport for the last seven years. According to Ed Kendig, the executive director of the Monterey Bay Unified Air Pollution Control District, it’s “highly possible” that Chromium VI continues to be produced across the country as an accidental, previously unknown byproduct of the cement-making process.[24]
In 2007, the EPA filed a complaint against CEMEX for violating federal air regulations at its Victorville, CA plant, and in 2006, CEMEX was cited for violations at plants in Santa Barbara and Michigan. [24]
In April 2007, CEMEX announced that it had installed a £6.5 million dust abatement system at the same works in Rugby, which had cut particulate emissions by 80%. The site comes under the auspices of the EU Waste Incineration Directive as it burns waste tyres for fuel. There are concerns over the impact on both the environment and human health from this practice, although it is common practice in many cement works.[25].
Fly ash is one of the residues generated in combustion, and comprises the fine particles that rise with the flue gases. Ash which does not rise is termed bottom ash. In an industrial context, fly ash usually refers to ash produced during combustion of coal. Fly ash is generally captured by electrostatic precipitators or other particle filtration equipments before the flue gases reach the chimneys of coal-fired power plants, and together with bottom ash removed from the bottom of the furnace is in this case jointly known as coal ash. Depending upon the source and makeup of the coal being burned, the components of fly ash vary considerably, but all fly ash includes substantial amounts of silicon dioxide (SiO2) (both amorphous and crystalline) and calcium oxide (CaO), both being endemic ingredients in many coal-bearing rock strata.
In the past, fly ash was generally released into the atmosphere, but pollution control equipment mandated in recent decades now require that it be captured prior to release. In the US, fly ash is generally stored at coal power plants or placed in landfills. About 43 percent is recycled,[3] often used to supplement Portland cement in concrete production. Some have expressed health concerns about this.[4]
Ash used as a cement replacement must meet strict construction standards, ….. amounts of chromium(VI) contaminated leather sludges in Alcanena, Portugal. …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly_ash – Cached – Similar
Chromium VI Directive. The Chromium (VI) Directive (2003/53/EC) applies to cement and products containing cement marketed in the EU from 17th January 2005. … http://www.whd.co.uk/Concrete/cementandchromiu.html – Cached – Similar
By the time an employee becomes aware of a cement burn, much damage has …. Adding ferrous sulfate to portland cement may lower the Cr(VI) content of the … http://www.osha.gov/dsg/guidance/cement-guidance.html – Cached – Similar
43 Grade cement is used for pre-cast concrete production and sleeper manufacture … In Scandinavia, France and the UK, the level of chromium(VI), which is thought to be toxic and a major skin … Resourse :- http://en.wikipedia.org … cementindustry.blogspot.com/ – Cached – Similar
Ash used as a cement replacement must meet strict construction standards, but no standard …. This process was used to stabilize large amounts of chromium(VI) … Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; … http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/fly+ash – Cached
anagrams crosswords example wikipedia Ebay catalog translations … Many asphaltic concrete pavements contain fly ash. … a raw feed for manufacturing portland cement clinker, as well as for skid control on icy roads. … boron, cadmium, chromium, chromium VI, cobalt, lead, manganese, mercury, molybdenum,selenium, …
dictionary.sensagent.com/coal+combustion+products/en-en/ – Cached
Fly Ash Resource Center- splash page. Wikipedia Reference from Wikipedia… boron, cadmium, chromium, chromium VI, cobalt, lead, manganese, mercury, ….. Promotes the use of fly ash as an additive in concrete and cement products. … http://www.kosmix.com/topic/fly_ash – Cached
Chromium VI Directive. The Chromium (VI) Directive (2003/53/EC) applies to cement and products containing cement marketed in the EU from 17th January 2005. … http://www.whd.co.uk/Concrete/cementandchromiu.html – Cached – Similar
**
and – Perchlorate – (look it up sometime)
Perchlorate in Drinking Water
Last Update: January 7, 2011
Perchlorate is a regulated drinking water contaminant in California, with a maximum contaminant level (MCL) of 6 micrograms per liter (µg/L). The MCL became effective October 2007. For information provided to public water systems by the CDPH Drinking Water Program about the implementation of the MCL and the scheduling of monitoring, see links at the bottom of this page.
Perchlorate and its salts are used in solid propellant for rockets, missiles, and fireworks, and elsewhere (e.g., production of matches, flares, pyrotechnics, ordnance, and explosives). Their use can lead to releases of perchlorate into the environment. Perchlorate’s interference with iodide uptake by the thyroid gland can decrease production of thyroid hormones, which are needed for prenatal and postnatal growth and development, as well as for normal metabolism and mental function in the adult. Its effects on the thyroid gland are the basis of the 6-µg/L public health goal (PHG) established in 2004 by Cal/EPA’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. (PHGs contribute to the development of MCLs, as described here.) In January 2011, OEHHA released a draft technical support document for a 1-µg/L PHG for perchlorate.
Monitoring, first in 1997 by the Drinking Water Program and then by public water systems, showed perchlorate to be a widespread drinking water contaminant, occurring in several hundred wells, mostly in southern California (see early findings). Perchlorate was also found in the Colorado River, an important source of water for drinking and irrigation, where its presence resulted from contamination from ammonium perchlorate manufacturing facilities in Nevada.
Final Regulatory Determination for Perchlorate in Drinking Water
EPA has decided to regulate perchlorate under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). The science that has lead to this decision has been peer reviewed by independent scientists and public health experts including the National Academy of Sciences. This decision reverses a 2008 preliminary determination, and considers input from almost 39,000 public commenters on multiple public notices (May 2007, October 2008, and August 2009) related to perchlorate. This action notifies interested parties of EPA’s decision to regulate perchlorate, but does not in itself impose any requirements on public water systems (PWSs). However, this action initiates a process to develop and establish a national primary drinking water regulation (NPDWR). Once the NPDWR is finalized, certain PWSs will be required to take action to comply with the regulation in accordance with the schedule specified in the regulation.
EPA is replacing the existing preliminary remediation goal of 24.5 ppb with the interim health advisory value of 15 ppb. This goal will be used as a consideration when establishing cleanup levels for perchlorate at Superfund sites.
Thaumasite is a silicate mineral with chemical formula Ca3Si(OH)6(CO3)(SO4)·12H2O. It occurs as colorless to white prismatic hexagonal crystals, typically as acicular radiating groups. It also occurs as fibrous masses. Its Mohs hardness is 3.5 and it has a specific gravity of 1.88 to 1.90. Optically it is uniaxial negative with indices of refraction of nω = 1.507 and nε = 1.468.
Thaumasite can also be formed along with other calcium-silicate hydrates (CSH) during cement alteration, especially when sulfate attack develops.
It was first described in 1878 in Sweden and named from the Greek, “thaumazein”, to be surprised, in reference to its unusual composition with carbonate, sulfate and hydroxysilicate anions.[3]
Another quite surprising feature of thaumasite is the presence of non-tetrahedral silicon in its crystal lattice.[4][5][citation needed] Indeed, an atypic octahedral configuration is observed for Si present in thaumasite in the form of hexahydroxysilicate: [Si(OH)6]2−, a species exhibiting a geometry similar to that of the hexafluorosilicate [SiF6]2−.
Isn’t that the best?
Thaumasite (white) with prehnite (green) from Fairfax Quarry, Virginia
***
Very interesting . . .
– cricketdiane
***
Here is more about the hydrofracking waste water discussions –
The contaminants still remaining, including radioactive materials, could find their way into drinking water and aquatic species that may be used for food. …
It’s important to note that the radiation levels in the drinking water are extremely low, on the order of parts per trillion. However, as KHOU reports, the tendency among environmental health experts and the EPA, is to regard any level as potentially dangerous to human health.
He said drinking water with any amount of alpha particles, even when consumed in amounts below federal legal limits, raises your risk to develop health problems or, in rare cases, cancer. Examples of alpha particles found in the Gulf Coast region are those from uranium, radium and other minerals.
Ozonoff describes alpha particles as a type of radiation that would not typically harm you unless inhaled or ingested. He warns, once you take it inside your body, your health risks immediately begin to rise.
“It can’t penetrate very far, but when it hits something it does a ferocious amount of damage,” he said. “If I were to drink it, then many parts of your body are within knife-wielding distance of an alpha particle.”
Part II aired last night and it reveals what appears to be scientific malpractice on the part of Texas Commission on Environmental Quality scientists. One expert in the KHOU story called it a “cover-up.”
For more than 20 years, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality under-reported the amount of radiation found in drinking water provided by communities all across Texas. As a result, health risks to people consuming the water have been underestimated in many water systems where radioactive contaminants are present.
Here’s what happened in a nutshell, according to KHOU: An independent lab would test the water for radioactive contaminants and submit the data, as is standard, with a margin of error built-in. Rather than report the full results to the EPA, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality would always pick the lower end of the margin of error in an apparent attempt to keep water utilities from exceeding federal radiation limits.
And it gets worse. In 2000, the EPA explicitly told TCEQ to stop playing games with the margin of error. But for nine more years, TCEQ continued the practice, until a 2009 EPA audit finally put a stop to it. Is this what Rick Perry means when he talks about standing up to the feds?
We examine three of the film’s claims: Claim 1: Fracking is polluting underground sources of drinking water. The film highlights the risk but overstates it …
And here is more information that pertains to why this is critical to be fixed right now – (and has been known to need a solution for far too long to not be solved already) –
Certain rock types naturally contain radioactive elements referred to as NORM (Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials). When a source of drinking water comes in contact with NORM-bearing rocks, radionuclides may accumulate in the water to levels of concern. The predominant radionuclides found in water include:
As water is treated to remove impurities, radionuclides may collect and eventually build up in filters, tanks, and pipes at treatment plants. The small amounts of NORM present in the source water may concentrate in sediment or sludges. Because the NORM is concentrated due to human activity, it is classified as TENORM (Technologically Enhanced Radioactive Material). Most of this waste is disposed in landfills and lagoons, or is applied to agricultural fields.
On down the page, it says –
Land Spreading/Soil Conditioning
About 20 percent of sludge is disposed of by land application to improve soil conditions or to fertilize the soil. The sludge is plowed directly into the soil to limit water runoff and for sanitary reasons. Recently proposed rules may prohibit this practice on agriculture land.
Deep-Well Injection
Deep-well injection involves the pumping of sludge into a stable geologic formation. Deep-well injection is not commonly used and is specifically prohibited in the states of Wisconsin and Illinois. Because of its potential adverse impact on groundwater aquifers, EPA uses its authority under the Safe Drinking Water Act to control and also discourage this practice.
Landfills
Approximately 30 percent of generated sludge is disposed of in landfills. Contaminated materials are typically covered and compacted on a daily basis. Features such as clay layers are emplaced above and below the buried waste to prevent radon emissions and radionuclides from leaching into the groundwater.
Lagoons
Approximately 42 percent of sludge is disposed of in lagoons. Any radium present in the sludge will settle in bottom sediments which may have to be periodically dredged and properly disposed of.
Ion-Exchange and Activated Charcoal
Ion-exchange resins are used on smaller water supply systems to soften water by replacing Ca2+ and Mg2+ ions with Na+ ions. In the process, about 95 percent of the radium is also removed . However, the resins are usually back washed for reuse rather than being disposed. The backwash water, which contains radium, is typically discharged to storm sewers, underground injection wells or septic tanks, or is back washed to another ion-exchange column for the selective removal of radium. Radionuclide content eventually builds up in the resin after prolonged usage.
http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/tenorm/drinking-water.html(it has a lot more information – But, my note is that the quantity of wastewater and its radioactive contents from the hydrofracking process in over 71,000 natural gas wells in Pennsylvania alone are massively greater quantities than any system could clean or decontaminate.)
***
Scientists want to help regulators decide safety of chemicals
Groups representing 40,000 researchers and clinicians are urging federal agencies responsible for the safety of chemicals to examine the subtle impact a chemical might have on the human body rather than simply ask whether it is toxic.
A well-known example would be bisphenol A, a chemical widely used in plastic goods for decades, Hunt said. The chemical can leach from products into food and drink, and federal health officials say it is found in the urine of more than 90 percent of Americans.
The government has long said that BPA is safe, based on studies that show levels of BPA used in commercial products are not toxic – meaning they would not kill – humans.
But a growing body of research by endocrinologists, molecular biologists, reproductive specialists and others over the past 15 years has shown that low levels of BPA can cause changes in activity at the cellular level that cause health effects over time in laboratory animals. (etc.)
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 3, 2011; 3:57 PM
***
My Note –
In the 1960’s and 1970’s efforts were made to start fixing these things and for over 42 years they have not been fixed. Only a very small percentage of the persistent pollution has been tackled. In fact, with the amount of money that industries and businesses have spent on attorneys, public relations firms, lobbyists, lobbyists on top of lobbyists, US Chamber of Commerce and other business lobbyists, PACs, special interest groups to persuade the public through the media, fighting regulations in every single state and across the world, and fighting legislation and regulations in the Federal government, fighting the EPA, putting off making changes, changing their operations to other countries in some cases where they could continue polluting – and buying Republican Party candidates to serve their interests – they could’ve just put the damn filters on the smokestacks and rendered the wastewater into a neutralized safe contaminant free resource and made the same profits or even greater at the same time.
But no.
Oh yeah – and the amount of money they’ve spent on decrying scientific studies, hindering them, legislating against them, legislating against their findings, lobbying and applying political pressure against those findings, undermining the credibility of those findings, etc., ad nauseum – they could’ve afforded to have designed systems that would never have polluted in the first place. That is some ridiculous sums of money that have spent over the last forty years and certainly been spent across multiple industries, through a multitude of corporations and industry / trade associations, through business associations, and think tanks and public relations consultants, and political donations and on and on and on – they could’ve just solved the damn problems for less than a quarter of one tenth of one percent of what they’ve spent fighting against doing anything about it.
And, worst of all –
The families of these business leaders have been just as subjected to these pollutants as the rest of us whether they know it or not. And, some of those decision-makers who refused to be told what to do with their business and refused to stop doing their business in ways that polluted everybody and everything – are dead now as a direct result of the pollutants they unleashed on America. Why don’t they know that?
It is just stupid.
– cricketdiane
***
Do they really think that it can’t get them if they are rich enough to go skiing in the Alps and go vacation in the beautiful coasts of the world and live in their elegant protected homes? What planet is their food coming from? What air do they think they are breathing?
Oh wait, the Republicans up there in Washington that are gutting the budgets to the EPA and serving the business interests that paid for their campaigns don’t believe that mankind has had any negative effects on nature. And, they don’t believe that water with radioactive contaminants in it which were dumped upstream nearly on top of where the drinking water is taken could even remotely have anything to do with them or their families. Yeah – right. And if they don’t believe it will hurt anything then it won’t.
That’s what they’ve been doing for the entire course of my adult lifetime and now I can honestly say, that my childhood was subjected to it, my children’s lifetimes have been subjected to it and my grandchildren’s lives have been subjected to it. My cousins, grandparents and parents have been subjected to it and every single person that I have ever known. Some have died horribly from cancers although they never smoked a day in their lives. It wasn’t smoking that killed them nor caused the cancers they’ve endured. But, there is a very good chance that the horrendous chemicals consistently poured into the environment in every single state, every rural area, every suburb, every city and every water source for every moment of every day over the last fifty years and more – could very well have caused those cancers, nightmarish suffering and deaths prematurely.
From the little extra water we had here in Atlanta –
Lake Lanier and Buford Dam Water Release Answers
Everyone with an interest in Lake Lanier and those affected by flooding around metro Atlanta have been asking the question: why does water continue to flow through Buford Dam despite the huge amounts of rain swelling the Chattahoochee and its creeks and tributaries downstream and the capacity of the lake to hold this precipitation?
Because of the virtual lockdown on communication with the Army Corps of Engineersin Georgia the only semblance of communication comes from the Corps’ Mobile, AL office.
Area fishermen and concerned citizens that have spoken with the people at the Alabama office are in disbelief that the decisions are either influenced by or coming directly from that office when they don’t even seem to understand the severity of the rain event.
The Mobile, AL office of the Corps of Engineers first explained that the two main generators have been shut off and that a smaller units that discharges 600 cubic feet per second was operating to supply power to the Dam and some small electric companies in the area. They quickly backed off that statement and said the small generator was only powering the dam itself.
So now we know that it takes 389 million gallons of water discharged per day (600 cfs) just to power the dam itself. Corps spokespeople don’t even know if it is possible to shut off the discharge completely, which means that through the additional rains expected for this weekend the already stressed creek and tributary system downstream from the dam will likely continue to back up at the Chattahoochee.
The flooding around Atlanta this week is one for the record books. According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the rivers and streams had magnitudes so great that the odds of it happening were less than 0.2 percent in any given year. In other words, there was less than a 1 in 500 chance that parts of Cobb and Douglas counties were going to be hit with such an event.
“The USGS can reliably say just how bad these floods were. They were epic!” said Brian McCallum, Assistant Director for the USGS Water Science Center in Georgia. “We have all witnessed the devastation caused by these floods, but now we can quantify it.” The data are gathered from the USGS real-time streamgaging network.
On Sept. 22, USGS crews measured the greatest flow ever recorded (28,000 cubic feet per second) on Sweetwater Creek near Austell, Ga.
Elsewhere in the Atlanta area:
The Yellow River streamgages in Gwinnett, DeKalb and Rockdale counties measured flows between the 1 percent chance (100-year) and 0.5 percent chance (200-year) flood magnitude.
Flows caused by the rain at Peachtree Creek in Atlanta were only near the 10 percent chance (10-year) flood magnitude, but the backwater effects from the Chattahoochee River pushed water levels over the 0.2 percent chance (500-year) flood at the gage location.
On the Chattahoochee, USGS measured a 1 percent chance exceedence (100-year) flood at Vinings and Roswell.
“Today, six USGS crews are installing and repairing the 20 gages that were destroyed because of flooding. We expect that all but one gage should be operational by the end of the day,” said McCallum. “During flooding, these gages provide critical information to many users, so fixing the gages is our priority now.”
USGS also has two crews measuring high water marks, and will continue taking these indirect measurements in earnest on Monday. Pictures taken over the past few days by USGS scientists as they work in flooded areas are available online.
In Georgia the USGS maintains a network of more than 300 stream gages that provide data in real time. Data from these gages are used by local, state and federal officials for numerous purposes, including public safety and flood forecasting by the National Weather Service.
A map of these gages and graphs of discharge for the last seven days is available online. The USGS works in cooperation with other Federal, state, and local agencies, throughout Georgia that measure water level (stage), streamflow (discharge), and rainfall.
Users can access current flood and high flow conditions across the country at the USGS WaterWatch Web site.
MOBILE, Ala. – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is defending its management of Lake Lanier during this week’s floods.
Questions have been raised about continuing to send water through Buford Dam even as flooding was occurring downstream. But spokeswoman Lisa Coghlan says some water has to flow through in order to produce electricity. And, that curtailed releases have kept 37 billion gallons of flood water in Lanier.
And, no, she says, there is no danger of “overfilling” the lake. “We have 14 feet of flood storage capacity at Lake Lanier.”
Last Saturday, the Corps implemented its Flood Control Operations at the dam… reducing the amount of water sent downstream.
The level of Lanier increased another .08 foot in the past 24 hours and was at 1068.03 early Friday… within three feet of full pool since before the start of the prolonged drought that ended earlier this year. Full pool is 1071 and the corps expects continued runoff from this week’s heavy rains to send the level to 1068.5 this weekend.
Even more heavy rains are forecast through Saturday and a Flash Flood Watch has been issued for most of north Georgia. (See separate posting.)
(The Georgia News Network contributed to this story.)
(The Georgia News Network contributed to this story.)
Rain continues to drench Ga.; flood losses now put at $500M
ATLANTA – Heavy rains drenched northwest Georgia Saturday and then moved into metro Atlanta, dumping several inches and causing flooding in some areas, but forecasters said the end of the rain was in sight. And, the state Insurance Commissioner updated the estimated losses from flooding earlier in the week, putting it at half-a-billion dollars.
[ . . . ]
Georgia Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine on Saturday raised the estimated cost of damage caused by heavy flooding in parts of north Georgia to $500 million. The new figure was twice as much as Tuesday’s initial damage estimate of $250 million.
“I think it could quite possibly go up,” Oxendine said, adding that the estimate of half a billion dollars was conservative.
Oxendine said 20,000 homes and other structures suffered major damage, mainly in the area north and west of Atlanta.
A federal disaster declaration has been issued to provide individual assistance for recovery efforts to residents in 14 Georgia counties that were hardest hit. The declaration covers Carroll, Catoosa, Chattooga, Cherokee, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fulton, Gwinnett, Newton, Paulding, Rockdale, Stephens and Walker counties.
And where is our Governor with a bunch of Georgia under flood waters?
Thursday, September 24, 2009, 8:47pm EDT
Perdue visits Panama Canal project
Atlanta Business Chronicle – by Dave Williams Staff Writer
Gov. Sonny Perdue got a first-hand look Thursday at the widening of the Panama Canal, a project that is vital to the planned deepening of the harbor at the Port of Savannah.
The Panama Canal Authority took over operation of the canal when the United States turned it over to the Panamanian government at the end of the last decade.
“These people have their act together,” said Perdue, after touring both the construction work and operating locks. “It’s a well-run enterprise.”
The governor and Ken Stewart, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development, led a state delegation that traveled to Panama this week to check on the $5.2 billion project’s progress.
[ . . . ]
Georgia officials are seeking federal funding for the harbor deepening. But Congress won’t act until the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers signs off on the project.
[etc.]
(we’re paying for him to go see the Panama Canal with his buddies, of course)
Jacksonville Business Journal – by Dave Williams Staff Writer
The U.S. Supreme Court Monday declined to hear Georgia’s appeal of a lower court ruling in the long-running tri-state water wars.
The high court denied a request to review a decision handed down nearly a year ago by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington invalidating a 2003 agreement to let metro Atlanta water utilities increase withdrawals from Lake Lanier from about 13 percent of the lake’s capacity to about 22 percent.
The agreement between Georgia and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was challenged by Florida and Alabama, which lie downstream of Lanier in the Chattahoochee River system.
In a prepared statement, Gov. Charlie Crist applauded the decision.
“This action will allow Florida to continue our efforts to help protect the adequate flow of freshwater in the Apalachicola River,” Crist said. “After nearly 20 years of legal discussions, today’s decision should provide the framework needed for resolution of this matter.
In opposing Georgia’s efforts to take more water out of Lake Lanier to meet rapidly growing customer demand in metro Atlanta, Florida and Alabama argued that the reservoir was built in the 1950s primarily to provide hydropower and that water supply was not its authorized purpose.
Georgia begins cleaning up $250 million in flood damage
Gov. Sonny Perdue seeks $16.35 million in federal aid to help recover from storms that left nine dead. Crews work on an Atlanta water-treatment plant that added to Chattahoochee River flooding.
Reporting from Atlanta – With floodwaters finally receding, Georgians began the unglamorous task of cleaning up Wednesday, while taking stock of the destruction from an unprecedented autumn deluge that has claimed nine lives and caused an estimated $250 million in damage.
Across the state, roads reopened and residents returned to view the damage to their homes. In the early hours Wednesday, work crews managed to fix much of the damage to a city of Atlanta water-treatment plant that spilled millions of gallons of water into the Chattahoochee River.
[ etc. ]
In Greater Atlanta, the local river system had been a sort of famous afterthought. Atlanta earned its initial fortunes in the 19th century as a railroad hub, and for many Atlantans, the Chattahoochee, which runs southwestward through the metro region, has typically been out of sight — and out of mind.
“People usually see the river from a car window when they’re rushing over a freeway,” said Sally Bethea, head of Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, a nonprofit environmental group. “And usually, [the water] stays in place. So I think it’s pretty stunning for people to see the river widen to a half a mile, and the creeks widen, and all of this raging water.”
Bethea blamed the flooding in part on rampant development and paving that prevent the earth from soaking up rain, instead sending it shooting into river basins.
[ . . . ]
The rains have helped in one respect: by adding water to Lake Lanier, the source of much of the region’s drinking water. During a three-year drought that was declared over in March, lake levels reached record lows. The recent rains added more than 3 feet to the water level of the 38,000-acre lake, said Robert G. Holland, spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“This is not going to happen overnight. It is not going to happen tomorrow, but it is going to happen,” Biden said.
[etc.]
“Look, we don’t want anything like the past happening again,” Biden said. “This is hands on stuff, but it’s going to take time. We’re going to get other federal agencies in now. We’re are going to get HUD in and others who are going to be able to take care of hopefully your real needs.”
The floods have killed 9 people in Georgia. Eight counties have been declared federal disaster areas and will qualify for federal funding.
The vice president took an aerial tour of the flood damage in a helicopter with FEMA Director Craig Fugate. They were joined in a second helicopter by Georgia Sens. Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss, Rep. David Scott and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.
Biden stopped by a shelter set up the Cobb County Civic Center to meet with people whose homes were damaged and destroyed in the flooding. The shelter is housing 277 flood victims who will be able to stay there as long as necessary.
Some of the comments on the article above about Lake Lanier and the Corps of Engineers sending the agreed upon water through despite the flooding –
I am disgusted with the US Atmy Corps of Engineers Mobile AL HQ. These bureaucrats during the recent flooding released water (although a mimimum amount)from Lake Lanier into the swollen waters. Lake Lanier was 6+ feet from full lake elevation and 20+ feet from flood level and there was no good reason for releasing any water from Lake Lanier. I am not happy.
Posted by: Robert G Sorbet | Sep 26, 2009 7:07:04 AM
I also feel we need someone to watch the corp of engineers. They have constantaly released more water than they should have over the past two summers and dried up some surrounding lakes which were on some people’s property after saying they would only take some of the water…they left nothing….Who moniters them? I think an investigation should be made as to who is watching and supervising them.
Posted by: talmag | Sep 26, 2009 12:41:44 PM
@Alyson I do not believe that the COE directed water release from Lake Lanier killed anyone or exacerbated the flooding situation to any great extent, what I do know is that there has been hard feelings for many years between Georgians and the Corps, and what prompted my anger was a Press Release issued by the Corps Mobile AL HQ which I can no longer access or it has been taken down for some good or bad reason.
Posted by: Robert G Sorbet | Sep 26, 2009 12:08:42 PM
I do have a problem with the Corps of Engineers releasing water from a flood control lake into swollen waters during a flash flood. My nephew lost a lifelong friend in these floods. I live in Douglas County Georgia and my heart goes out to all of the victims.
***
I’m so very, very sorry for your nephew’s loss, and I hope you and your family and friends are all okay. Please hang in there. I have read that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
is getting a lot of criticism from Georgians right now for mismanagement of the water at Lake Lanier– though I confess I’m a little confused as to what they did, why, and so on.
Posted by: Alyson | Sep 26, 2009 10:22:25 AM
@Alyson You make great sense. I have no problem with FEMA, Obama, or Biden; but I do have a problem with the Corps of Engineers releasing water from a flood control lake into swollen waters during a flash flood. My nephew lost a lifelong friend in these floods. I live in Douglas County Georgia and my heart goes out to all of the victims.
Posted by: Robert G Sorbet | Sep 26, 2009 9:49:31 AM
Just a little context cuz some of these comments seem bizarre to me. First of all, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has said that the floods are a “once in 500 years flood,”… the odds of such a thing happening are less “than 0.2 percent in any given year.” The floods have affected 20 counties, caused the deaths of least nine people, and created about $250 million in damages. Two very conservative Republican senators, Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss, have commended “the White House’s quick response.” Acutally, Chambliss said the admin’s response was “magnificent” and “quick. Isakson said he had spent last night on the phone with local officials, all of whom reported FEMA workers on the ground–yep that FEMA, which three years was described as being in shambles. I’m glad to hear that FEMA is back on track, and was happy to see the VP there.
Posted by: Alyson | Sep 26, 2009 9:25:02 AM
Jason…. I wonder WHO paved “the road to hell” in the prior DECADES….It had to take longer than 9 months to “pave a road to hell”, isn’t that rational?
The deluge of recent rains in North Georgia have sent the Lake Allatoona water levels soaring past full pool. The lake rose rose more than 8 feet in the past 24 hours.
Currently the lake is 11 feet above full pool and still rising. The high water levels have caused Allatoona to spread over its banks into parks, campgrounds and parking lots on shore.
The Corps of Engineers which is in controls the lake, has shut down all boat ramps on the lake except for Stamp Creek and Galts Ferry.
These are photos taken on Tuesday morning of the ramps and roads around Allatoona. Despite the high water, fishermen are still out on the lake between fish from Bartow Carver to the Dam. Thanks to Robert Edison from First Bite Guide Services for these photos.
(lots of great photos of Lake Allatoona – my note)
USGS will Grant Universities $5 Million to Beef Up Public Safety
Grants totaling $5 million under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act are being awarded to 13 universities nationwide to upgrade critical earthquake monitoring networks and increase public safety.
“These stimulus grants will save lives as well as create jobs,” Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said today. “More than 75 million Americans in 39 states face the risk of earthquakes. Through the modernization of seismic networks and data processing centers, scientists will be able to provide emergency responders with more reliable, robust information to save lives and reduce economic losses.”
Grants are awarded by the U.S. Geological Survey, and monitoring is a key component of the USGS Advanced National Seismic System. ANSS is a national network of sophisticating shaking monitors placed both on the ground and in buildings in urban areas. The ANSS “strong motion” instruments give emergency response personnel real-time maps of severe ground shaking and provide engineers with information to create stronger and sounder structures for homes, bridges, buildings, and utility and communication networks.
“These investments under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will provide jobs for the manufacturers of the equipment, the geophysical contractors who perform installations, and the colleges and universities that run regional earthquake networks and are training the next generation of earthquake scientists in partnership with USGS,” Salazar noted.
In California and other high-hazard regions, some parts of the current system include 40-year-old technology, and even the systems most recently upgraded date back to 1997. Think about what a 12-year-old computer looks like. Stimulus funding will replace old instruments with state-of-the-art, robust systems across the highest earthquake hazard areas in California, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, the Intermountain West, and the central and eastern United States.
The new monitoring systems will be more energy-efficient than the ones they replace and will make solar power the primary power source in remote locations. Engaging students in the siting and installation will provide a unique educational experience and help to train the next generation of earthquake scientists.
Because the investments will modernize aging equipment at existing stations, they do not represent out-year commitments and the new equipment should lower future maintenance costs. The investments in earthquake monitoring meet the stated Recovery Act criteria of being “temporary, targeted and timely” – spending that will flow directly into the economy.
Universities receiving funding include: Montana Tech of the University of Montana; California Institute of Technology; University of Oregon; University of Utah; University of California, San Diego; University of Washington; Saint Louis University; University of Memphis; Boston College, University of Nevada, Reno; University of California, Berkeley; Columbia University; and the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Everyone with an interest in Lake Lanier and those affected by flooding around metro Atlanta have been asking the question: why does water continue to flow through Buford Dam despite the huge amounts of rain swelling the Chattahoochee and its creeks and tributaries downstream and the capacity of the lake to hold this precipitation?
Because of the virtual lockdown on communication with the Army Corps of Engineers in Georgia the only semblance of communication comes from the Corps’ Mobile, AL office. Area fishermen and concerned citizens that have spoken with the people at the Alabama office are in disbelief that the decisions are either influenced by or coming directly from that office when they don’t even seem to understand the severity of the rain event.
The Mobile, AL office of the Corps of Engineers first explained that the two main generators have been shut off and that a smaller units that discharges 600 cubic feet per second was operating to supply power to the Dam and some small electric companies in the area. They quickly backed off that statement and said the small generator was only powering the dam itself.
So now we know that it takes 389 million gallons of water discharged per day (600 cfs) just to power the dam itself. Corps spokespeople don’t even know if it is possible to shut off the discharge completely, which means that through the additional rains expected for this weekend the already stressed creek and tributary system downstream from the dam will likely continue to back up at the Chattahoochee.
Why would the American people want to enlist the federal government to run the health care system in this country when apparently they are not able to even grasp the basic concept that when water is released into a river it contributes to its level. The primary purpose of this and most other Corps lakes is to provide flood control. Where is the common sense leadership in this situation? Why wasn’t our commander in chief of the military ensuring that his military staff at the Corps office in Mobile was doing the right thing during an emergency situation? Obvious incompetence and lack of common sense. My tax dollars at work:
Corps says releases equaled 1 inch, 30 miles down stream. Wait a minute. 670 cfs is what flows the hooch thru ATL in the middle of a drought. Big Cover Your Bu t going on!
Last night the corp let out almost 500 MILLION gallons or 668 cubic feet per second from the Buford Dam . Here is the link to their data that shows the release records. http://tinymicros.com/lanier/
During the peak of the flooding they continue to release 600+ cubic feet per second according to these records, and for only 1 day they backed it down to just under 400. The corp did contribute to the flooding and they should be held accountable. Even one drop of water being let out while homes were being destroyed is negligent and illustrates their lack of responsibility inability to manage our resources.
389 million gallons per day just to power the dam? Who are you kidding here? Those inefficient generators and turbines will get you every time. Also you have to understand the dam was built for flood control. What does that mean? The flood level was not high enough so they opened the dam to make sure more places were flooded there by controlling the flood. Had they closed the dam completely then they would not be in control. This way they are not sitting by and doing nothing. West Point Lake is screaming, with the flood gates wide open and generating full blast so next week they can ask Lanier for more water. But I think I have it figured out now. When water runs into Lake Lanier it becomes “Federal†water. This “Federal†water is then released and allowed to mingle with other water down stream making this water become “Federalized†as well and now must be allocated properly. As for the flooding, samples were taken and this is how they are able to tell that their water had no effect what so ever on any flooding taking place down stream, but I guess what’s a third of a billion gallons or so when your house is already 20 feet under water. Say what you will about inefficiency, but nobody can do it better than our government. I’m sure glad someone who knows what is going on is in charge.
In this case, the dead fish will cause plenty of problems for the humans. But that does require rational thought. I am not a tree hugger in any sense. You DO NOT completely stop the flow of the river, PERIOD. If the dam is damaged because of the lack of flow then you create a big problem. Most of the deaths were from stupidity.
So now that the lake is at a “normal level” for the 1st time in 4 years, the Corps is going to increase withdrawals????
Is 550 cubic feet per second NOT enough for water quality? It always has been in the past. Why is there a need NOW to increase that amount for water quality?
Increases in Hydro power production? Why? Is there some big power demand somewhere? Are the lower lakes not producing enough power? My goodness, I would think the generators on the lower lakes have been red hot for 10 days now. Is Lake Lanier serving as a “profit center” for the Corps to sell power? I understand the :power contracts”, but is this really necessary or is the Corps simply profiting by draining the Lake? To the detriment to all of us?
Are there construction contracts between the Corps and local governments,with which the Corps is obligated to keep the lake BELOW a certain level during a certain time frame? Gwinnett County? Lake Lanier Islands ? Forsyth County? Hall County? The Cities of Cumming and Gainesville? Are there ANY contracts with the Corps requiring a maintained lake elevation? If the public was made aware of these contractual obligations, maybe, just maybe we’d understand why the lake levels must stay down. And guess what? If we all knew ahead of time that Lake Lanier would be held down artificially, for a specified period of time, for a specified reason, we could all plan our business interests with Lake Lanier accordingly!
Case in point: Duke Power on Lake Keowee sends out a yearly lake level outlook and drawdown schedule. Duke explains with its stakeholders, the needs for these drawdowns, the timeframe for these drawdowns, and a list of things the stakeholders can accomplish while the lake is down. Dock and seawall repairs, etc. Duke Power works WITH their stakeholders by being transparent, honest, and up front. Yes, I understand that Duke is a privately held corporation with shareholders etc., but the point is, they care about the folks that care the most for the lake. They work TOGETHER.
I know for a fact that NO ONE is happy to read your email regarding increased discharges. I think your group needs to demand a little (actually a lot) transparency from the Corps regarding these contracts and what EXACTLY is required by the Corps. If these contracts cause harm to the public and un necessary degradation to the lake levels, then something needs to be done about it. When are these contracts up for renewal? Why in the world would we release water simply to produce hydro power? Incredibly inefficient form of power production at the expense of this Lake level. Someone needs to get copies of these contracts and read them, understand them, find out when they are up for renewal, study the demands and requirements, and lastly, find out where these contract obligations need to be corrected.
Lake Lanier has NOT been full 8 out of the last 11 years. 8 out of the last 11 years below full pool. The lake has reached full pool only 3 out of the last 11 years. That’s a 28% score. I don’t know ANY business represented by your group that would be in business if they “got it right” 28% of the time. This is reflective of one main thing: Poor Management. Poor Management at a time when Georgia is facing unprecedented hurdles with this Lake. There is no excuse, drought or otherwise, for this lake to have a 28% record over 11 years. None.
Everyone would like answers to these questions. We are all tired of the “surprises” by the Corps. No one that I know of has a good feeling about the Corps. Why? Because of the surprises and seemingly super inefficient methods of management of this lake. Their methods simply do not make sense. We need honest answers, honest transparency, and honest management of the lake from the Corps. Maybe then we would understand the Corps methodology for the madness that we see. The public is NOT HAPPY; as a matter of fact, everyone I come in contact with, is understandably upset with the Corps’ management of this Lake. Something has got to change. Your group is a group of business interests which in one way or another obviously profits by the existence of Lake Lanier. These businesses would probably see increases in profits with a better, more efficient management of this Lake.
A true TEST of the Corps willingness to show interest in Lake Lanier will be if they allow the lake to have a surplus of 1 to 2 feet like they have proposed in the past to act as a buffer going into the summer months. To my knowledge, this is the first time the lake has been this close to full pool at the end of the summer. Sept and Oct are usually are most driest months.
The lake refills during the winter months. Now would be the time to take action to plan for the future by allowing a small surplus.
Hi Jim. Makes complete sense but the Corps has an itchy trigger finger to press that buttom which lets out water…check out the 5 week forecast on the Corps website below. It was just released 4 days ago. Lisa Coghlan of the Corps was all excited about the lakes potential to reach 1068.5 in one article this week but the 5 week forecast shows the Corps letting out most of the gains from this week. I’m sure they are just following their 50 year old Operating Manual and preparing for the winter and spring rains but the Manual never had common sense written in to it. Has anyone ever run a red light when you new the light was broken and skipping your turn or did you sit there waiting for the traffic light repair person to show up and give you a green light? The Corps is going to stick to their 50 year old manual and wait another 1-2 years for their new and improved operating manual. I wonder if the drones down in Mobile will add some common sense language into their Pulitzer document?
Here’s more. Great point by Henry Rowe in this article:
“I think the corps will say that the water was released only to provide power for internal operations. This is unacceptable. In flood conditions, they should pay for power off the grid to operate and not release any water to reduce the flood as much as possible.”
Adding to flood conditions by discharges to operate the dam is incomprehensible! Also I read that “minimum” discharges have to be maintained for “the trout in the river”. Trout will find their way without dam water. Who depends on catching these trout for their daily substinence? They need to find a job and go to Publix. What irritates me most is the absolute wall between the COE and the public regarding communications. But they are government aren’t they? I think as a group we need to express our concerns to our 2 local so called advocates. Coalition 1071 and the Lake Lanier Association . Instead of having cocktail meetings at Legacy Lodge with a featured speaker, it needs to turn into something more aggressive. We’ve all seen the effect that constituents have had with the Town Hall meetings regarding health care, etc; this is the kind of local response that is needed here. Polite and organized but firm. The LLA seems to be very quiet as well and needs to pick up the action. All of you can email or write or call both of these groups, let’s start now!
Flood Control - when they only use it to insure water for oyster beds in Alabama - why does the corps of engineers support Alabama's wants when Georgian's tax dollars have paid for these projects/ dams / resevoirs / drinking water / facilities / hydropower plants / and upkeep
More rain expected this evening and this weekend has all of north Georgia including metro Atlanta and Athens under a flash flood watch effective 4 p.m. today until early Sunday morning.
More rain in the forecast for North Georgia. (photo by Judy Baxter)
Meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Peachtree City predict rain and thunderstorms will be moving through the state over night and Saturday, which puts Georgia at risk for more flooding.
“Unfortunately, we’ve had to put north Georgia into flash flood watch because of this potential of one to two inches of rain and could have isolated higher amounts possible,” said Weather Service hydrologist Kent Frantz, “which could cause additional flooding, either in areas that have already had flooding and new areas in the urbanized metro area and up in the north Georgia mountains.”
Frantz says the rain may move through slowly at first, and the greatest chance of heavy rain is Saturday.
Meanwhile, the Army Corps of Engineers has a close watch on Lake Allatoona, just north of metro Atlanta and West Point Lake near Columbus because both lakes are already well above full pool.
Dry conditions returned to some 80 Georgia Counties this week. That’s according to the U.S. Drought Monitor map. The drought map is issued by the National Drought Mitigation Center. The July 7 posting shows that the soil in much of north and east Georgia is “abnormally dry.” That’s the first step on a scale that measures the severity of drought conditions. Kent Frantz is a hydrologist for the National Weather Service in Peachtree City. He says just after state officials declared an end to the three year drought, it got hot and dry in Georgia for 30 days. “The state drought committee, I think, officially declared the drought over on about June 12 and just seems like it shut off the next day,” Frantz says. He adds that since July 7, Georgia has gone back to it’s normal summer pattern of afternoon thunderstorms. Frantz says he expects normal soil conditions to return by fall.
(yeah, right – its fall – it flooded – what is normal about any of it?
Georgia State – drought, floods, Lake Lanier, Corps of Engineers from hell, Atlanta drinking water, Georgia dams, climate change, global warming, bizarre weather events
Finally, one other anoxic zone. The Saanich Inlet on Vancouver Island, Canada, has a “sill” near the mouth of the inlet, about 70 meters deep, which restricts the exchange of water from the Pacific Ocean and the bottom of the inlet. For the same reasons given above, the bottom waters of the Saanich below 100 meters are also anoxic, and sediments from the Saanich have been studied to provide information about changing environmental conditions on the western coast of Canada. The Saanich sediments are particularly valuable because the have annual layers (varves). The study of the Saanich sediments can be compared to tree rings from trees over 12,000 years old that were found in a nearby lake.
question: why does water continue to flow through 
