NewsTrust - Water - Most Recent Stories: News (Independent)

Keystone Pipeline Facts

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

readersupportednews.org - By Robert Redford - Feb. 10 (News Analysis) - 'Joe Nocera's op-ed in the New York Times yesterday deserves a response and a reiteration of the facts surrounding the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. ...Let's put the rhetoric aside, and simply focus on the facts. Nocera wants us to believe that approving this pipeline is a matter of national security. ... The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would not make the United States of America safer. Why? It would not make us safer, because the majority of the processed oil was already scheduled for export to foreign countries. That's right, this Keystone XL pipeline's Canadian tar sands oil would have

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Parkinson's Alley

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Sierra Club - By Joy Horowitz - Dec. 20 (News Report) - Recent studies have found statistical links between pesticide use and an outbreak of Parkinson's disease in California farm towns. Researchers even know which chemicals are the likely culprits. What's the government doing about it? Not much.

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Canadian Activists Barred From Durban Summit for Protesting Environment Minister

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Dec. 07 (News Report) - Soon after Kent began speaking, six members of the Canadian Youth Delegation stood up and turned their backs on the minister. They were taken out of the room and later stripped of their credentials to the climate change conference. "Today, six of us stood up and turned our backs on the government of Canada, in the same way the government of Canada has turned its back on us," says activist Karen Rooney. "We are calling on the government of Canada to start putting the interests of people over the interests of polluters."

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White House Could Cast Decisive Vote to Permit 20,000 Fracking Wells in Delaware River Basin

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Nov. 11 (News Report) - This week the Delaware River Basin Commission released draft regulations to allow for the natural gas drilling technique hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, in the river's watershed, which provides water to 15.6 million people in New York City, Philadelphia and New Jersey. The proposed plan would allow for some 20,000 gas wells to be developed in the watershed. A vote on the regulations is set for Nov. 21 and could prompt a battle between activists and the White House, which holds a seat on the commission and may cast the deciding vote. We speak with Josh Fox, whose documentary about fracking, "Gasland," was nominated for an Academy Award, and play an excerpt of his new video about the possible impacts natural gas fracking could have in the Delaware River Basin. [includes rush transcript]

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Debate on Fracking: Was Syracuse Right to Ban the Controversial Natural Gas Drilling Process?

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Nov. 04 (News Analysis) - Syracuse... recently became the third city in New York state to ban the natural gas drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing or fracking. The Syracuse Common Council voted unanimously last week to ban fracking within city limits. They also voted to limit where wastewater from the fracking process can be stored. Fracking is controversial because it injects millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals deep into the earth in order to break up shale rock and release natural gas. Many feel this extraction process raises a myriad of human health and environmental issues.

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The Fracking Industry's War on the Truth

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - Oct. 21 (News Analysis) - Superb investigative journalism by the New York Times has brought the paper under attack by the natural gas industry. That campaign of intimidation and obfuscation has been orchestrated by top-shelf players like Exxon and Chesapeake, aligned with the industry's worst bottom feeders. This coalition has launched an impressive propaganda effort carried by slick PR firms, industry-funded front groups and a predictable cabal of right-wing industry toadies from cable TV and talk radio. In pitting itself against public disclosure and reasonable regulation, the natural gas industry is once again proving that it is its own worst enemy.

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Federal Government Asks Judge To Dismiss New York State Fracking Lawsuit

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

desmogblog.com - By Farron Cousins - Aug. 04 (News Report) - The U.S. government is asking a federal judge in New York to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the state of New York against the government that was seeking to demand a complete review of the environmental damage caused by hydraulic fracturing (fracking). The federal government claims that New York state does not have the grounds to file a suit as they have “no evidence” of injury and they do not have the authority to sue the federal government.

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After BP's Oily Assault, Fishermen Struggle to Survive

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Rocky Kistner, - Jul. 18 (News Report) - 'The oil is not gone; it keeps coming in places like Grand Isle, LA, and Biloxi,MS, rolling in with the tides as globs of tar balls and sheen. Louisiana beaches near Port Fouchon and parts of the rich fishing grounds in Barataria Bay remain still closed due to oil contamination.'

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US ConocoPhillips' China Oil Spill Six Times Size of Singapore

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - Jul. 18 (News Report) - 'A huge oil spill off the Chinese coast has now contaminated an area around six times the size of Singapore.... The spill from the oil field, which the United States' ConocoPhillips operates with China's state-run oil giant CNOOC, has polluted a total area of almost 4,250 square kilometers (1,650 square miles).'

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Climate Change and Disaster in Montana

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Naomi Klein, - Jul. 17 (News Analysis) - 'So the flooding may have caused the pipeline spill. But here is the really uncomfortable question: Did the pipeline cause the flooding? Not this one particular pipeline, of course, but all the pipelines, and all the coal trains, and all the refineries and the power plants they supply?'

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Melissa Harris-Perry to Rachel Maddow: GOP Clean Water Act Cut Preys on Ailing State Economies Desperate for Corporate Income

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - Jul. 16 (News Analysis) - Rachel Maddow and Melissa Harris-Perry discussed the GOP's vote to gut the Clean Water Act—which, as Maddow details, keeps our rivers from lighting on fire with pollution as in the '60s, among other things. But they argue that the move wasn't simply a vote against both the people and the environment—it was a vote for big corporations who stand to benefit from states who are "hemorrhaging" money, "willingly allowing polluters to come in,"

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Yellowstone Oil Spill Prompts Evacuations

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Matthew Brown - Jul. 03 (News Report) - Hundreds of barrels of crude oil spilled into Montana's Yellowstone River after an ExxonMobil pipeline beneath the riverbed ruptured, sending a plume 25 miles downstream and forcing temporary evacuations, officials said. The break near Billings in south-central Montana fouled the riverbank and forced municipalities and irrigation districts Saturday to close intakes. The river has no dams on its way to its confluence with the Missouri River just across the Montana border in North Dakota. It was unclear how far the plume might travel.

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New Exposé Reveals Nuclear Regulatory Commission Colluded with Industry to Weaken Safety Standards

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Jun. 29 (News Report) - Three U.S. senators have called for a congressional probe on safety issues at the nation’s aging nuclear plants following a pair of new exposés. In a special series called “Aging Nukes,” the Associated Press revealed that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the nuclear power industry have been working in tandem to weaken safety standards to keep aging reactors within the rules. Just last year, the NRC weakened the safety margin for acceptable radiation damage to reactor vessels.

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Japan Nuclear Plant A 'Ticking Time Bomb,' Says Physicist

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - Jun. 22 (News Report) - Though global fears about radiation emissions from the heavily damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility have calmed in the weeks since Japan's devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami, famed physicist Michio Kaku insists the situation remains a "ticking time bomb." A professor of theoretical physics at the City University of New York and the City College of New York, Kaku discussed some recent revelations about the disaster's impact, and noted that Japanese officials still don't yet have control at the site.

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Tree rings record changing snowpack, research finds

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Billings Gazette - By Brett French - Jun. 18 (News Report) - Greg Pederson sees the recent publication of his research on snowpack declines in the West as a prime opportunity to reiterate the difference between climate and weather in this record-setting wet spring. Pederson, an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Bozeman, was the lead author of a paper published last week in Science magazine detailing the decline in snowpack observed by examining tree rings from the watersheds of the Columbia, Missouri and Colorado river basins dating back more than 800 years. His findings: Not only has snowpack declined compared to past climate fluctuations, but there's also been a "decoupling" of precipitation in the Colorado River basin and that of the Northern Rockies.

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As Japan Nuclear Crisis Worsens Citizen-led Radiation Monitors Pressure Govt to Increase Evacuations

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Jun. 10 (News Report) - Almost three months after the earthquake and tsunami that triggered a nuclear disaster in Japan, new radiation "hot spots" may require the evacuation of more areas further from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility. Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency recently admitted for the first time that full nuclear meltdowns occurred at three of the plant’s reactors, and more than doubled its estimate for the amount of radiation that leaked from the plant in the first week of the disaster in March. “What they failed to mention is that they discharged an equally large amount into the ocean,” says our guest Robert Alvarez, former senior policy adviser to the U.S. Secretary of Energy. “As [the radiation] goes up the food chain, it accumulates, and by the time it reaches people who consume this food, the levels are higher than they originally were when they entered the environment.” We also go to Tokyo to speak with Aileen Mioko Smith, executive director of the group Green Action. She says citizens are leading their own monitoring efforts and calling for additional evacuations, especially for young children and pregnant women.

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Contaminated compost? Toxins might be lurking in that bag you’re about to buy

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Grist - By Tom Laskawy. - Jun. 08 (Special Report) - by Tom Laskawy. Do you know what’s in your compost? The growing number of municipal and commercial composting operations has been one of the few bright spots in the environmental landscape, from San Francisco’s curbside composting service to this industrial-scale composting facility in Delaware . But Josh Harkinson in Mother Jones has harshed our green-tinged buzz. Thanks to fractured or lax regulations as well as the ubiquitous contamination of our environment by industrial chemicals (particularly heavy metals and pesticides), there’s a distressingly real risk of toxic chemicals making it into commercial and municipal compost. And it’s a particular problem for organic growers: Pesticide-laced compost has presented a quandary for the USDA’s National Organic Program ever since California regulators traced residues of dichlorophenyl-dichloroethylene, a breakdown product of DDT, and bifenthrin, an ant killer, to compost in pots of organic wheatgrass in Northern ...

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Sandra Steingraber on the Health Crisis Surrounding Natural Gas Extraction

Fri, 27 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez, Sandra Steingraber - May. 27 (News Report) - About 30 states allow hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” the natural gas drilling process that injects millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals deep into the earth in order to break up shale rock and release natural gas. New York has imposed a partial moratorium on the drilling process pending the outcome of an environmental impact study this July. Yesterday, New York state lawmakers held a hearing on the health impacts of fracking, an issue that until now has received little media attention. We talk with Sandra Steingraber, a biologist who testified at the hearing. She is author of "Raising Elijah: Protecting Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis."

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Factory Farms Produce 100 Times More Waste Than All People In the US Combined and It's Killing Our Drinking Water |

Wed, 25 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Jill Richardson - May. 25 (Special Report) - These are not hypothetical scenarios. Just ask Rick Dove, an ex-Marine who serves as a Riverkeeper on his beloved Neuse River in North Carolina. After retiring from the Marines, he lived his dream of becoming a small-scale commercial fisherman on the river briefly -- until enormous hog operations moved in, each producing as much waste as a town of 20,000 people, and their waste killed the fish.

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Senate Republicans Introduce Bill to Abolish the EPA

Fri, 06 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Brad Johnson - May. 06 (News Report) - Senate Republicans have introduced legislation to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency, established 40 years ago by President Richard Nixon to give Americans clean air and water. The bill, introduced by Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), would merge the EPA, which enforces environmental laws, with the Department of Energy, which manages nuclear energy and energy research, into one department.

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State bans coal tar sealants in big win for foes

Thu, 05 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

MSN.com - By Robert McClure - May. 05 (News Report) - Washington state has become the first in the nation to ban toxic asphalt sealants made from cancer-causing industrial waste that have been spread over vast swaths of the nation’s cities and suburbs. The toxic ingredients in coal tar-based sealants are turning up in ordinary house dust as well as in streams, lakes and other waterways at levels that concern government researchers. The chemicals have been found in driveways at concentrations that could require treatment by moon-suited environmental technicians if detected at similar levels at a toxic-waste cleanup site. The sealants are also applied on playgrounds and parking lots.

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Population: One Planet, Too Many People?

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

imeche.org - May. 01 (Special Report) - By 2100, the global human population may reach 9.5 billion with 75% of these people located within urban settlements. Meeting the needs and demands of these people will provide significant challenges to governments and society at large, and the engineering profession in particular. Four key areas in which population growth and expanding affluence will significantly challenge society are: food, water, urbanisation and energy.

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The End Of Disposing Fracking Waste Into Rivers?

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Marc Levy - Apr. 25 (News Report) - -- Pennsylvania's top environmental regulator says he is confident that the natural gas industry is just weeks away from ending one of its more troubling environmental practices: the discharge of vast amounts of polluted brine into rivers used for drinking water.

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'Fracking' Injected Millions Of Gallons Of Carcinogens Into Wells, Report Says

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - Apr. 17 (News Report) - Millions of gallons of potentially hazardous chemicals and known carcinogens were injected into wells by leading oil and gas service companies from 2005-2009, a report by three House Democrats said Saturday. The report said 29 of the chemicals injected were known-or-suspected human carcinogens. They either were regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act as risks to human health or listed as hazardous air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.

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Fukushima Reactors Are a "Ticking Time Bomb," Japanese Govt in Denial

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Amy Goodman - Apr. 14 (News Analysis) - radiation is continuing to leak out of the reactors. The situation is not stable at all. So, you’re looking at basically a ticking time bomb. It appears stable, but the slightest disturbance—a secondary earthquake, a pipe break, evacuation of the crew at Fukushima—could set off a full-scale meltdown at three nuclear power stations, far beyond what we saw at Chernobyl.

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