tagged w/ EPA
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Immense thanks to "misti," who brought to my attention this article, which I'd like to now copy and paste right here, so you all can see it...
http://blogs.forbes.com/jeffmcmahon/2011/04/07/how-to-remove-radioactive-iodine-131-from-drinking-water/
Jeff McMahon
The Ingenuity of the Commons
How To Remove Radioactive Iodine-131 From Drinking Water
Apr. 7 2011 - 9:03 am
IPhoto: mage of a water drop - Photo by spettacolopuro via flickr
The Environmental Protection Agency recommends reverse osmosis water treatment to remove radioactive isotopes that emit beta-particle radiation. But iodine-131, a beta emitter, is typically present in water as a dissolved gas, and reverse osmosis is known to be ineffective at capturing gases.
A combination of technologies, however, may remove most or all of the iodine-131 that finds its way into tap water, all available in consumer products for home water treatment.
First, the standard disclaimers: Every government agency involved in radiation monitoring—the EPA, FDA, USDA, NRC, CDC, etc.—has stressed that the radiation now reaching the United States has been found at levels thousands of times lower than standards of health concern. When it found iodine-131 in drinking water samples from Boise, Idaho and Richland, Washington this weekend, the EPA declared:
An infant would have to drink almost 7,000 liters of this water to receive a radiation dose equivalent to a day’s worth of the natural background radiation exposure we experience continuously from natural sources of radioactivity in our environment.”
But not everyone accepts the government’s reassurances. Notably, Physicians for Social Responsibility has insisted there is no safe level of exposure to radionuclides, regardless of the fact that we encounter them naturally:
There is no safe level of radionuclide exposure, whether from food, water or other sources. Period,” said Jeff Patterson, DO, immediate past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “Exposure to radionuclides, such as iodine-131 and cesium-137, increases the incidence of cancer. For this reason, every effort must be taken to minimize the radionuclide content in food and water.”
via Physicians for Social Responsibility, psr.org
No matter where you stand on that debate, you might be someone who simply prefers not to ingest anything that escaped from a damaged nuclear reactor. If so, here’s what we know:
Reverse Osmosis
The EPA recommends reverse osmosis water treatment for most kinds of radioactive particles. Iodine-131 emits a small amount of gamma radiation but much larger amounts of beta radiation, and so is considered a beta emitter:
Reverse osmosis has been identified by EPA as a “best available technology” (BAT) and Small System Compliance Technology (SSCT) for uranium, radium, gross alpha, and beta particles and photon emitters. It can remove up to 99 percent of these radionuclides, as well as many other contaminants (e.g., arsenic, nitrate, and microbial contaminants). Reverse osmosis units can be automated and compact making them appropriate for small systems.
via EPA, Radionuclides in Drinking Water
However, EPA designed its recommendations for the contaminants typically found in municipal water systems, so it doesn’t specify Iodine-131 by name. The same document goes on to say, “Reverse osmosis does not remove gaseous contaminants such as carbon dioxide and radon.”
Iodine-131 escapes from damaged nuclear plants as a gas, and this is why it disperses so quickly through the atmosphere. It is captured as a gas in atmospheric water, falls to the earth in rain and enters the water supply.
This is what happened in Boise, Idaho, where iodine-131 was found in rainwater samples last week and then in drinking water samples a few days later.
Reverse osmosis works by forcing water through material with very tiny pores—as tiny as .0001 microns—so that almost nothing except water emerges on the other side. Almost nothing.
“Dissolved gases and materials that readily turn into gases also can easily pass through most reverse osmosis membranes,” according to the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension. For this reason, “many reverse osmosis units have an activated carbon unit to remove or reduce the concentration of most organic compounds.”
Activated Carbon
That raises the next question: does activated carbon remove iodine-131? There is some evidence that it does. Scientists have used activated carbon to remove iodine-131 from the liquid fuel for nuclear solution reactors. And Carbon air filtration is used by employees of Perkin Elmer, a leading environmental monitoring and health safety firm, when they work with iodine-131 in closed quarters. At least one university has adopted Perkin Elmer’s procedures.
Activated carbon works by absorbing contaminants, and fixing them, as water passes through it. It has a disadvantage, however: it eventually reaches a load capacity and ceases to absorb new contaminants.
Ion Exchange
The EPA also recommends ion exchange for removing radioactive compounds from drinking water. The process used in water softeners, ion exchange removes contaminants when water passes through resins that contain sodium ions. The sodium ions readily exchange with contaminants.
Ion exchange is particularly recommended for removing Cesium-137, which has been found in rain samples in the U.S., but not yet in drinking water here. Some resins have been specifically designed for capturing Cesium-137, and ion exchange was used to clean up legacy nuclear waste from an old reactor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site.
Triple Threat
The best solution may be the one used routinely to treat water at the Savannah River Site. The process combines activated carbon, reverse osmosis, and ion exchange. If one doesn’t get the iodine-131, two others have a chance to capture the radiation through other means.
And that may be the best solution for the average drinker of tap water as well.
Vegetable Contamination
Once you have access to cleaned water, be sure to use it to wash your vegetables. The FDA has not yet begun monitoring U.S. produce for radiation because, the agency says, there is not yet a radiation threat here. The Chinese have been monitoring vegetables, and they’ve urged their citizens to wash their spinach:
The Ministry of Health also issued a statement Wednesday evening saying trace levels of radioactive isotope iodine-131 had been found in spinach planted in the open fields within the three regions.
It is has been proven that washing the spinach with water can effectively remove radioactive materials, the Health Ministry said.
It is believed that recent rains in these regions helped drop the radioactive iodine from the air to the ground, and the radioactive materials fell onto the surface of the spinach, the ministry said.”
via XinhuaImmense thanks to "misti," who brought to my attention this article, which... more
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Many people learned from all the press coverage the Koch's have received lately that much of their income comes from the core oil/energy part of their business... so it was easy to connect the dots between their well financed "climate change denial" front groups and think tanks and the money they poured into GOP coffers. Many even "signed a pledge" to help them neuter EPA rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
The LA Times recently exposed the sheer extent of their buying power.
"Nine of the 12 new Republicans on the panel (House Energy and Commerce Committee) signed a pledge distributed by a Koch-founded advocacy group — Americans for Prosperity — to oppose the Obama administration's proposal to regulate greenhouse gases. Of the six GOP freshman lawmakers on the panel, five benefited from the group's separate advertising and grass-roots activity during the 2010 campaign."
Many are quick to blame "cap & trade" on the "Obama administration", but the history behind early pollution legislation should clear up some misconceptions about when "cap & trade" was started.
"President George H.W. Bush — with broad bipartisan support in both houses of Congress — signed into law sweeping amendments to the Clean Air Act requiring the E.P.A. to take aggressive steps to identify and curb major sources of hazardous air pollution, including emissions from power plants."
And then we get to George Bush in 2000.
"During Mr. Bush’s first term, legislation was developed to create a ****cap-and-trade program**** for mercury, similar to the program that had successfully reduced acid rain pollution in the 1990s."
(1990's - Clinton and his (shutdown the government) GOP controlled Congress)
Bush - Cap & Trade? Who knew?
I know Bush went too easy on the gas drillers (hydraulic fracturing- using a Halliburton patent) in his Clean Water Act in 2005, but the EPA still had some regulatory powers left.
The way the right leaning media is ranting about Cap & Trade you'd think it was ALL Obama's fault.....but if you read the article you'll see that this battle was ongoing for decades and that the EPA was following court orders to do their job.
Whether you lean right or left....if you have children yet or not, there are things in the article that should greatly concern you.
"a comprehensive 1998 report by the E.P.A. conclusively linking mercury emissions from power plants to cognitive harm in developing fetuses"
Mercury in the air, Mercury in the preservative found in childhood vaccinations (Thiomersal) that's been linked to Autism....the scientific evidence is real. Let's not allow our legislators to put the profits of industry before the health of our children.
Support the EPA in doing their job.
Delay in Coal Pollution Rules Took Toll in Lives
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/delay-in-coal-pollution-rules-took-toll-in-lives/Many people learned from all the press coverage the Koch's have received lately... more
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Rep. John Boehner, speaking live, just announced that a budget deal has been reached.
-- Please add news as you see or hear it breaking --Rep. John Boehner, speaking live, just announced that a budget deal has been reached.... more
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The U.S. federal drinking water standard for radioactive Iodine-131 is 3 picocuries per liter, but levels exceeding that by as much as 181 times have been detected in rainwater sampled in California, Idaho, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.
Radioactivity has also been found in milk from Spokane, Washington.
Safe Levels of Radiation?
The government says there is no danger, as these levels (even levels in rainwater above drinking water standards) are "safe". Specifically, they explain that the exposure is only short-term, while federal drinking water standards assume a constant level of radiation over the course of a year.
In addition, not all of the radiation from the rainwater will end up in the drinking water supply. So - say federal and state governments - there is no danger from short-term exposure to such levels of radiation.
But as I pointed out recently:
Physicians for Social Responsibility notes:
According to the National Academy of Sciences, there are no safe doses of radiation. Decades of research show clearly that any dose of radiation increases an individual’s risk for the development of cancer.
“There is no safe level of radionuclide exposure, whether from food, water or other sources. Period,” said Jeff Patterson, DO, immediate past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “Exposure to radionuclides, such as iodine-131 and cesium-137, increases the incidence of cancer. For this reason, every effort must be taken to minimize the radionuclide content in food and water.”
“Consuming food containing radionuclides is particularly dangerous. If an individual ingests or inhales a radioactive particle, it continues to irradiate the body as long as it remains radioactive and stays in the body,”said Alan H. Lockwood, MD, a member of the Board of Physicians for Social Responsibility.
***
Radiation can be concentrated many times in the food chain and any consumption adds to the cumulative risk of cancer and other diseases.
John LaForge notes:
The National Council on Radiation Protection says, “… every increment of radiation exposure produces an incremental increase in the risk of cancer.” The Environmental Protection Agency says, “… any exposure to radiation poses some risk, i.e. there is no level below which we can say an exposure poses no risk.” The Department of Energy says about “low levels of radiation” that “… the major effect is a very slight increase in cancer risk.” The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says, “any amount of radiation may pose some risk for causing cancer ... any increase in dose, no matter how small, results in an incremental increase in risk.” The National Academy of Sciences, in its “Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation VII,” says, “... it is unlikely that a threshold exists for the induction of cancers ....”
Long story short, “One can no longer speak of a ‘safe’ dose level,” as Dr. Ian Fairlie and Dr. Marvin Resnikoff said in their report “No dose too low,” in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
And Brian Moench, MD, writes:
Administration spokespeople continuously claim "no threat" from the radiation reaching the US from Japan, just as they did with oil hemorrhaging into the Gulf. Perhaps we should all whistle "Don't worry, be happy" in unison. A thorough review of the science, however, begs a second opinion.
That the radiation is being released 5,000 miles away isn't as comforting as it seems.... Every day, the jet stream carries pollution from Asian smoke stacks and dust from the Gobi Desert to our West Coast, contributing 10 to 60 percent of the total pollution breathed by Californians, depending on the time of year. Mercury is probably the second most toxic substance known after plutonium. Half the mercury in the atmosphere over the entire US originates in China. It, too, is 5,000 miles away. A week after a nuclear weapons test in China, iodine 131 could be detected in the thyroid glands of deer in Colorado, although it could not be detected in the air or in nearby vegetation.
The idea that a threshold exists or there is a safe level of radiation for human exposure began unraveling in the 1950s when research showed one pelvic x-ray in a pregnant woman could double the rate of childhood leukemia in an exposed baby. Furthermore, the risk was ten times higher if it occurred in the first three months of pregnancy than near the end. This became the stepping-stone to the understanding that the timing of exposure was even more critical than the dose. The earlier in embryonic development it occurred, the greater the risk.
A new medical concept has emerged, increasingly supported by the latest research, called "fetal origins of disease," that centers on the evidence that a multitude of chronic diseases, including cancer, often have their origins in the first few weeks after conception by environmental insults disturbing normal embryonic development. It is now established medical advice that pregnant women should avoid any exposure to x-rays, medicines or chemicals when not absolutely necessary, no matter how small the dose, especially in the first three months.
"Epigenetics" is a term integral to fetal origins of disease, referring to chemical attachments to genes that turn them on or off inappropriately and have impacts functionally similar to broken genetic bonds. Epigenetic changes can be caused by unimaginably small doses - parts per trillion - be it chemicals, air pollution, cigarette smoke or radiation. Furthermore, these epigenetic changes can occur within minutes after exposure and may be passed on to subsequent generations.
The Endocrine Society, 14,000 researchers and medical specialists in more than 100 countries, warned that "even infinitesimally low levels of exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals, indeed, any level of exposure at all, may cause endocrine or reproductive abnormalities, particularly if exposure occurs during a critical developmental window. Surprisingly, low doses may even exert more potent effects than higher doses." If hormone-mimicking chemicals at any level are not safe for a fetus, then the concept is likely to be equally true of the even more intensely toxic radioactive elements drifting over from Japan, some of which may also act as endocrine disruptors.
Many epidemiologic studies show that extremely low doses of radiation increase the incidence of childhood cancers, low birth-weight babies, premature births, infant mortality, birth defects and even diminished intelligence. Just two abdominal x-rays delivered to a male can slightly increase the chance of his future children developing leukemia. By damaging proteins anywhere in a living cell, radiation can accelerate the aging process and diminish the function of any organ. Cells can repair themselves, but the rapidly growing cells in a fetus may divide before repair can occur, negating the body's defense mechanism and replicating the damage.
Comforting statements about the safety of low radiation are not even accurate for adults. Small increases in risk per individual have immense consequences in the aggregate. When low risk is accepted for billions of people, there will still be millions of victims. New research on risks of x-rays illustrate the point.
Radiation from CT coronary scans is considered low, but, statistically, it causes cancer in one of every 270 40-year-old women who receive the scan. Twenty year olds will have double that rate. Annually, 29,000 cancers are caused by the 70 million CT scans done in the US. Common, low-dose dental x-rays more than double the rate of thyroid cancer. Those exposed to repeated dental x-rays have an even higher risk of thyroid cancer....
Continued at:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24147The U.S. federal drinking water standard for radioactive Iodine-131 is 3 picocuries... more
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by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
This week, the House voted to shut down the carbon regulation program at the Environmental Protection Agency, but the Senate rejected four different measures that would have stopped or delayed EPA action. The EPA, as mandated by the Supreme Court, has been moving forward with regulations that would require carbon polluters to apply for EPA permits and to use the best available method to start limiting carbon emissions.
The Office of Management and Budget has promised that if Congress does vote to end the regulation program, “senior advisors would recommend that [the president] veto the bill,” as I report at The American Prospect. But as David Roberts points out at Grist, that does not mean President Obama would follow that course. Roberts writes:
I don’t see a promise there. I see wiggle room where his advisers can “recommend” a veto and he can ignore their recommendations. And of course this leaves aside whether Obama would veto a spending or appropriations bill with an EPA-blocking rider.
Making a better choice
The legislators who are supporting the anti-EPA bill often argue that the power to deal with this issue should rest with them, not the executive branch. But they also argue against the EPA’s regulations on the grounds that they’ll cost American companies money, leading to higher costs for consumers and fewer jobs.
It’s true: Dealing with carbon is expensive. Right now, Americans simply aren’t paying for the damage being done to the atmosphere, and many of us don’t seem to care.
In Orion Magazine, Kathryn Miles writes about this problem in a review of Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril, a new collection of essays on the problem of climate change:
As editors Kathleen Dean Moore and Michael P. Nelson argue in their introduction, neither scientific data nor externally imposed regulation will change hearts and minds — let alone our behavior. “What is missing,” they contend, “is the moral imperative, the conviction that assuring our own comfort at terrible cost to the future is not worthy of us as moral beings.” And so, rather than focus on atmospheric theory and tipping-point statistics, Moral Ground seeks to inspire action through a recognition of our species’ commitment to ethical behavior.
Choices
In some cases, making ethical environmental choices does mean paying more, at least temporarily, for clean energy, for products that create carbon pollution, for gas and oil. But there are also ways to fight climate change while saving money.
Composting, for example, costs nothing and produces something of value. In New York, the Lower East Side Ecology Center collects food scraps, composts them, and sells the finished product at the Union Square Farmer’s Market. As Kara Cusolito writes at Campus Progress, “Composted food scraps—whether from food prep or leftovers — turn back into the rich, fluffy soil that farmers and gardeners need to grow more food.” Farmers, for instance, can stop buying fertilizer if they start composting. Cusolito quotes one farmer who puts the choice in perspective: “Saying plants can’t grow well if they’re not conventionally fertilized is like saying people can’t be as happy if they’re not on drugs.”
The price of solar energy
Clean energy isn’t free of negative consequences, though, and clean energy advocates increasingly are butting heads with environmentalists who want to minimize the impact of new energy sources.
As dependence on natural gas, which counts as clean when compared with coal, grows in this country, worries about the threat of gas drilling to water sources is rising. At Earth Island Journal, Richard Ward of the UN Foundation, which supports natural gas as a clean energy source, and Jennifer Krill, executive director of Earthworks, lay out the cases for and against natural gas. Krill argues:
If the natural gas industry wants to be “clean,” it should embrace policies that mean no pollution of groundwater, drinking water, or surface waters; stringent controls on air pollution, including greenhouse gas emissions; protection for no-go zones, like drinking watersheds and sacred and wild lands; and respect for landowner rights, including the right to say no to drilling on their property.
But Krill notes the gas industry hasn’t show much interest in pursuing those compromises. And out west, some conservationists are objecting to the influx of solar panels on fragile desert lands. One group, Solar Done Right, for instance, “doesn’t disagree that much more solar energy is needed in order to decrease fossil fuel consumption and reduce heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions, but they do disagree with developing solar facilities the way utilities build massive coal- or gas-fired power plants,” reports David O. Williams for The Colorado Independent. Instead, the group argues that solar energy can thrive in the “built environment,” on rooftops and on sites that are not environmentally vulnerable.
No matter what we do, there will be some costs to getting off of carbon, both for the economy and for the environment. But if the world does not decrease its carbon emissions, the costs will be much higher.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
This week, the House voted to shut down... more
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by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
President Obama made an energy speech this week that had little new to offer, while on Capitol Hill, Republicans were pushing to relieve the government of its last options to limit carbon emissions. In the House Republicans have passed a bill that would keep the EPA from regulating carbon, and in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid repeatedly pushed back a vote on the same issue.
But as Eartha Jane Melzer reports at The Michigan Messenger, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) has become the latest senator to propose taking away the EPA’s authority over greenhouse gasses this week. If the Senate decides it wants to pursue this policy, it will have plenty of options to choose from.
Conflicting news leaked out about how strongly the Obama administration was willing to stand up for the EPA’s right (granted by the Supreme Court) to treat carbon as a pollutant under the Clear Air Act. Grist’s Glenn Hurowitz noted an Associated Press story with a comment indicating that the White House was telling Congress they’d have to compromise on this issue. But on Thursday the White House reassured progressive bloggers that it was opposed to any amendments to funding bills that furthered “unrelated policy agendas.”
The energy speech
The energy speech that President Obama delivered at Georgetown this week, however, did not do much to reassure climate activists that the administration will put forward a strong vision on these issues. The president talked about decreasing our dependence on foreign oil and set a goal of having 80% of the country’s electricity come from clean energy sources by 2035.
But as David Roberts at Grist writes, Obama skirted some of the trickiest issues. “The core truth is that for the U.S., oil problems mostly have to do with supply and oil solutions mostly have to do with demand,” he says. “America becomes safer from oil by using less. From the Democratic establishment, only retiring Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) is telling the public that truth.”
Is clean energy green energy?
President Obama is right that the country has room to pursue more clean energy opportunities. As Public News Service’s Mary Kuhlman reports, America is behind in the clean energy race. The Pew Environment Group just released a report that, according to Kuhlman, “finds the United States as a whole is falling behind in the global clean-energy race….The U.S. maintained the top spot until 2008, according to research from the Pew Charitable Trusts, but fell in 2010 to third behind China and Germany.”
But as I point out at TAPPED, when politicians use the words “clean energy,” they’re generally talking about mid-point solutions like natural gas and nuclear energy. President Obama’s proposed standard does not necessarily support renewable energy — wind and solar projects that are truly sustainable.
The alternatives
And as Gavin Aronsen writes at Mother Jones, renewable energy projects need more support. “The near-term future of solar power in the US will also depend on whether President Obama’s stimulus money keeps flowing,” he explains. “For now, energy companies have until the end of the year to qualify for funding. Meanwhile, some solar advocates are suggesting alternatives like installing panels on urban rooftops.”
If these projects flag, the alternative to renewable, or even clean, energy is not appealing. The world is beginning to depend on energy sources that require greater effort and create more environmental damage. Oil from tar sands is one such source, although as, Beth Buczynski reports at Care2, “a research group at Penn State spent the past 18 months developing a technique that uses ionic liquids (salt in a liquid state) to facilitate separation of oil from the sands in a cleaner, more energy efficient manner. The separation takes place at room temperature without the generation of waste water.” Sounds like an improvement!
Does genetically modified alfafa do a body good?
The Obama administration is not only disappointing on energy issues. At GritTV, Laura Flanders talks to New York Times food writer Mark Bittman about the future of organic food, and the two agree that the only person whose agriculture and food policy they can wholeheartedly endorse is Michelle Obama’s. Too bad she’s not part of the administration.
One recent gripe is the Department of Agriculture’s decision to approve genetically modified alfafa. “Essentially it’s the beginning of the end of organic,” Bittman said. “Once you introduce alfafa, which pollinates by the wind, you can’t guarantee that any alfafa doesn’t have genetically modified seed in it. And alfafa is used as hay, hay is used to feed cows, there goes organic milk. There goes a lot of organic meat.”
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
President Obama made an energy speech... more
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March 24, 2011, 5:15 pm
Report Faults Rules for Reporting Nuclear Equipment Problems
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
The inspector general of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission warns in a new report that American nuclear power plants are not reporting some equipment failures to the government because of badly written or contradictory rules, Elizabeth A. Harris and Kim Severson report.
Rules Faulted For Poor Data On Failures At Reactors
By ELIZABETH A. HARRIS and KIM SEVERSON
Published: March 24, 2011
Nuclear power plants in the United States are not reporting some equipment failures to the government because of badly written rules, the inspector general of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has warned.
Those rules, which are often contradictory, leave the commission without the muscle to enforce the federal law requiring the reporting of such problems, the inspector general said in a report issued Wednesday.
From December 2009 to September 2010, the report said, the commission found 24 instances in which equipment problems were not properly reported. If the rules are not improved, it said, they “could reduce the margin of safety for operating nuclear power reactors.”
The commission, which operates independently of the inspector general, countered in a statement that it “has a variety of other regulations that effectively encompass reporting all defects.” It added, “The N.R.C. continues to conclude plants are operating safely.”
The inspector general’s office said it was concerned about equipment involving safety features — for instance, systems that measure pressure in a reactor’s coolant. But the report did not detail any specific lapses in reporting equipment problems.
R. K. Wild, a senior analyst in the inspector general’s office, said Thursday that full reporting of equipment defects was crucial to ensuring that problems were not duplicated at other plants. When a plant operator reports a problem, the government can take the information to the manufacturer and determine where similar parts are in use.
Nuclear power generation in the United States has come under more scrutiny since an earthquake and tsunami struck a nuclear plant in Japan, setting off a crisis that continues to unfold. At the request of President Obama, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted Wednesday to set up a task force to review the safety of the 104 nuclear reactors operating across the United States.
In another development, federal authorities announced Thursday that a subcontractor at the Watts Bar nuclear plant under construction in Tennessee had been accused of lying about making crucial measurements on cables that carry power to safety systems there. The contractor, Matthew David Correll, 31, was charged with making false statements, the United States attorney in Knoxville, Tenn., said.
The reactor, the second at the Watts Bar plant, is the only one now being built in the nation.
Elizabeth A. Harris reported from New York, and Kim Severson from Atlanta.March 24, 2011, 5:15 pm
Report Faults Rules for Reporting Nuclear Equipment... more
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More U.S. states find traces of radiation from Japan
By Elizabeth Landau, CNN
March 24, 2011 10:22 a.m. EDT
Since Japan's nuclear crisis, more RadNet radiation monitors like this one have been deployed in areas in the west coast.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Colorado and Oregon report trace levels of radioactive particles
Washington, California and Hawaii have also found small amounts
The levels detected so far aren't harmful to human health, experts say
(CNN) -- Colorado and Oregon have joined several other Western states in reporting trace amounts of radioactive particles that have likely drifted about 5,000 miles from a quake and tsunami-damaged nuclear power plant in Japan, officials say.
But, on a portion of its website dedicated to tracking such radiation, the Environmental Protection Agency noted Wednesday that these and other readings "show typical fluctuation in background radiation levels" and -- thus far -- "are far below levels of concern."
Sampling from a monitor in Colorado -- part of a national network of stations on the lookout for radioactivity -- detected miniscule amounts of iodine-131, a radioactive form of iodine, the state's public health and environmental department said Wednesday in a press release.
On the same day in Portland, Oregon, tiny quantities of iodine-131 were also detected by an Environmental Protection Agency air monitor, Oregon public health officials said.
Small amounts of radioactive material were detected Wednesday, too, in Hawaii -- just as they had a day earlier, according to the EPA. But while they were above the historical and background norm, the levels weren't considered harmful to human health.
Washington and California previously reported low levels of radioactive isotopes that likely came from Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which has been releasing radioactive particles into the air since its cooling and other systems were damaged by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and massive tsunami on March 11. Efforts continued Thursday to cool down the spent nuclear fuel rods, prevent a further meltdown of the plant's six reactor cores and curb the release of additional radioactive material.
Sampling of these radioactive particles from these various monitors will be further analyzed at the EPA's national lab.
Still, right now, U.S. health officials have emphasized that, at about 5,000 miles from the plant, the West Coast is unlikely to see any dangerous levels of radiation regardless of what happens in Japan. Radioactive particles disperse in the air, thus there is less of a hazard the farther away you are.
"Our finding is consistent with findings in Washington and California. We have expected to find trace amounts of the isotopes released from the Japanese plant. There is no health risk," Gail Shibley, administrator of Oregon's Office of Environmental Public Health, Oregon Public Health Division, said in a statement.
Besides the Hawaii readings, the Environmental Protection Agency has found trace amounts of radioactive iodine, cesium and tellurium at four RadNet air monitor filters on the West Coast -- three in California and one in Washington. These levels are consistent with what a U.S. Department of Energy monitor found last week, the EPA said Monday.
Americans typically get exposure to radiation from natural sources such as the sun, bricks and rocks that are about 100,000 times higher than what has been detected in the United States.
There is no need for anyone as a precautionary measure to take potassium iodide, a medication that can counter the harmful effects of iodine-131, health officials say.More U.S. states find traces of radiation from Japan
By Elizabeth Landau, CNN... more
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written by Sean Pool, an Assistant Editor for Science Progress
House Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee demonstrated their commitment to science denial Wednesday by unanimously voting down three separate amendments offered by Democrats to reaffirm basic facts about climate science. They then unanimously voted to pass the Upton-Inhofe bill to repeal the Environmental Protection Agency's scientific endangerment finding on greenhouse pollution.
Let's be clear. Congress should not attempt to make scientific decisions. The role of Congress is to take the best science and use it to make the best possible policy. The three amendments rejected unanimously by committee Republicans each lays out a fairly basic statement about generally accepted climate science.
* Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado offered an amendment that simply reaffirmed what EPA scientists stated, that "'the scientific evidence is compelling' that elevated concentrations of greenhouse gases resulting from anthropogenic emissions 'are the root cause of recently observed climate change.'" That amendment was rejected in a party-line vote with all Republicans voting no.
* Rep. Jay Inslee of Washington state offered an amendment, again quoting the EPA, which stated "the public health of current generations is endangered and the threat to public health for both current and future generations will likely mount over time as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere and result in ever greater rates of climate change." This, too, was rejected in a party-line vote with all Republicans voting no.
* The last amendment, offered by Rep. Henry Waxman of southern California, asserted even more unassailable scientific findings. His amendment stated simply that "Congress accepts the scientific finding of the Environmental Protection Agency that warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level." It was also unanimously rejected in a party-line vote with all Republicans voting no.
This is really getting ridiculous. In countries around the world, political parties on the left and right are debating how to deal with climate change. But by continuing to debate whether the world is even warming -- an objective, empirical, verifiable, scientific fact -- our great nation is demonstrating to the rest of the world that we are still in the Stone Age on this issue.
Let's keep in mind that virtually every credible climate scientist and science organization, including the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, has declared climate change a "settled fact." Here is another quote from the academy which reaffirms all three of the rejected amendments:
Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities ... and in many cases is already affecting a broad range of human and natural systems.
The National Academy of Sciences might be thought of like the Supreme Court for science, so what they say matters a lot. But then again, even the U.S. Supreme Court itself has decided that the EPA should have the authority to regulate carbon pollution in the 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA decision.
Notwithstanding the advice of every U.S. science agency and the opinions of virtually every credibly international science organization, the committee voted 34-19 to pass the Upton-Inhofe dirty air bill, H.R. 910, which eliminates the ability of the federal government to regulate planet-warming carbon pollution. The Project on Climate Science summed it up nicely:
Through this antiscience legislation, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is substituting ideology for the intensive, comprehensive, peer-reviewed analysis of thousands of scientists, including the scientists at the EPA.
Comically, as Joe Romm noted yesterday, one of the committee members voting against the amendments John Shimkus (R-IL), cites the Bible as his reason for rejecting climate science. "God said the earth would not be destroyed in a flood." Another, Michael Burgess (R-TX), cited an online public opinion poll (in and of itself an unscientific way of sampling opinion data) as reason for rejecting the science of global warming. Making matters worse, it turns out the particular poll was targeted by well-known climate science denial website Watt's Up With That in a campaign to skew the results.written by Sean Pool, an Assistant Editor for Science Progress
House Republicans on... more
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'Whale Wars' activist survives quake
By Patrick Oppmann, CNN
March 19, 2011 3:05 p.m. EDT
Scott West was in unfriendly territory when the quake hit.
Edmonds, Washington (CNN) --
Scott West went to Japan expecting trouble.
A veteran anti-porpoise hunting activist, West documents and protests the killing of the mammals. His actions are deeply unpopular in many of the Japanese coastal communities that cling to the tradition of catching and eating whale.
West's organization, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, has a long and colorful history of clashing with the Japanese. In the Animal Planet series "Whale Wars," Sea Shepherd volunteers impede Japanese whale fishing off the coast of Antarctica.
Their tactics include placing their boats in front of whaling ships, attempting to carry out citizen's arrests of the Japanese crew and heaving acid stink bombs onto the vessels. For their efforts, the Sea Shepherd volunteers have had flash bang grenades thrown at them, their boats sunk in collisions and detainment for days by the Japanese crews.
The show has made the Sea Shepherd members reality TV stars and notorious in Japan.
March 11 started like many other days for Scott West. He was in an unfriendly territory, a small Japanese coastal town where a porpoise hunt was under way and the efforts of outsiders to document the slaughter were not welcome.
West led a five person Sea Shepherd team of Mike Vos, Tarah Millen, Carisa Webster and Marley Daviduk to the town of Otsuchi, Japan. They were joined by Brian Barnes a cameraman from Save Japan Dolphins, a group that often collaborates with Sea Shepherd.
The activists had other company, as well.
Closely monitoring the group were two plain clothes Japanese policemen the activists nicknamed "Turner and Hooch," for the Tom Hanks comedy about a cop and his sidekick, a dog.
As detailed in the Academy Award winning documentary "The Cove," the relationship between anti-porpoise hunt activists and Japanese authorities often becomes a game of cat and mouse. The police try to impede the activists from documenting the killing of the dolphins. The activists use disguises and other sleights of hand to keep the police off their tails.
A former EPA and customs investigator, West said he is still able to think like law enforcement agents. And he recounts with a smile how he managed to lose Turner and Hooch at a traffic light with some creative driving as they tried to shadow his group.
West is back in his home in Edmonds, Washington. It's been just over 24 hours since he returned from Japan and four days since the earthquake and tsunami that wrecked much of the country. As he thinks of the two cops back in Otsuchi his mood darkens. "You know those guys are probably dead," he said.
When the earthquake hit in Otsuchi, about 94 miles from Sendai, the quake's epicenter, the activists were at the town's port waiting for the porpoise fishing boats to return with their catch.
"The car was rocking and rolling it was actually jumping on the pavement like a frog," West said. "We got out of the cars and it was almost impossible to stand up. The ground was heaving. It lasted for a long time."
Immediately seafood workers got out of factories as the town loud speakers called for residents to seek higher ground.
The six activists jumped into their two cars and made for the hills. It was a snap decision that West believes saved their lives.
"If we had stayed where we were, they probably would have never found our bodies or our cars," West said.
West estimates that the drive to higher ground took them about eight minutes. In that time the first tsunami waves already crashed into the town. Video West took from the hillside shows fishing ships fighting the incoming rush of water to get to the open ocean and safety. Houses can be seen being dragged out to sea by the monster waves.
On the hillside, the activists were joined by a handful of rescue workers and a Japanese woman.
"It was impossible to comprehend the amount of devastation and the human misery," West said "How many people got to the hill? There were only a handful of us up there. Why aren't there thousands here with us?"
In the video he took from the hill, West narrates as a wave heads toward the area below where they have sought refuge. "Look at the black one heading toward us," he said. An aftershock rocks the activists. "This is scary s**t," a woman says off camera.
As darkness fell, the tsunami waves continued sweeping into the town below them. The rescue workers on the hill left to begin their work and check on their own homes. The activists and the Japanese woman who also made it to the hill took turns warming themselves in the cars.
Over the roar of the waves they heard a voice. "We could hear this woman screaming out in the water," West said. "It was dim out there and all this debris was out there and then we could make out her form on a pile of debris. "
The activists tried to reach her but were pushed back the waves still topping the tsunami wall. They commandeered an abandoned fire truck and the Japanese woman with them used the loud speaker to call to fishing boats off the coast.
"We quit hearing her," West said of the trapped woman. "I don't know if it was because she grew weary or from exhaustion or she floated too far away. But then her voice would come back."
The boats came near to where the woman was floating but the group could not make out if they rescued her. "We don't know if the boats found her but we certainly hope they did," West said. "We heard her voice no more and the sound of her pleas in Japanese are a sound that will stay with me the rest of my life."
The next morning the group marched out of the town that was shrouded in a fog of burning wreckage and diesel.
West calls it a journey through a "post-apocalyptic world." The photos he took along the trip show enormous tsunami barriers torn and twisted by the waters, a person being plucked from a roof top by a rescue helicopter and fields of debris that were once people's homes.
And there are photos of a human body hanging in a tree.
The group came across a teenager still in his school uniform wandering the debris fields. They tried to get him to come with them. Unable to communicate with the activists, the teenager walked away in another direction.
The finally made found a group of Japanese people huddled over a campfire. Their house was destroyed but they offered the travelers soup. West said they felt bad but receiving food from them but "it would have been rude to have refused and it was welcome."
West said he and his companions were only able to leave the devastation through the kindness of Japanese people they encountered along their journey and who they could just barely communicate with.
One man, West said, pantomimed for the group to stay put and then returned with cars to drive them from the disaster area. The Japanese, West said, refused to take anything more than gas money.
Back at his home in Edmonds, West has been able to take a hot shower and sleep in a real bed if not yet fully absorb his ordeal.
West's views on the porpoise hunts haven't changed. But he has invited many of the Japanese people he knows to come stay in his family's home as they try flee the damage and radiation released by the quake. He is more than 4,000 miles from Japan but still feels like he is on the hilltop being battered by the tsunami waves.
"My wife's been saying, 'what if?' I hadn't really allowed myself to go there," West said. "The six of us made it, we are fine, we are home with our families but so many other people didn't make it."'Whale Wars' activist survives quake
By Patrick Oppmann, CNN
March 19,... more
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The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday proposed the first-ever national standards for mercury and other air pollutants emitted from coal-fired power plants.
The proposed standards would dramatically improve public health, EPA said. They would prevent 17,000 premature deaths and 11,000 heart attacks. The standards would also prevent 120,000 cases of childhood asthma, according to EPA.
“With the help of existing technologies, we will be able to take reasonable steps that will provide dramatic protections to our children and loved ones, preventing premature deaths, heart attacks, and asthma attacks,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a statement.
The proposed standards come as EPA is under attack from Republicans and some Democrats in Congress, who argue that the agency is issuing regulations that will hobble the economy. GOP lawmakers have set their sites on EPA's climate rules, but have also railed against other agency regulations, including the mercury standards.
The standards would require companies to install technology at power plants to lower a slew of harmful emissions.
Air pollutants like mercury, arsenic, chromium and nickel have been linked to instances of cancer and can affect infant brain development.
EPA said Wednesday that it followed closely an executive order signed by President Obama in January that requires federal agencies to ensure that regulations are cost effective and not overly burdensome.
The standards “are based on the latest data and provide industry significant flexibility in implementation through a phased-in approach and use of already existing technologies,” EPA said in a statement.
And EPA said the standards are cost-effective, asserting that for every $1 spent, the public will see $13 in benefits.
The public will have 60 days to comment on the proposed standards.
cont.The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday proposed the first-ever national... more
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RN features a debate between two supposed experts on whether public investment in green industry will create public jobs. While the pretext of this debate is worth of our attention, I find the subtext to be of even greater interest and value. While listening to Fred Smith, if you do, consider that this guy was associated with the EPA during the Nixon/Ford years only. There should be no question therefore, of why he was in that position, and it wouldn't be pro environment.
The white elephant which was not addressed in this, is the reality that pursuit of corporate profit, irrespective of environmental and social consequences, insures that those same corporations will manipulate events, facts, appearances and truth, in order to defraud the free market, that is also free of self serving manipulation, of it's natural unfettered evolution.
The cloaked dynamic of this debate is the attempt to limit government interference in the free market, so that united corporate efforts can manipulate the market; which by virtue of their manipulation is no longer free, to their exclusive benefit at the expense of the public.
Debate: Will Clean Energy Investment Transform Economy and Create Jobs?
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=6388RN features a debate between two supposed experts on whether public investment in... more
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WHEN THE GOVERNMENT KNOWS IT'S ACTIONS KILL PEOPLE, BUT CONTINUES TO DO SO, AND COVERS UP REPORTS EVIDENCING THEIR ACTIONS, AND THE EFFECTS OF THOSE ACTIONS, IT'S FIRST DEGREE MURDER.
While this subject has been in the press a good bit recently, the degree to which the government has been complicit in attempting to murder the public, both by it's intentional actions and by it's negligence, can not be overstated or over reacted to!
"Leaked EPA Documents Expose Decades-Old Effort to Hide Dangers of Natural Gas Extraction. Efforts by lawmakers and regulators to force the federal government to better police the natural gas drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," have been thwarted for the past 25 years, according to an exposé in the New York Times. Studies by scientists at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on fracking have been repeatedly narrowed in scope by superiors, and important findings have been removed under pressure from the industry. The news comes as the EPA is conducting a broad study of the risks of natural gas drilling with preliminary results scheduled to be delivered next year. Joining us is Walter Hang, president of Toxics Targeting, a firm that tracks environmental spills and releases across the country, based in Ithaca, New York, where fracking is currently taking place".
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/4/leaked_epa_documents_expose_decades_old
Fracking has been occurring all over the country for a long time now. It's lethal health hazards have been known for a long time now. As other articles point out, Obama is wildly supportive of natural gas extraction, whether it requires fracking or not. Since it can poison us, it's up to us to demand an end to fracking. If they can't get the gas out without fracking and poisoning us, then leave it in place, and fast track alternative sustainable energy instead. This is yet one more issue which we need to go into the streets with, but we can contact the Whitehouse and our legislators in the meantime.
There are numerous articles on this issue posted herein, if you search under "fracking" or "hydraulic fracturing".WHEN THE GOVERNMENT KNOWS IT'S ACTIONS KILL PEOPLE, BUT CONTINUES TO DO SO, AND... more
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The Pennsylvania homes of Karl Wasner and Arline LaTourette both sit atop the Marcellus Shale, a geologic formation that stretches from Tennessee to New York and holds vast deposits of natural gas. They also sit on opposite sides of a national debate over hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. That's the process that makes it economical for energy companies to tunnel 5,000 feet below ground and remove the gas—but also poses environmental risks.
Wasner settled 14 years ago in Milanville, in the state's northeast corner, and will leave if drilling companies set up derricks nearby. He already moved away for six weeks last year while an exploratory well was drilled nearby. The noise, muddy water pouring from his taps, and chemicals that turned up in a neighbor's well drove him off, he says. "I moved to a beautiful rural residential area," says Wasner, "not an industrial park."
LaTourette, whose roots in the area go back five generations, is banking on the drilling. Her family has leased almost 700 acres of farmland to Hess (HES) and other companies to tap into the Marcellus Shale. She won't say what she's getting, but signing bonuses can range from $2,000 to $5,000 an acre, and royalty payments are about 20 percent of the value of the gas produced.
President Barack Obama enthusiastically backs gas drilling, and these days 90 percent of it is done by fracking, which involves forcing below ground chemically treated water under high pressure to smash through layers of rock, thus freeing the gas to flow upward. Along with wind, solar, and nuclear power, natural gas is crucial to Obama's goal of producing 80 percent of electricity from clean energy sources by 2035. But the drilling is taking place with minimal oversight from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. State and regional authorities are trying to write their own rules—and having trouble keeping up.
Now, reports of contaminated water and alleged disposal of carcinogens in rivers have caught state and federal regulators, and even environmental watchdogs, off guard. Sometimes the fracking mix includes diesel fuel. Between 2005 and 2009, drillers injected 32 million gallons of fluids containing diesel into wells in 19 states, an investigation by Representative Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) concludes. Just as it recovers its footing from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the Administration faces a new threat, again involving a risky drilling technology and charges of lax regulation. Obama is "evaluating the need for new safeguards for drilling," says White House spokesman Clark W. Stevens. "It's likely that the science is going to say we need to regulate fracking," says Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program for Public Citizen, a liberal advocacy group. "But Obama's political team is going to say don't regulate, and I think the political team will win."
The Marcellus Shale may contain 490 trillion cubic feet of gas—enough to heat U.S. homes and power electric plants for two decades, says Terry Engelder, professor of geosciences at Pennsylvania State University. That makes it the world's second-largest gas field behind South Pars, shared by Iran and Qatar. The shale gas rush is creating thousands of jobs and reviving the economy in states such as Wyoming, Texas, and Louisiana. In Pennsylvania, where 2,516 wells have been drilled in the last three years, $389 million in tax revenue and 44,000 jobs came from gas drilling in 2009, according to a Penn State report. Perhaps best of all, natural gas emits half the carbon emissions of oil.
While there have been no documented cases of fracking fluids flowing underground into drinking water, there have been spills above ground. Fracking produces millions of gallons of wastewater; some of it containing benzene has spilled from holding tanks. The wastewater can overwhelm treatment plants not equipped to handle high levels of contaminants. A Feb. 26 New York Times article, using documents from the EPA and state regulators, described how radioactive wastewater is being discharged into river basins. Sierra Club Deputy Executive Director Bruce Hamilton says Obama "has been sold a bill of goods." But even the Sierra Club has struggled with fracking. Last year it overruled New York and Pennsylvania chapters calling for a national fracking ban; now it's reconsidering that decision, Hamilton says.
The Delaware River Basin Commission, which manages the watershed that supplies drinking water to 15 million people in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, has put gas development on hold while it drafts rules. Wasner and LaTourette were among scores of people to comment at a Feb. 22 hearing in Honesdale, Pa., on a commission proposal to regulate the drilling. New York also has fracking on hold while it develops a drilling playbook. The Marcellus Shale runs beneath the watershed that supplies just over 1 billion gallons of water a day to New York City, the U.S.'s largest unfiltered water system.
The White House has sent mixed signals. "It's not necessarily federal regulation that will be needed," EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson told a Feb. 3 Senate hearing, noting that many communities and states already monitor parts of the process. Energy Secretary Steven Chu seems to differ. In a 2010 speech, he said fracking can be "polluting" and that rules were inevitable. "We continue to believe that state regulatory agencies have the appropriate expertise" to oversee gas production, says Dan Whitten, a spokesman for America's Natural Gas Alliance.
Even if the EPA stepped in, its authority would be limited. A clause in a 2005 energy law—dubbed the "Halliburton (HAL) loophole" for the company that helped pioneer fracking and is a supplier of fracking fluids—exempts fracking from parts of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) says Dick Cheney, once head of Halliburton, pushed for the exemption when he was Vice-President. Hinchey's evidence is circumstantial: Fracking was endorsed in Cheney's 2001 energy task force report, which led to the 2005 law and, according to Waxman, did not reflect the EPA's initial concerns about water pollution. Cheney declined to comment. Halliburton referred a request for comment to its website, which doesn't discuss fracking's risks.
So far, the EPA has begun a study of fracking's effect on drinking water. In February the agency said final results will come in 2014, two years after its initial target—and the 2012 elections. Its emphasis is "politics first and regulation second," says Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington policy group. "It's impossible to miss the jobs power of fracking in the Marcellus."
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_11/b4219025777026.htmThe Pennsylvania homes of Karl Wasner and Arline LaTourette both sit atop the... more
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by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
The natural gas industry is afraid that Josh Fox, director of the muckraking film Gasland, might win an Oscar on Sunday. Earlier this month, an organization called Energy in Depth, backed by the oil and gas industry, sent the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences a letter in which it argued that Gasland, Fox’s exposé on the natural gas industry, should be removed from consideration for best documentary feature because it contained inaccurate information.
After dealing with the industry for the past couple of years, Fox is not surprised by this tactic. “What this points to is the culture of that industry, which is bullying, which is aggressive, which is outlandish in their tactics, which will stop at nothing,” he told AlterNet.
The film is still up for consideration, and the industry should be worried about the impact its nomination, let alone a victory, could have. Even if the film doesn’t win on Sunday, millions of viewers will see a clip of the film that documents the real threat of environmental devastation that comes along with natural gas drilling and, in particular, with hydrofracking.
Nothing natural about it
The Media Consortium’s Weekly Mulch has been tracking the fight over natural gas drilling. As noted back in September, Sandra Steingraber, in Orion Magazine, has called the rise of hydrofracking “the environmental issue of our time.” In a more recent dispatch for the magazine, Steingraber reports from an Environmental Protection Agency hearing on fracking, a technique for extracting otherwise hard-to-reach gas from the ground.
In upstate New York, where the hearing was held and where natural gas companies have been buying up drilling rights and properties for the past couple of years, residents are hugely concerned about this issue: four hundred people signed up to speak, for 120 seconds each, as Steingraber reports, over two days. One speaker in particular stuck out to her, though:
An older man rose to speak….And then he let ten seconds of silence fill the theater….After hours of ceaseless, rapid-fire speech, the sudden hush flowed through the overheated room like cool water. Someone giggled nervously. And then, finally, he spoke. That silence, he announced, represented the sounds of migratory birds. And tourists. And professors. And organic farmers. And thus with no words at all he reminded the audience of all the good members of our beloved community who would — if our land filled up with drill rigs, waste ponds, compressor stations, and diesel trucks — disappear, exit the cycle. As in, forever.
At Change.org, Austin Billings has another account of what natural gas drilling is putting at risk—the Bridger-Teton National Forest, miles of “spectacular hills and tall pine forests” that, Billings writes, “just kept going” as he drove through them. A company called Plains Exploration and Production Company is working to sink more than 130 natural gas wells in this area, Billings reports, a project that will strew the area with “pipelines, compressor stations, industrial water wells, truck staging areas, and other industrial features.”
Push Back
If Josh Fox wins an Oscar, however, natural gas projects like this one will face even more opposition. And that opposition matters. Just ask Costco, which caved in this week to a Greenpeace-led campaign against its sales of unsustainable seafood. For months, Greenpeace and its allies have been pushing the chain of wholesale grocery stores to sell only fish that can be captured or farmed in a sustainable way. The chain agreed to remove 12 “red list” species, at the highest risk for extinction, and to take other actions to promote sustainability and ocean conservation.
“It was a long and arduous process,” said Casson Trenor, Greenpeace’s seafood campaigner, said, according to Change.org’s Sarah Parsons. “I’m really happy with where we’ve gotten to, and I think it says a lot about our methods and how effective we can be.”
Guilty pleasures
Of course, fish is not the only food that’s damaging to the environment. So much of what’s available to eat is damaging to the environment. Grist reported last week that Girl Scout cookies are made with palm oil, the production of which is driving deforestation in Indonesia. Earth Island Journal’s Maureen Nandini Mitra follows up by pointing out that Thin Mints aren’t the only sweet that sucks up palm oil: her list includes M&Ms, Snickers, and Twix, as well as Clif energy bars.
Another point against those treats: They usually don’t come in recyclable packaging. On the other hand, it’s a little bit of a mystery what happens to the recyclable containers tossed into the recycling, especially those with a little food gunk left on them. For those worried about their fate, Mother Jones’ Kiera Butler has done a substantial public service by ferreting the best approaching to cleaning out recyclables. The takeaway: They can be a little bit dirty. ”It’s not a giant deal if containers have little food residue on them,” Butler reports, but “the cleaner your containers, the more they’re worth on the recyclables market.”
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outletsby Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
The natural gas industry is afraid that... more
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" ' The U.S. House of Representatives failed to protect the public health of all Americans by passing H.R. 1,' said Connor. 'This bill ignores public health and will have dire consequences for all Americans, especially people with lung diseases, including lung cancer, asthma and emphysema.'
'The American Lung Association calls on the Senate to recognize that, as passed by the House, H.R. 1 is toxic to public health,' said Connor. 'The Senate must start from scratch and recognize that tough fiscal choices can be made without jeopardizing public health.'
H.R. 1 slashes the budget of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency by one-third and prevents the agency from acting to reduce carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants from coal-fired power plants and oil refineries, a regulatory program that began January 2.
The bill also blocks EPA from restoring Clean Water Act protections for many of the nation's most vulnerable waterways, including those that feed into drinking water supplies for more than 117 million Americans."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/02/20-3
Contact your representatives and let them know you do not approve of this!
Join the Organic Movement:
http://current.com/groups/organicgreen/" ' The U.S. House of Representatives failed to protect the public health of... more
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By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
An Ecuadorian judge ordered Chevron this week to pay $8.6 billion in damages for polluting the Amazon rainforest from 1964 until 1990. The payout is the second largest ever in an environmental case, with only the damages BP agreed to pay in the wake of last summer’s Deepwater Horizon spill being higher.
Environmental lawyers and advocates hailed the case as a landmark victory, but as Rebecca Tarbotton reports at AlterNet, Chevron is still planning to fight the case.
“In fact, the oil giant has repeatedly refused to pay for a clean up even if ordered to by the court,” she writes. “In one chilling statement, Charles A. James, Chevron’s vice president and general counsel, told law students at UC Berkeley that Chevron would fight ‘until hell freezes over, and then skate on the ice.’”
The Cost of Doing Business
Chevron can continue to fight the case because it’s cheaper for them to fund their lawyers than to cough up billions. Like so many environmental issues, this one comes down to money, which environmentally destructive corporations always seem to have and activists, regulators, and victims simply don’t.
In Washington, the newly empowered Republican Party is doing its darndest to make sure that remains the case. It’s budget season, and the Environmental Protection Agency is one of the prime targets for cutting in Republicans’ budget proposals. Kate Sheppard reports at Mother Jones that House Republicans are not only trying to take away $3 billion from the agency, but also are pushing to bar the EPA from regulating carbon or other greenhouse gasses. Putting this in context, Sheppard writes:
The National Wildlife Federation says the cuts amount to a “sneak attack” on existing environmental laws like the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, because they would make it basically impossible for the EPA to do its job. The huge cut—the biggest in 30 years—”would jeopardize the water we drink and air we breathe, endangering the health and well-being of all Americans,” Gene Karpinski, the president of the League of Conservation Voters, said Monday.
The need for green
But environmentalists have their backers, too. At Grist, Bill McKibben, the author and climate activist who co-founded the climate group 350.org, has an interesting look at how the Sierra Club’s National Coal Campaign, led by Bruce Nilles, banded together with other environmental activists to successfully shut down proposals for coal-fired power plants across the country. One of the keys, of course, was money:
A consortium of foundations led by the Rockefeller Family Fund helped provide not only resources for the fight but crucial coordination. By the summer of 2005, RFF’s Larry Shapiro, David Wooley from The Energy Foundation, Nilles, and others formed a loosely organized “coal cadre.”
The coordination was crucial not only for the advocacy groups involved, which each have different strengths and geographical bases, but for the money men as well:
“I first went to Florida in 2005 to meet with several groups fighting coal plants,” said Shapiro. “I thought I would figure out who we could give $50,000 to. After my trip, I realized it wasn’t a $50,000 project — it was a million-dollar project. Over time, the Energy Foundation and others got into the game, so we ended up with some real money.”
In the end, McKibben reports, RFF gathered together, from its own pockets and from other foundations, $2.8 million.
Windfall
On top of the type of advocacy work that McKibben details, there’s another reason why more communities and companies are moving away from coal-fired power plants: they have a choice. Plants fueled with natural gas are a popular alternative, but as Gina Marie Cheeseman writes at Care2, in some areas, onshore wind power can compete with coal on costs.
“In some areas of the U.S., Brazil, Mexico and Sweden, the cost of wind power ($68 per megawatt hour) generated electricity is competitive with coal-fired power ($67 a megawatt hour),” Cheeseman writes. Wind power is also, she notes, competitive with natural gas, according to the American Wind Energy Association.
Close to home
These sort of adjustments make it easier for consumers to make sustainable choices. And in the end, personal choices do impact the amount of carbon humanity is spewing into the atmosphere. As two recent European studies showed, men make choices that generally produce more carbon emissions than women, Julio Godoy reported for Inter Press Service.
One study focused on France, the other on Germany, Greece, Norway, and Sweden. The second study, conducted by researchers at the Swedish Defence Research Agency, found that men ate more meat, drank more processed beverages, and drove more frequently and for longer distances. Annika Carlsson-Kanyama, one of the study’s authors, has argued that their results apply more broadly, too.
“These differences are not specific to the four countries studied, but are generalised across the European Union and have little to do with the different professional activities of men and women,” she told Godoy.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
An Ecuadorian judge ordered Chevron... more
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I’m concerned that there’s an impostor posing as Congressman John Shimkus in Washington. I don’t know how else to explain the dramatic contradiction between what he tells newspapers back in the district and what he actually does when Congress is in session.
Two articles will illustrate my concern. In January, a paper back in his district interviewed Shimkus about his new role as chairman of the subcommittee on Environment and Economy. He expresses a concern for defending real science.
“I’ll mostly deal with the EPA, making sure that what they claim is real science actually is real science, and that their restrictions are focused on the health and welfare of the public, not just a political agenda,” Shimkus said.
That sounds good! We need environmental policy based on science and public health and not written by those with just a political agenda.
But then something odd happened when Shimkus’ committee held hearings in Washington about the Clean Air Act.
“Do you find it strange that at this hearing of this importance we have no scientists?” asked Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), the subcommittee’s ranking member.
Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) swept aside such critiques, telling ClimateWire, “This is about jobs. This isn’t about science. The science committee may turn it into that and get into these issues, but we want to address how this affects jobs.”
EPA administrator Jackson, held her ground, pointing out, “Chairman Upton’s bill would, in its own words, ‘repeal’ the scientific finding regarding greenhouse gas emissions.”
Back in his district Shimkus said he would focus on science and public health. But the impostor Shimkus in Washington doesn’t include real scientists in the discussion. Not only that, but many of those chosen to testify in Shimkus’ committee represent organizations who place their company profits and political agenda ahead of public health concerns.
Shimkus then suggested that EPA might regulate plumes of dust behind tractors. No one has ever proposed anything remotely like that so its something he just pulled out of his ass.
Also, the real John Shimkus should know that most of the new energy jobs being created back in Illinois are from wind farm construction and energy efficiency projects, not coal mines.
Shimkus often speaks about his Christian faith, so I know he wouldn’t tell his constituents he was going to do one thing and then do the exact opposite. That would be hypocrisy. Or a lie. The only logical explanation is that the man in Washington is an impostor. Someone please look into it!I’m concerned that there’s an impostor posing as Congressman John Shimkus... more
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HUGE VICTORY FOR ECUADOREAN PEOPLE AGAINST CHEVRON OIL...
QUITO | Mon Feb 14, 2011 2:20pm EST
Feb 14 (Reuters) - An Ecuadorean lawyer for the plaintiffs said on Monday that a court in the Amazon city of Lago Agrio had ordered U.S. oil giant Chevron (CVX.N) to pay more than $8 billion in environmental damages.
Plaintiffs had originally asked for $27 billion. (Reporting by Quito Newsroom)
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~ CHEVRON IN AN ATTEMPT TO STALL...
continues to drag their feet with Yet more legal maneuvering~
~ Gerard Ange'
>>> BEGIN CHEVRON STORY:
Chevron Corp., the second-largest U.S. oil company, faces at least $8.2 billion in damages after losing an Ecuadorean lawsuit that alleged the company is responsible for chemical-laden wastewater dumped in the Amazon River basin more than 20 years ago.
The decision arises from an 18-year-old lawsuit by Ecuadoreans that sparked accusations of corruption and deception by the company and lawyers for the plaintiffs. Chevron won a Feb. 8 court order in New York barring the Ecuadoreans from attempting to enforce the judgment in the U.S. or elsewhere. Chevron has no assets in Ecuador.
The ruling requires Chevron to pay $8.2 billion to $9 billion in damages, Karen Hinton, a spokeswoman for the plaintiffs’ lawyers, said in a telephone interview today. Kent Robertson, a spokesman for San Ramon, California-based Chevron, said in an e-mail he didn’t know what the damage amount was.
“The case really sends a message that companies operating in the undeveloped world cannot rely on a compliant government or lax environmental rules as a way of permanently insulating themselves from liability,” said Robert Percival, a law professor and director of the environmental law program at the University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore.
The lawsuit seeks to hold Chevron responsible for water and soil contamination that allegedly caused Amazon residents $27 billion in damages from illness, deaths and economic loss. Texaco, acquired by Chevron in 2001, allegedly dumped chemical- laden oil drilling waste in hundreds of small ponds dug from 1964 to about 1992, according to the plaintiffs.
PetroEcuador
Chevron said it cleaned up its portion of the oil fields and was released from pollution claims in an agreement with Ecuador and PetroEcuador, the state-owned oil company that took over the Texaco operations in 1992.
“The Ecuadorean court’s judgment is illegitimate and unenforceable,” the company said in a statement today. “It is the product of fraud and is contrary to the legitimate scientific evidence. Chevron will appeal this decision in Ecuador and intends to see that justice prevails.”
Chevron rose $1.22, or 1.3 percent, to $96.95 at 4 p.m. in composite trading on the New York Stock Exchange, its biggest gain in two weeks.
Second-Largest Damages
The judgment would rank second in environmental damage cases behind the $20 billion Gulf Coast Claims Facility, a settlement fund set up for BP Plc’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill, said Percival.
“Today’s judgment affirms what the plaintiffs have contended for the past 18 years about Chevron’s intentional and unlawful contamination of Ecuador’s rainforest,” Pablo Fajardo, the lead Ecuadorean plaintiffs’ attorney, said in an e-mailed statement.
The lawsuit, brought on behalf of 30,000 residents of Ecuador’s Amazon, was first filed in federal court in New York in 1993. After Chevron argued that the case should be heard where the alleged contamination occurred, the case was refiled in Ecuador in 2003.
Chevron has accused the Ecuadorean government of unfairly influencing the court proceedings and alleged that a $27 billion damage assessment provided by a court-appointed expert was ghostwritten by consultants and lawyers hired by the plaintiffs.
The company won U.S. court orders last year that forced attorneys and consultants for the Ecuadoreans to answer questions under oath about the case and gave Chevron access to outtakes of a documentary film about the lawsuit.
Racketeering Lawsuit
Chevron in February filed a racketeering lawsuit against the lawyers and the plaintiffs in federal court in Manhattan for “leading a fraudulent litigation and PR campaign against the company.” The company filed a claim in 2009 against Ecuador in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague seeking orders that it has no liability for the environmental pollution and PetroEcuador should pay the damage award.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs have said there’s evidence of contamination at all 45 former well and oil production sites inspected during the case. Chevron engaged in a campaign to discredit them, entrap an Ecuadorean judge that presided over the case and set up dummy corporations in Ecuador to hide the company’s role in testing soil samples from the pollution sites, the lawyers have said.
The case is Maria Aquinda v Chevron, 002-2003, Superior Court of Nueva Loja, Lago Agrio, Ecuador.
To contact the reporters on this story: Joe Carroll in Chicago at jcarroll8@bloomberg.net; Karen Gullo in San Francisco at kgullo@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Susan Warren at susanwarren@bloomberg.net; David E. Rovella at drovella@bloomberg.net
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-14/chevron-to-appeal-adverse-judgment-in-ecuador-pollution-case.htmlHUGE VICTORY FOR ECUADOREAN PEOPLE AGAINST CHEVRON OIL...
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