Aerial photographs of land
surrounding the millennium pipeline north of Sullivan County, NY show sweeping
tracts of largely unspoiled forest. They are ecologically important for several
species including neo-tropical migrant birds that travel from South America to
breeding habitats in the northern latitudes, bald eagles, and the endangered
timber rattlesnake.
Polluters who contaminate drinking water and make people sick shouldn't get off easy. That has been the focus of my work for two decades, and I'm not planning to stop now.
My work focused the attention of the world on a carcinogen called hexavalent chromium (hex chrome). In 1996, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. - a multibillion-dollar corporation - paid $333 million in damages to the people of Hinkley for contaminating their drinking water and covering up the problem for decades while people got sick and died. This victory was immortalized in film. But the story doesn't end there.
Tomorrow is World Food Day and since I can't invite you all over
for dinner, I thought I'd serve up a smorgasbord of facts and figures about the
way the US
and the world eat or don't eat, as the case may be.
If Iowa hadn't exercised good judgment and supported Barack Obama in the caucuses nearly two years ago, I wouldn't have awakened in my Des Moines hotel last week and felt as grateful as I did.
For on the front page of the Des Moines Register last Thursday was the announcement that should have been made years ago. The Obama administration's Environmental Protection Agency is taking a U-turn and plans a yearlong investigation into the safety of the second most commonly used herbicide in the nation: atrazine.
MASONTOWN, Pa. - For years, residents here complained about the yellow smoke pouring from the tall chimneys of the nearby coal-fired
power plant, which left a film on their cars and pebbles of coal waste
in their yards.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation's long awaited plan for
drilling in the Marcellus Shale was just released. The Shale, which
stretches from Ohio to New York is believed to be the country's largest
remaining reservoir of natural gas. Drilling has begun in Pennsylvania
and West Virginia and there have already been reports of contaminated wells.
Great Lakes water levels could drop by up to two feet by the turn of the century as temperatures rise, according to a recent series of reports released by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The water decline is a response to global climate change, according to the report by the group of scientists and citizens that advocates for science-based solutions to environmental problems. Warming temperatures reduce ice cover and increase evaporation. Lake Huron and Lake Michigan are projected to have the greatest changes.
BALAWAS, INDIA - Chatan Singh, a farmer in the village of Balawas in Haryana, India, has planted two crops in his fields since June, but both have failed because of the scanty monsoon. A few years ago this would have been unthinkable because tube wells and a nearby canal could have made up for any shortfall in rain. But the canal recently ran dry and the wells are suddenly spewing out unusable saline water. When this year's rains went truant, Chatan's crops withered, leaving the father of eight deep in debt.
Pam Hartwell-Herrero is making sure she washes her family's clothes when the olive tree, rhubarb and coffee berries in her front yard look thirsty.
Why?
Hartwell-Herrero and a team of fellow water conservation enthusiasts recently installed a "laundry to landscape" graywater system at her 1960s Fairfax bungalow. It took most of a day to attach a special valve, punch a hole in her garage wall and set up the pipes leading from her washing machine to the garden.
But now, every time Hartwell-Herrero fires up a load of whites, the plants perk up.
RAMALLAH - The International Committee of the Red Cross has warned that Gaza's access to safe supply of drinking water could cease at any time. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says outbreaks of disease could be triggered as a consequence.
The warnings follow a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report Monday that "Gaza's underground water system is in danger of collapse after recent conflict compounded by years of overuse and contamination."
