Archive for the 'Environment' Category
Agent Orange Being Used to Clear Rainforrest in Brazil
July 7th, 2011Via: Treehugger: Agent Orange is one of the most devastating weapons of modern warfare, a chemical which killed or injured an estimated 400,000 people during the Vietnam War — and now it’s being used against the Amazon rainforest. According to officials, ranchers in Brazil have begun spraying the highly toxic herbicide over patches of forest […]
Huge Rare Earth Deposits Found in Pacific
July 4th, 2011Update: Map on Io9 See: A map of future undersea mining facilities. —End Update— Via: Reuters: Vast deposits of rare earth minerals, crucial in making high-tech electronics products, have been found on the floor of the Pacific Ocean and can be readily extracted, Japanese scientists said on Monday. “The deposits have a heavy concentration of […]
Montana: Ruptured Pipeline Spills ‘Unknown’ Amount of Oil Into Yellowstone River
July 3rd, 2011Via: New York Times: An ExxonMobil pipeline running under the Yellowstone River in south central Montana ruptured late Friday, spilling crude oil into the river and forcing evacuations. The pipeline burst about 10 miles east of Billings, coating parts of the Yellowstone River that run past Laurel — a town of about 6,500 people downstream […]
Earthquake Caused Structural Damage at Fukushima Plant Before Tsunami Hit
July 3rd, 2011This piece includes interviews with workers who saw severe damage to reactor facilities that was caused by the quake itself, before the tsunami hit. Via: Atlantic Wire: It’s been one of the mysteries of Japan’s ongoing nuclear disaster: How much of the damage did the March 11 earthquake inflict on Fukushima Daiichi’s reactors in the […]
Toshiso Kosako: Come the Harvest Season in the Fall, There Will Be Chaos
July 2nd, 2011You probably know that rice has semi religious significance throughout Asia, but you may not know that Japanese are particularly weird about their rice. To Japanese, it’s not really rice unless it’s rice from Japan. In order to avoid international trade sanctions, Japan imports rice, but the rice is generally not consumed in Japan. Most […]
Methane Contamination of Drinking Water Accompanying Gas-Well Drilling and Hydraulic Fracturing
June 29th, 2011Via: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Directional drilling and hydraulic-fracturing technologies are dramatically increasing natural-gas extraction. In aquifers overlying the Marcellus and Utica shale formations of northeastern Pennsylvania and upstate New York, we document systematic evidence for methane contamination of drinking water associated with shale-gas extraction. In active gas-extraction areas (one or more […]
‘Flying Lab’ to Monitor Smoke Near New Mexico Nuclear Lab
June 29th, 2011Via: Atlanta Journal Constitution / AP: Federal environment officials have dispatched a special twin-engine plane capable of detecting chemical and radiological materials as a wildfire continues to burn near a government nuclear laboratory in northern New Mexico.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Intentionally Flooded Farmland, Now Offering to Buy It
June 28th, 2011Via: KMBC: Some river bottom property owners say they received a letter from the Army Corps of Engineers’ Kansas City district office asking them if they want to sell their land. KMBC’s Micheal Mahoney reported that the letter is angering some of the people who received it because some of them are fighting for their […]
Wildfire Spreads to Within One Mile of Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Lab
June 28th, 2011Update: 30,000 55-gallon Drums of Plutonium-Contaminated Waste, Stored in Fabric Tents Above Ground [???] Via: AP: The anti-nuclear watchdog group Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, however, said the fire appeared to be about 3 1/2 miles from a dumpsite where as many as 30,000 55-gallon drums of plutonium-contaminated waste were stored in fabric tents above […]
Fukushima Residents’ Urine Now Radioactive
June 27th, 2011Via: Japan Times: More than 3 millisieverts of radiation has been measured in the urine of 15 Fukushima residents of the village of Iitate and the town of Kawamata, confirming internal radiation exposure, it was learned Sunday. Both are about 30 to 40 km from the Fukushima No. 1 power plant, which has been releasing […]
