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All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray, California streaming on such a winter’s day”. Seems like yesterday the entire country was sweltering in wicked summer heat with LA being the most Icelandic spot in the nation. We blasted out of steamy Orlando traveling thru an irradiated Jet stream complements of Fukushima landing in LAX with 3 hours of east coast daylight left in the overhead bin. As the plane taxied, I was occupied with my new Droid (Evo) 3D. I swore never to be one of those ADHD guys, checking my phone every two minutes with an occasional lobotomized glance into space. I can’t help it though, it’s so beautiful.
http://infinitetolerance.com/personal/california-streaming-travel-guide-goofballs/All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray, California streaming on such a... more
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Los Angeles Times...
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Environmental news from California and beyond
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Tons of L.A. River trash to be captured before hitting the sea
November 1, 2011 | 4:57 pm
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Tons of trash normally swept to the ocean by the Los Angeles River should be captured by thousands of trash screens that have been installed beneath nearly every storm drain in the lower reaches of the river.
The project is believed to be the largest debris-capturing effort in the nation and marks the most aggressive attack yet on river trash in the Los Angeles region.
The project spans 16 cities and is expected to keep 840,000 pounds of debris -- the equivalent of about 450 Volkswagen Beetles -- from reaching the ocean each year, according to the Gateway Authority, a coalition of cities and public water agencies in southeastern L.A. County.
The biggest winner from the project is Long Beach, where workers routinely have to scoop floating islands of plastic bottles, grocery bags and other debris flowing from dozens of communities upstream before it litters the city’s coastline.
In August 2010, crews began installing the stainless-steel, full-capture trash devices inside nearly 12,000 catch basins.
The simple mesh contraptions sit just below the drains where water from city streets flows into the storm-water system and can catch debris as small as a cigarette butt.
Another 5,400 drains in the most-littered areas also were outfitted with street-level retractable screens as a second layer of defense.
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Environmental news from California and beyond... more
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CNN...
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U.S. beefs up conservation efforts for endangered sea turtles
By Shelby Lin Erdman, CNN Radio
September 18, 2011 8:03 p.m. EDT
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PHOTO: Loggerhead turtles will be divided into nine distinct population groups based on where they live, according to new regulations.
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(CNN) -- The government has revised its rules on sea turtles to try to decrease the number killed every year and reduce the threats they face.
The new regulations place the Loggerhead turtle into nine distinct population groups, depending on where they live, instead of listing the marine animal as a single worldwide species. In all nine segments the turtles are listed as either threatened or endangered.
Officials at both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, both responsible for overseeing the turtle conservation efforts, say they can better address the challenges the turtles face with the new geographical division.
Loggerhead or marine turtles live in tropical and subtropical waters around the world. The new "distinct population segments" for the turtles are: The Northeast Atlantic Ocean group, the Mediterranean Sea, the North Indian Ocean, the North Pacific Ocean, the South Pacific Ocean, the Northwest Atlantic, which includes the Gulf of Mexico and our Atlantic Coast, the South Atlantic Ocean, the Southeast Indo-Pacific Ocean and the Southwest Indian Ocean.
Researchers estimate more than 4,500 loggerheads are killed every year by commercial fishing, but environmentalists believe the number is probably much higher.
Commercial fishing is one of the biggest risks for the turtles, whether they live in the Indian, Pacific or Atlantic oceans, said Jim Lecky, the fisheries director for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"They all continue to be challenged by a number of threats, incidental capture in fishing gear, longlines, gill nets, trawl gear, trap and pot lines, which tangle turtles and other species, and dredges; all have incidental mortality of sea turtles in those fisheries," he said.
But Lecky says that's not the only threat for the turtles. "They are all also challenged by losses of habitat, degradation of nesting habitat. There still is direct harvest of eggs in adults ... at some level and they are all subject to vessel strikes."
The turtles are facing all those threats, but at different levels. So the new rules will allow fine-tuning of sea turtle conservation measures and regulations.
"We believe that this revised listing of the Loggerhead will help us and our partners to better focus recovery and conservation efforts by allowing us to take a more regional approach. But, again, the separation of Loggerhead into these population groups will not reduce our current conservation efforts," said Sandy MacPherson, the national sea turtle coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
MacPherson also told CNN Radio, "These new listings will help us to provide more focused recovery and conservation, as well as more focused threat analysis and evaluation of conservation successes."
The Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement that Loggerhead populations "need more protection to survive this century."
The rule revisions also included designating five regional populations as endangered species, which the group characterized as "a wake-up call that a whole host of threats, from oil spills, channel dredging and commercial trawling to longline and gillnet fisheries, continue to kill off turtles faster than the animals can possibly hope to reproduce."
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CNN's Ninette Sosa and Barbara Hall both contributed to this report.CNN...
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U.S. beefs up conservation efforts for endangered sea turtles
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CNN...
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7.3-magnitude quake strikes in Pacific, near Fiji islands
By the CNN Wire Staff
September 15, 2011 5:42 p.m. EDT
t1larg.fiji.earthquake.map.jpg
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STORY HIGHLIGHTS
The U.S. Geological Survey says its depth was 626 kilometers, or 390 miles
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center says a "destructive tsunami was not generated"
The quake's epicenter was estimated as 74 miles south-southwest of Fiji's Ndoi Island
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(CNN) -- A 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck early Friday in the Fiji islands region of the Pacific Ocean, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.
According to the U.S.-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, "a destructive tsunami was not generated, based on earthquake and historical tsunami data."
The quake struck at a depth of 626 kilometers, or about 390 miles below the earth's surface, the Geological Survey said on its website. Its epicenter was 74 miles south-southwest of Fiji's Ndoi Island, 281 miles south-southeast of the Fijian capital, Suva, and 264 miles west of Nuku'alofa in Tonga, according to the U.S. agency's estimations.
It happened just after 7:30 a.m. Friday, or 3:30 p.m. ET. Initially, it was reported as 7.2 magnitude.
Besides the U.S.-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, the Japan Meteorological Agency also did not release any tsunami warnings or advisories as a result of the quake.
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7.3-magnitude quake strikes in Pacific, near Fiji islands
By the CNN... more
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Los Angeles Times...
Radioactive element detected in La Jolla, Calif.
Radioactive isotope, maybe from Fukushima, detected, but ...
August 15, 2011 | 3:17 pm
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Very small amounts of a radioactive isotope of sulfur, believed to have traveled across the Pacific Ocean from the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, have been detected in La Jolla, Calif., by UC San Diego scientists.
But there's no need to worry: The amounts are nowhere near enough to cause health problems, researchers said.
Senior author Mark Thiemens and his team keep tabs on levels of sulfur-35 as part of their climate research. Readings collected shortly after the March 11 tsunami in Japan indicated that there were 1,500 atoms of sulfur-35 per cubic meter of air in La Jolla, a significant increase over normal levels.
The UCSD team interpreted the bump as the result of a reaction that would have occurred when plant workers used seawater to cool overheating reactors at Fukushima. Neutrons from the reactor core would have reacted with chlorine in ocean water to create radioactive sulfur, Thiemens said.
"The levels we observed are in no way harmful in California," Thiemens said.
The group reported the measurements Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Thiemens and his colleagues use highly sensitive instruments to detect the minuscule amounts of radioactive sulfur that circulate naturally in the atmosphere. That they detected a bump in levels of radioactive sulfur was "not surprising," said Kai Vetter, who teaches radiation detection at UC Berkeley. Vetter's lab has been tracking incoming radiation from Japan and has reported upticks too -- though again, nothing that would pose a danger to people in the U.S.
But Vetter and other nuclear engineers questioned elements of the research, which used the readings taken in La Jolla to extrapolate the amount of neutron leakage from the Fukushima plant. Elmer Lewis of Northwestern University and Michael Golay of MIT were unconvinced that the radiation in question even originated at the nuclear plant.
Edward Morse, of UC Berkeley, said that the traces of radioactive sulfur probably originated at Fukushima, but he took issue with the team's final calculations.
"They're not nuclear engineers," Morse said. "They were a little out of their depth."
.Los Angeles Times...
Radioactive element detected in La Jolla, Calif.... more
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Los Angeles Times...
Pacific Ocean study finds fish tainted by plastic
June 30, 2011 | 4:38 pm
Southern California researchers found plastic in nearly 1 in 10 small fish collected in the northern Pacific Ocean in the latest study to call attention to floating marine debris entering the food chain.
The study published this week by scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego estimated that fish in the northern Pacific Ocean are ingesting as much as 24,000 tons of plastic each year.
Although the research found a lower percentage of affected fish than previous studies, it is the latest to quantify how many fish are eating marine garbage — most of it confetti-sized flecks of discarded plastic — that has accumulated in vast, slow-moving ocean currents known as gyres.
The results came from a 2009 voyage a group of graduate students made to the so-called Pacific garbage patch, an area of high concentration of fragments of floating garbage about 1,000 miles off the California coast. Researchers cast nets into the water and collected 141 fish, mostly lanternfish measuring just a few inches, and took them to a laboratory in San Diego to dissect.
Scientists found plastic debris in 9.2% of their stomachs, much of it broken down into multicolored fragments smaller than a human fingernail. However, they believe the actual proportion of fish that have consumed plastic is significantly higher.
“We can’t tell how many fish ate plastic and died, how many fish ate plastic and regurgitated it or passed it out of their intestines,” said Rebecca Asch, a Scripps doctoral candidate in biological oceanography and one of the study's authors.
Because the widespread lanternfish is a common food source for larger fish, the study raises concerns that plastics and pollutants they contain, could be making their way up the food chain into seafood ingested by humans.
Scripps found a lower rate of plastic ingestion than previous research, such as a study by the Algalita Marine Research Foundation that found plastic in the stomachs of 35% of fish in the same general area of the Pacific.
Past studies may have been inflated by keeping nets in the water for longer periods, giving fish the chance to eat bits of plastic swept up in the nets with them, Scripps scientists said.
In their study, they tried to minimize that by towing their net only 15 minutes at a time. They stressed that their study broadly concludes the same thing: garbage is present in the food chain.
“We’re still finding a substantial amount of plastic,” Asch said. “It should be zero.”
--Tony Barboza
Photo: Two lanternfish and several bits of plastic collected in 2009 during the Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition. Credit: J. LeichterLos Angeles Times...
Pacific Ocean study finds fish tainted by plastic
June 30,... more
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Tokyo Electric chief to visit reactor disaster HQ
By Matt Smith, CNN
April 11, 2011 2:29 a.m. EDT
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Tokyo Electric's president is planning to visit the disaster command center
A plant worker falls ill and is diagnosed with exhaustion
Engineers hope a drone will give them a better picture of the reactors
More than 2,000 people protest against nuclear power in Tokyo
Tokyo (CNN) -- The president of the Tokyo Electric Power Company planned to visit the command center for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster Monday as Japan marked one month since the deadly earthquake that spawned the crisis.
Tokyo Electric President Masataka Shimizu will visit the off-site headquarters but does not plan to visit the crippled power plant itself, the company said.
Shimizu had been hospitalized due to "fatigue and stress" in late March, with company chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata taking over operations in his absence.
Three of the six reactors at the plant were damaged when the tsunami that followed the magnitude 9 earthquake March 11 knocked out cooling systems. Hydrogen explosions have blown apart the building surrounding units 1 and 3, the No. 2 reactor is believed to be leaking highly radioactive water and the spent fuel pools of units 1, 3 and 4 have been an ongoing concern for authorities.
Radioactive particles have been spread across much of the surrounding area, and Japan has dumped thousands of tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean to make room for more dangerously contaminated water now flooding the basements of the units' turbine plants.
Sunday, engineers used a flying drone to peer into the damaged reactors in hopes of getting a better look at the units and hopefully the pools of spent fuel inside, company spokesman Junichi Matsumoto said. Images captured by the drone are expected to be released Monday, he said.
And the controversial dumping of less-contaminated water from a waste treatment facility has been completed, Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency announced Monday. A total of 9,070 metric tons of water was discharged into the Pacific Ocean in the past week, the agency reported -- less than the 10,000 tons originally expected.
Tokyo Electric plans to use the facility to contain some of the water that has flooded the turbine plants behind units 1 through 3, a critical first step toward restoring normal cooling. The company is now using remote-controlled heavy machinery to clear away debris outside the plant and has begun the process of laying new pipes to start pumping radioactive water into the waste reservoir.
One worker fell ill during the work on Sunday, the company said. The subcontractor, a man in his 30s, was taken to a hospital and diagnosed with exhaustion, Tokyo Electric said. He had been working four-hour shifts since March 23, Tokyo Electric said, and it was unclear whether he had received a day off.
The worker was exposed to 4.82 millisieverts of radation, but no radioactive substances were found on his body. His cumulative exposure is 16 millisieverts, well below the 250-millisievert limit for workers in the plant. He was with a group of 30 subcontractors working in the area, and was wearing protective gear, the company said.
Meanwhile, two of the world's largest concrete pumps were en route to Japan as part of the effort to help resolve the crisis. Although the pumps were built to pump concrete, they can be modified to pump water at high pressure, with a 230-feet reach and "pinpoint accuracy," said Bill Dwyer, vice president of sales and marketing for manufacturer Putzmeister America.
"It allows workers to work from a greater distance," Dwyer said. One pump is set to arrive in Japan on Monday and the second on Tuesday, he said.
Workers have been pouring hundreds of tons of fresh water a day into the three damaged reactors and the spent fuel pools of units 1-4 to keep them cool until normal circulation systems can be restored. The No. 2 reactor is believed to be leaking highly radioactive water, some of which had been spilling into the Pacific until Wednesday. Runoff from shore is also believed to be carrying some radioactivity to the sea.
The radioactive particles now in the water are dispersing into the ocean. But concentrations of radioactive iodine-131 remained 25 times higher than the Japanese legal standard in water sampled 16 kilometers (10 miles) south of the plant on Saturday.
That's down from 93 times the limit on Wednesday, according to sampling data released Sunday. Levels of longer-lived cesium-137, which takes 30 years to lose half its radioactivity, remained nearly six times the legal limit but well below levels reported earlier this week.
The week-long discharge was billed as an emergency measure, but it infuriated Japan's fishing industry and drew protests from neighboring South Korea. And the crisis spurred more than 2,000 people to march against nuclear energy in Tokyo on Sunday.
"I was just a couch potato critic, but here we are today with friends for the first time, and I'm sure it's the first time for a lot of people today," said Karima Asuma Stickan, one of the protesters.
Protesters marched from the park, ringed with cherry blossoms, to Tokyo Electric's headquarters and on to the Ministry of the Economy, Trade and Industry, which regulates Japanese nuclear power plants. Makiko Mikami told CNN that no one believes they're getting enough answers from either the utility or the government.
"The problem is, I think I'm not sure they know the whole picture themselves," Mikami said. "If they know, they should share that information with us. And if they don't, they should admit that they're scared as well."
Ailing Chang and Gen Shimada contributed to this report for CNN.Tokyo Electric chief to visit reactor disaster HQ
By Matt Smith, CNN
April 11, 2011... more
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PART ONE...
CNN...
Japan dumps thousands of tons of radioactive water into sea
By the CNN Wire Staff
April 4, 2011 9:47 a.m. EDT
A Tokyo Electric Power Company picture from April 2 shows water gushing from the cracked concrete shaft.
Tokyo (CNN) -- Japan began dumping thousands of tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean on Monday, an emergency move officials said was needed to curtail a worse leak from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
In all, about 11,500 tons of radioactive water that has collected at the nuclear facility will be dumped into the sea, officials said Monday, as workers also try to deal with a crack that has been a conduit for contamination.
The radiation levels were highest in the water that was being drained from reactor No. 6, the officials said.
These are the latest but hardly the only challenges facing workers at the embattled power plant and its six reactors, which have been in constant crisis since last month's ruinous earthquake and tsunami.
Officials with Tokyo Electric Power Company, which runs the plant, proposed the release of excess water that has pooled in and around the Nos. 5 and 6 reactors into the sea. But most of the dumped water -- 10,000 tons -- will come from the plant's central waste treatment facility, which will then be used to store highly radioactive water from the No. 2 unit, an official with the power company said.
The water in reactors Nos. 5 and 6 is coming from a subdrain and wasn't inside the building itself, officials said. Tests suggest that groundwater is the source of the contamination in these two units, but they are not certain.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano called the dumping "unavoidable." The liquid was most likely contaminated in the process of trying to cool nuclear fuel rods.
The scope of the dump was staggering.
"For an idea about how much is 11,500 tons, one metric ton is 1,000 kilograms or about 2,200 pounds, which is close to an English ton. Water is about 8.5 pounds per gallon, so one ton is about 260 gallons," said Gary Was, a professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Michigan. "So 11,500 tons is about 3 million gallons. A spent fuel pool holds around 300,000 gallons. So this amount of water is equivalent to the volume of roughly 10 (spent fuel pools)."
It could take 50 hours to dump all the water, Tokyo Electric said.
The dumping of so much radioactive water into the ocean conjures fears of mutated sea life and contamination of the human food chain, but one expert said the radiation will be quickly diluted, minimizing risk.
"What we have to watch is how these materials accumulate in food products and then could be consumed by people," something that can be monitored, said John Till, president of Risk Assessment Corp.
"The ocean is so vast that this material would dilute very rapidly and I wouldn't see any lasting effects at all," he said.
The build-up of water could cause problems around the nuclear facility, which is 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Tokyo, Edano said Monday.
Authorities have made a priority of dealing with water from the No. 2 unit, some of which has been gushing into the sea through a crack in a concrete shaft.
"The radioactivity level is very high near the No. 2 reactor, and we know this. We have to stop the leak as early as possible to prevent this from going into the sea," Edano said. "The radioactivity level is much less in the water from the Nos. 3 and 4 units."
Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency officials said Monday night that the hope is that pumping out the No. 2 reactor turbine plant will lower the water level enough that contaminated liquid won't be able to reach the sea.
"I am not able to say for certain whether or not this will be the last discharge, but we certainly would like to avoid releasing any such water into the sea as much as possible," agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama said.
Officials were still awaiting test results to confirm the water pouring into the ocean is leaking from the highly radioactive No. 2 reactor.
"We don't know clearly, but we feel it is somehow leaking from Unit 2," Nishiyama said. Even if the water is confirmed to have come from the reactor, neither Tokyo Electric nor government officials know how it is making its way from the reactor to the leaking pit, he said.
Once the water is pumped out of the waste treatment reservoir, the agency believes it can safely transfer the water from the basement of the No. 2 turbine plant to the reservoir without further leaks, he said.
Though Japanese officials say the water being discharged is less radioactive than the water now leaking into the sea, its top concentration of radioactive iodine-131 is 20 becquerels per cubic centimeter, or 200,000 becquerels per kilogram. That's 10 times the level of radioactivity permitted in food. But since it's being dumped into the Pacific, it will be quickly diluted, according to Dr. James Cox, a radiation oncologist at Houston's MD Anderson Cancer Center and a CNN consultant.
Reactors No. 1 and No. 3, which have lower levels of water, need to be drained as well. Tokyo Electric's plan is to pump that water to other storage tanks, including some that still need to be set up.
Attempts to fill the 20-centimeter (8-inch) crack outside the No. 2 reactor's turbine building -- on Saturday by pouring in concrete, then Sunday by using a chemical compound mixed with sawdust and newspaper -- were not successful.
CONTINUED...PART ONE...
CNN...
Japan dumps thousands of tons of radioactive water into... more
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CNN... Submitted by EthicalVegan with no additional comments or opinions
Japan officials: No place to put tainted water from nuclear plant
By the CNN Wire Staff
March 28, 2011 1:53 a.m. EDT
This picture by TEPCO Saturday shows the control room of the second reactor of Fukushima nuclear power plant.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Authorities want to remove radioactive water from the No. 2 unit's turbine basement
There's no place to put the tainted water, an official says
A Japanese official blasts Tokyo Electric for its erroneously high radiation reading
The temperature is rising in the No. 1 reactor, another official says
Tokyo (CNN) -- Japanese officials on Monday worked to determine what to do with highly radioactive water collected at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant as they tackled other problems, including rising temperatures in one of the nuclear reactors.
As of Monday morning, there was no place to put water pooled in the basement of the No. 2 reactor's turbine building, said
Hidehiko Nishiyama, an official with Japan's nuclear and industrial safety agency.
The water has sparked confusion in recent days after the release of alarming -- and ultimately incorrect -- levels of radiation.
That water is giving off radioactivity at a level of 1,000 millisieverts per hour, said an official with the plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co.
This equates to more than 330 times the dose an average person in a developed country receives per year, and four times the top dose Japan's health ministry has set for emergency workers struggling to prevent a meltdown at the damaged plant.
But Tokyo Electric said that figure is a mere 100,000 times normal levels for reactor coolant, not the 10 million times normal reported Sunday.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Monday that the plant's owner cited fatigue among its workers as a reason for the error.
"However, measurement of radioactivity is vital for the safety of the workers there," Edano told reporters. "So such a mistake is not something that should be forgiven or acceptable."
Nishiyama said the plan is to pump tainted water out of the No. 2 turbine building's basement using what he called a condenser. But that apparatus is "almost full," as are several storage tanks nearby.
"So we will first have to empty some of the tanks," he said, without giving a timetable as to when this might occur. "Once that process is over, the puddle would be removed."
While high levels of radiation of water in the Nos. 2 and 3 turbine buildings -- and to a lesser extent in the No. 1 unit -- have been the chief focus of late, they aren't the only problems at the facility, which is 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Tokyo.
Most of the concerns have centered around the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 units, which were the only ones operating -- and with active fuel rods in their reactor cores -- on March 11. The 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami knocked out backup generators that ran their coolant systems and damaged water pumps at the plant, forcing workers to scramble to prevent a meltdown.
Despite reduced alarms in recent days, Nishiyama noted Monday that the temperature is rising inside the No. 1 reactor.
To address this issue, the flow of fresh water into the reactor core will be further adjusted, the nuclear safety official said.
That water is being directed via a fire truck and temporary electricity-driven pump with a more permanent power generator likely in place by Tuesday.
Authorities plan to also get distinct power sources for the cooling systems for units Nos. 2 and 3. Fresh water is being pumped into those two reactor cores using a fire truck and temporary electricity-powered pumps.
Between Monday and Tuesday, authorities hope to switch from using seawater to fresh water in these three unit's spent nuclear fuel pools, where some fuel rods are also located.
Besides covering and keeping nuclear fuel cool, the fresh water will help flush out salt so the cooling systems can operate better.
The spike in heat at the No. 1 unit could be a sign that nuclear fuel rods are overheating.
If those fuel rods are fully or partially exposed, that could lead to a buildup of pressure that could cause an explosion or the release of more radiation into the air, soil or water.
That's what experts fear has happened at the No. 2 reactor, after high levels of radioactive materials that are biproducts of the nuclear fission process were found in its turbine building's basement.
"The radioactive material that is found in that water is either from the reactor itself or the spent fuel pool," Nishiyama said. "At the moment, we consider that the possibilities are higher that the water is from reactor."
High radiation levels persisted in the Pacific Ocean waters near the seaside power plant, with one monitoring post reporting levels 1,850 times normal on Sunday.
However, Nishiyama said Sunday that it was "not possible" that radioactive water was leaking into the ocean from the plant.
He suggested runoff from the area around the damaged plant might have carried radioactive particles into the ocean, but said no definite source had been identified.
CNN's Whitney Hurst contributed to this report.CNN... Submitted by EthicalVegan with no additional comments or opinions
Japan... more
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An island in the Pacific Ocean that situated in the east of China, North and South Korea and Russia is named as Japan. In the direction of North to Japan the East China Sea lies and in the south Taiwan is located. Japan is a word that means ‘Sun Origin’ and sometime it called as a ‘Land from where Sun raises’. The government of Japan is a parliamentary form of government under a constitutional Law. It contains 10th largest population of the world.An island in the Pacific Ocean that situated in the east of China, North and South... more
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Gravity is gratified much of the time,I try to stay grounded don't need to fly to high,if i need a leap start I glide from a high rise,surprisingly heavy is the weight we carry in this lifetime but inch by inch I seem to stream off like water overflowing during high-tide,I pass along by the folks stranded on the side,Floating on the clouds of tide foam,strung-out from the rush of it's magnetic shift as I stride along a piece of plastic with wax on feet I feel the rumble of the tide as I grasp for more air after I take a plunge...a multi-blue display,combined with the sun's UV Ray sunshine,Man I love the Ocean in all it's form & all it's beauty,Thee Ocean is my addiction.Gravity is gratified much of the time,I try to stay grounded don't need to fly to... more
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Three teenagers given up for dead nearly two months ago after going missing in the Pacific Ocean in a tiny boat have been found alive.The boys, from the Tokelau Islands, a New Zealand-administered territory in the South Pacific, had been given up for dead after an unsuccessful search. Their parents had even held memorial services for them two weeks ago. But their luck turned when a New Zealand tuna fishing boat spotted 1,000 miles away from Fiji and took the them to hospital for treatment for severe sunburn.The boys survived on coconuts, water they trapped on a tarpaulin and a seabird they managed to catch.The boys - two aged 15 and one aged 14 - had gone missing from Atafu atoll in a small aluminium boat after an annual sporting event on 5 October.They were presumed to have died after unsuccessful searches by the New Zealand air force.The boys were then spotted north-east of Fiji on Wednesday afternoon by a member of the tuna boat's crew."We drew up next to them, and we asked if they needed any help and their reply was a very ecstatic 'yes'," the tuna vessel's first mate, Tai Fredricsen, told the BBC."We immediately deployed our rescue craft and got them straight on board and administered basic first aid."Fredricsen said the boys had a small supply of coconuts on their boat, but that it had ran out after two days."They had a period when they were only drinking fresh water, which they were capturing during the night in a tarpaulin," he said."They also told me that two weeks prior to us rescuing them, they were able to catch a sea bird which was very lucky for them.""They did mention that during the last two days they had started drinking salt water, which could have been disastrous for them," he added.Fredricsen said the boys were in surprisingly good shape considering their ordeal under the blazing tropical sun."They've got a lot of gusto, a lot of strong mental spirit. Physically they are very disturbing but mentally they are very strong."
Three teenagers given up for dead nearly two months ago after going missing in the... more
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Another outcry against the toxic, non biodegradable stuff, killing the poor innocent creatures of the ocean, blah blah blah. All this while sitting comfortably in my warm home, sipping tea to my heart’s content. What could I do while sitting in the confides of my petite abode...
Keep reading at: http://www.forgetthebox.net/mag/green-bean-tuesdays/the-swirling-vortex-of-death.phpAnother outcry against the toxic, non biodegradable stuff, killing the poor innocent... more
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Here are links to parts one and two of "Plastic Beaches," an original video that documents a volunteer group's efforts to find, collect, measure, and analyze plastic debris that is washing ashore in Oregon and Washington. This debris, ingested by sea birds and other animals, contains toxins that kill.
MIcroscopic pieces of plastic are making their way into the food chain and threaten human health, as well. The spearhead group for this effort, Sea Turtles Forever, is trying very hard to raise awareness (and money) so that it can continue to work to save the oceans and the shorelines from this pervasive and insidious pollution.
The total length for the videos at these links is 19 minutes, so please take a few moments to watch, especially if you live near water. seaturtlesforever.org would greatly appreciate your interest. Thanks.
Part One:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZvTqDgk9d0
Part Two:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNgu4OQpqecHere are links to parts one and two of "Plastic Beaches," an original video... more
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latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-ocean-20100719,0,1686762.story
Obama to launch ocean initiative
The stewardship policy embraces a controversial zoning practice that could change how the U.S. regulates drilling, fishing and other maritime activities.
By Jim Tankersley, Tribune Washington Bureau
July 19, 2010
Reporting from Washington
President Obama on Monday is set to create a national stewardship policy for America's oceans and Great Lakes, including a type of zoning that could dramatically rebalance the way government regulates offshore drilling, fishing and other marine activities.
The policy would not create new regulations or immediately alter drilling plans or fisheries management. But White House documents and senior administration officials suggest it would strengthen conservation and ecosystem protection.
The initiative culminates more than a year of work by a federal Ocean Policy Task Force, which Obama established last year. After the task force releases its final recommendations, the president is expected to sign an executive order directing federal agencies to adopt and implement them.
Calling the BP oil spill ravaging the Gulf of Mexico a "stark reminder of how vulnerable our marine environments are," the recommendations center on creating a National Ocean Council to coordinate regulation of oceans and the Great Lakes, and on a principle of "ecosystem-based management" for marine areas.
The council would include top federal scientists and officials from a variety of agencies, including national security experts, environmental regulators and managers of ocean commerce.
The recommendations embrace a controversial practice called marine spatial planning, a zoning process of sorts that seeks to manage waters in the way some cities manage factories and strip malls. The process could result in confining activities such as drilling, shipping and conservation to areas the planners deem best-suited to each use.
Nine regional groups — consisting of state, federal and tribal officials — would draft plans for conservation and use of ocean resources that would have to be approved by the National Ocean Council. Federal agencies have agreed to abide by the plans.
If the Great Lakes regional body designated certain lake areas for offshore wind farms, for example, the Interior Department would agree to approve wind farms only within those areas.
The same would be true for any new offshore drilling projects. Currently, Interior officials develop drilling plans under a public comment process within their department.
In Southern California, the heavy focus on "ecosystem-based management" could cause the U.S. Navy to retool its fleet deployment, with an eye on how its operations affect water quality or whales.
The recommendations do not specify their effect on offshore drilling. Administration officials said the new policy would not prejudge or conflict with future findings of the bipartisan commission Obama had charged with investigating the oil gusher.
But the administration says coordinated, stewardship-heavy ocean management is likely to "really change" practices in nearly every marine activity, drilling included. The final task force report predicts that the changes would help restore fish populations, protect human health and "rationally allow" for ocean uses such as energy production.
"This sets the nation on a path toward much more comprehensive planning to both conservation and sustainable use of [ocean] resources," said a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the policy had not been officially announced.
The first draft of the policy, released in September, drew heavy criticism from some quarters, including industry and recreational anglers concerned that sport fishing might be restricted or banned.
After a deluge of criticism and meetings with fishing and boating groups, the administration modified the recommendations to emphasize the importance of fishing and ocean recreation, calling them "critical to the economic, social and cultural fabric of our country."
The recommendations do not include curbs on recreational fishing. But the mere prospect of marine spatial planning has drawn skepticism from ocean users.
Oil and gas officials are concerned too. They have repeatedly urged the administration not to adopt any planning process that could restrict offshore drilling.
Last fall, for example, a representative of the American Petroleum Institute testified at a task force field hearing, "The oil and natural gas industry's presence in the Gulf [of Mexico] has successfully coexisted with other ocean uses like tourism, fishing, the U.S. military and shipping for many years, demonstrating that the current system of governance works well."
The new plan would emphasize nine areas under the broad banner of marine stewardship and conservation, including improved scientific research and mapping; helping coastal communities adapt to climate change and ocean acidification, particularly in the Arctic; and enhancing water quality on land to boost ocean water quality.
jtankersley@latimes.com
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Huge fireball slams into Jupiter, impact caught on Video
Christian Science Monitor
Space.com staff
June 5, 2010
A huge fireball has been spotted on Jupiter in yet another collision from space caught on camera and video by amateur astronomers.
The new Jupiter crash occurred on June 3 at 20:31 UT (4:31 p.m. Eastern Time) and was spotted by skywatcher Anthony Wesley in Australia and fellow amateur astronomer Christopher Go in the Philippines.
Click to watch VIDEO: Huge Fireball Crashes Into Jupiter,...http://ctpatriot1970.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/video-huge-fireball-crashes-into-jupiter-impact-caught-by-amateur-astronomer/Huge fireball slams into Jupiter, impact caught on Video
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