Coal ash kills

September 2, 2014September 15, 2014 ~ susie

But I’m sure Gov. Corbett would never do anything that might put people at risk, right? Ha ha, just kidding!

A report released by human rights groups in Pennsylvania on Tuesday questions whether cancer rates and other serious health ailments among inmates at a maximum security state prison are connected to an adjacent coal waste dump. If so, the breach of environmental justice could necessitate shutting down the prison, they say.

The State Correctional Institution-Fayette is located in LaBelle, a rural Pennsylvania town that is also home to a 506-acre coal ash dump that contains about 40 million tons of waste, two coal slurry ponds, and millions of cubic yards of coal combustion waste, owned and operated by Matt Canestrale Contracting. The Canestrale facility receives coal ash waste — known to contain mercury, lead, arsenic, hexavalent chromium, cadmium, boron, and thallium — from coal-fired plants throughout the region.

The investigation, “No Escape: Exposure to Toxic Coal Waste at State Correctional Institution Fayette” (pdf), documents health problems — respiratory, throat, and sinus conditions; skin irritation, rashes, and hives; gastrointestinal problems; and cancers — among inmates at SCI-Fayette. In interviews and correspondence with researchers, over 80 percent of prisoners reported respiratory, throat, or sinus issues, such as nose bleeds, shortness of breath, and lung infections; 68 percent reported gastrointestinal problems; and more than half described skin conditions like rashes or hives. Between January 2010 and December 2013, 17 prisoners died while at SCI-Fayette; 11 of those deaths were due to cancer.

The report states that Matt Canestrale Contracting, which has owned and operated the dump since 1997, is in “perpetual violation” of the Air Pollution Control Act: “Ash is regularly seen blowing off the site or out of haul trucks and collecting on the houses of local residents as well as the prison grounds at SCI-Fayette.” The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency does not currently classify coal ash as hazardous waste.

H/t OFAC Lawyer Kaveh Miremadi.

Read on, MacDuff

September 2, 2014September 15, 2014 ~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Chris Hedges on the last gasp of climate change liberals:

The climate change march in New York on Sept. 21, expected to draw as many as 200,000 people, is one of the last gasps of conventional liberalism’s response to the climate crisis. It will take place two days before the actual gathering of world leadersin New York called by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to discuss the November 2015 U.N. Climate Conference in Paris. The marchers will dutifully follow the route laid down by the New York City police. They will leave Columbus Circle, on West 59th Street and Eighth Avenue, at 11:30 a.m. on a Sunday and conclude on 11th Avenue between West 34th and

38th streets. No one will reach the United Nations, which is located on the other side of Manhattan, on the East River beyond First Avenue—at least legally. There will be no speeches. There is no list of demands. It will be a climate-themed street fair.

The march, because its demands are amorphous, can be joined by anyone. This is intentional. But as activist Anne Petermannhas pointed out, this also means some of the groups backing the march are little more than corporate fronts. The Climate Group, for example, which endorses the march, includes among its members and sponsors BP, China Mobile, Dow Chemical Co., Duke Energy, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Greenstone. The Environmental Defense Fund, which says it “work[s] with companies rather than against them” and which is calling on its members to join the march, has funding from the oil and gas industry and supports fracking as a form of alternative energy. These faux environmental organizations are designed to neutralize resistance. And their presence exposes the march’s failure to adopt a meaningful agenda or pose a genuine threat to power.

Our only hope comes from radical groupsdescending on New York to carry out direct action, including Global Climate Convergenceand Popular Resistance. March if you want. But it should be the warm-up. The real fight will come once people disperse on 11th Avenue.

“The march is symbolic,” said Kevin Zeese of Popular Resistance when I reached him by phone, “but we are past the time of symbolism. What we need is direct action against the United Nations during the meeting. This should include blockades and disruption of the meeting itself. We need to highlight the fact that the United Nations has sold out to corporate interests. At U.N. meetings on climate change you see corporate logos on display. During the last meeting on climate change in Poland, the U.N. held a simultaneous conference to promote coal as a clean energy source. These U.N. meetings have become corporate trade shows where discussions on climate are hijacked to promote corporate interests. Barack Obama has announced he will continue the U.S. stance of only calling for voluntary climate goals in advance of the upcoming climate summit in Paris next year.”

Continue reading “Read on, MacDuff” →

Tidal power!

August 25, 2014August 25, 2014 ~ susie ~ 1 Comment

These are the kinds of things you can get done, once you’ve acknowledged there’s an actual problem:

Scotland is building what it calls the world’s biggest tidal array in the Pentland Firth in northern Scotland, the country’s government announced last week.

Once built, the tidal array is projected to provide enough electricity to power 175,000 homes, and will also create up to 100 jobs. Construction is slated to begin later this year, and the first phase will install four 1.5-megawatt turbines that will start supplying power to the grid in 2016. Overall, the project will involve installing up to 269 turbines on the seafloor, which will capture the energy of ocean tides.

“This innovative and exciting project puts Scotland and the U.K. on the map as a global leader in marine technology – meaning jobs, better energy security and the potential to export this technology to the world,” U.K. Energy Secretary Ed Davey said in a statement. “The project also shows what can be done when the U.K. and Scottish Governments work together to provide a lasting benefit for the people of Scotland.”

The U.K. is hoping to replace a fifth of its aging coal and gas plants with renewable energy by 2020. According to the government, the U.K. has about 50 percent of Europe’s energy tidal energy resources, and if developed fully, wave and tidal stream energy could meet 20 percent of the U.K.’s demand for power. Already, Scotland is home to the world’s firstcommercial wave power generator, and the government estimates that marine-based renewable energy like tidal arrays could one day power 750,000 homes in Scotland.

Who would have thought

August 21, 2014August 20, 2014 ~ susie ~ 1 Comment

That deregulating the movement of hazardous substances would be so… hazardous?

Today the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) released its final report on the July 6th, 2013 train derailment in Lac-Megantic, Quebec. The report produced a strong reaction from Keith Stewart, Greenpeace Canada’s Climate and Energy Campaign coordinator.

“This report is a searing indictment of Transport Canada’s failure to protect the public from a company that they knew was cutting corners on safety despite the fact that it was carrying increasing amounts of hazardous cargo. This lax approach to safety has allowed the unsafe transport of oil by rail to continue to grow even after the Lac Megantic disaster. It is time for the federal government to finally put community safety ahead of oil and rail company profits or we will see more tragedies, Stewart said.”

Throughout the report there is ample evidence to support Stewart’s position and plenty to show why the people of Lac-Megantic want the CEO of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway (MMA), the rail company responsible for the accident, held accountable in place of the engineer and other low level employees currently facing charges.

At the press conference for the release of the report the TSB representatives often noted that they had found 18 factors that contributed to the actual crash and they were not willing to assign blame to anyone, claiming that wasn’t their role.

But several critical factors stand out and they are the result of MMA putting profits ahead of safety and Transport Canada (TC), the Canadian regulators responsible for overseeing rail safety, failing to do its job.

Red tide expanding

August 12, 2014August 11, 2014 ~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Our ecosystem is out of balance as the water temperatures warm up. Just think of all the economic displacement that will result from these changes:

TAMPA, Fla. — The largest red-tide bloom seen in Florida in nearly a decade has killed thousands of fish in the Gulf of Mexico and might pose a greater health threat if it washes ashore as expected in the next two weeks, researchers said.

The patchy bloom stretches from the curve of the panhandle to the central Tampa Bay region. It measures approximately 80 miles long by 50 miles wide.

Red tide occurs when naturally occurring algae bloom out of control, producing toxins deadly to fish and other marine life. The odorless chemicals can trigger respiratory distress in people, such as coughing and wheezing.

“It could have large impacts if it were to move inshore,” said Brandon Basino, a spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. “It has been killing a lot of marine species, especially fish, as it waits offshore.”

The agency has received reports of thousands of dead fish, including snappers, groupers, flounders and bull sharks, as well as crabs, eels and octopi. This is the largest bloom seen since 2006.

R.I.P. Terry Greenwood

August 7, 2014August 12, 2014 ~ susie ~ 1 Comment

With the death of Terry Greenwood, farmer and anti-fracking activist, from a rare form of cancer, calls for mandated health research are rising:

Last month, Terry Greenwood, a Pennsylvania farmer whose water had been contaminated by fracking waste, died of cancer. He was 66 and the cause of death was a rare form of brain cancer.

His death drew attention from around the globe in part because Mr. Greenwood was among the first farmers from his state to speak out against the gas industry during the early years of the state’s shale gas rush.

Mr. Greenwood went up against a company called Dominion Energy, which had drilled and fracked a shallow well on his small cattle ranch property under a lease signed by a prior owner in 1921.

In January, 2008, Mr. Greenwood had reported to state officials that his water supplies had turned brown and the water tasted salty. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection subsequently found that the company, whose gas well was drilled 400 feet from the Greenwoods’ water well in 2007, had impacted the Greenwoods’ water. State officials ordered Dominion to temporarily supply the family with drinking water.

Mr. Greenwood’s death was mourned by environmentalists around the world. In London, for example, attendees at a fracking education event recorded video messages for the Greenwood family and raised over $500 for Terry’s survivors.

“Terry Greenwood was one of the most compelling people you could ever listen to,” wrote filmmaker Josh Fox. “There was just something about the way he spoke, there was a decency and a positivity that shone through every word no matter how distressing or disturbing the subject matter was.”

But the story of Mr. Greenwood’s fight against the drilling industry and lax oversight by state regulators does not stop there.
Continue reading “R.I.P. Terry Greenwood” →

That cat’s been hanging off the roof for two years now

August 7, 2014August 7, 2014 ~ susie ~ 5 Comments

Remember my joke about “the cat’s on the roof”? TEPCO and the Japanese government was so obviously lying, I couldn’t believe how I was attacked by readers over at the other site for “fearmongering”:

The meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant’s third reactor building was even worse than initially believed, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) has announced.

In fact, the power company’s new appraisal of the Fukushima No. 3 reactor building shows that all – or nearly all – of the fuel rods contained inside were melted, dropping onto the floor of the containment vessel. If true, the news means the power plant could be even tougher to decommission.

According to the Japan Times, TEPCO first estimated back in November of 2011 that roughly 63 percent of the reactor’s fuel rods had melted.

But TEPCO now believes that after studying conditions surrounding the fuel core, the reactor’s cooling system stopped functioning more than five hours earlier than previously estimated. As a result, the meltdown would have started around that same time period.

As reported by the Yomiuri Shimbun, it is possible that with more nuclear fuel resting in the containment vessel than originally estimated, removing it will require even more careful planning.

“As the core meltdown is now believed to have started earlier than was previously thought, the amount of melted nuclear fuel that passed into the containment vessel through the pressure vessel is considered to have been greater, making it technically more difficult to extract the melted fuel and dispose of it,” the newspaper stated.

Despite the new findings, however, TEPCO spokesman Shinichi Kawamura said the company is still hoping to find some fuel that had not melted down.

“We think some fuel still remains at the core part based on the actual plant data,” he said, as quoted by the Japan Times.

NOAA: Alaska fisheries and communities at risk from ocean acidification…

July 30, 2014 ~ Boohunney ~ 1 Comment

The NOAA has released a study on the acidification of the oceans and the impacts it will have on Alaska’s coast. The predictions are very grim…

What is ocean acidification?

When carbon dioxide dissolves in this ocean, carbonic acid is formed. This leads to higher acidity, mainly near the surface, which has been proven to inhibit shell growth in marine animals and is suspected as a cause of reproductive disorders in some fish…

On the pH scale, which runs from 0 to 14, solutions with low numbers are considered acidic and those with higher numbers are basic. Seven is neutral. Over the past 300 million years, ocean pH has been slightly basic, averaging about 8.2. Today, it is around 8.1, a drop of 0.1 pH units, representing a 25-percent increase in acidity over the past two centuries.

If the pH in these water continues to drop it will have a devastating effect on the very structure of shellfish, crabs and other marine life…

Ocean acidification decreases the availability of carbonate, a material that thousands of species of sea creatures use to form calcium carbonate shells. Without it, we’ll see an epidemic of “global osteoporosis“: shells that are extremely thin and brittle, or that totally dissolve.

Indeed, this threat extends to the majority of the commercial fishing industry: clams, oysters, lobsters and, yes, crabs all depend on their calcium carbonate shells for survival. Larger marine life, such as seals, otters and walruses who eat shellfish, are also in danger.

The result of all this could be many of the shell fish species and salmon fisheries may not survive and scientists are unsure how much longer this fragile area will support these species…

“The scary thing is that we don’t know the answer to that question yet,” says NOAA oceanographer Jeremy Mathis. “The potential is certainly there for it to be a rapid event, literally overnight. Whether that’s a slow degradation of the fisheries over decades, or whether a species is there one year and isn’t the next, we still don’t know that. That’s what I’m most concerned about.”

The predicted economic outcomes for Alaska’s seafood industry are devastating, to say the least. Another issue is that many Alaskans depend on subsistence fisheries…

The research presented in the new study examines the potential effects on a state where the fishing industry supports over 100,000 jobs and generates more than $5 billion in annual revenue and helps maintain the U.S. balance of trade in the global economy. Additionally, approximately 120,000 people or roughly 17 percent of Alaskans rely on subsistence fisheries for most, if not all of their dietary protein. Fishery-related tourism also brings in $300 million annually.

“Ocean acidification is not just an ecological problem — it’s an economic problem,” said Steve Colt, Ph.D., co-author of the study and an economist at the University of Alaska Anchorage. “The people of coastal Alaska, who have always looked to the sea for sustenance and prosperity, will be most affected. But all Alaskans need to understand how and where ocean acidification threatens our marine resources so that we can work together to address the challenges and maintain healthy and productive coastal communities.”

Fukushima fallout

July 25, 2014July 24, 2014 ~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Can’t imagine what it’s doing to children:

Wild monkeys in the Fukushima region of Japan have blood abnormalities linked to the radioactive fall-out from the 2011 nuclear power plant disaster, according to a new scientific study that may help increase the understanding of radiation on human health.

The Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) were found to have low white and red blood cell levels and low haemoglobin, which the researchers say could make them more prone to infectious diseases.

[…] “This first data from non-human primates — the closest taxonomic relatives of humans — should make a notable contribution to future research on the health effects of radiation exposure in humans,” he said. The work, which ruled out disease or malnutrition as a cause of the low blood counts, is published in the peer-reviewed journal Scientific Reports.

White blood cell counts were lowest for immature monkeys with the highest caesium concentrations, suggesting younger monkeys may be more vulnerable to radioactive contamination. Hayama noted: “Abnormalities such as a decreased blood cell count in people living in contaminated areas have been reported from Chernobyl as a long-term effect of low-dose radiation exposure.” But other blood measures did not correlate with caesium levels, which vary with the seasons.

$500 fine

July 16, 2014July 15, 2014 ~ susie ~ 4 Comments

My friends in California say nobody was really taking it seriously, so I’m glad they imposed the fine:

It will now be considered a criminal act to waste water in California.

On Tuesday, amid evidence that existing conservation measures are not working, the State Water Resources Control Board took the unprecedented step to declare certain types of water waste a criminal infraction similar to a speeding violation. The move means that certain types of water waste – allowing landscape watering to spill into streets, hosing off sidewalks and driveways – can be subject to fines of $500 per day.

Californians as a whole have failed to conserve water during the worst drought in a generation, according to data reviewed by the board at its meeting in Sacramento.

The state as a whole consumed 1 percent more water in May compared to a three-year average of the same month from 2011 to 2013, according to a recent survey of 276 water agencies representing about two-thirds of all California residents.