pollution

Fatal Kidney Disease Linked To Monsanto’s Round-Up

July 11, 2014 Jeff Ritterman, www.truth-out.org Educate! health, Monsanto, pollution

Monsanto's herbicide Roundup has been linked to a mysterious fatal kidney disease epidemic that has appeared in Central America, Sri Lanka and India. For years, scientists have been trying to unravel the mystery of a chronic kidney disease epidemic that has hit Central America, India and Sri Lanka. The disease occurs in poor peasant farmers who do hard physical work in hot climes. In each instance, the farmers have been exposed to herbicides and to heavy metals. The disease is known as CKDu, for Chronic Kidney Disease of unknown etiology. The "u" differentiates this illness from other chronic kidney diseases where the cause is known. Very few Western medical practitioners are even aware of CKDu, despite the terrible toll it has taken on poor farmers from El Salvador to South Asia. Dr. Catharina Wesseling, the regional director for the Program on Work and Health (SALTRA) in Central America, which pioneered the initial studies of the region's unsolved outbreak, put it this way, "Nephrologists and public health professionals from wealthy countries are mostly either unfamiliar with the problem or skeptical whether it even exists."

Study Finds Unusual Contamination In Animals Near Oilsands

July 10, 2014 Marty Klinkenberg, www.edmontonjournal.com Educate! Animals, Environment, Oil Sands, pollution, Science

Scientists at the University of Manitoba say they have linked pollution in the oilsands to elevated cancer rates in Fort Chipewyan for the first time. The impact on health in communities downwind of development is “clear and worrisome,” researcher Stephane McLachlan told a news conference Monday in Edmonton. “Something unique is happening in Fort Chipewyan, especially around cancer.” Conducted in collaboration with the Athabasca Chipewyan and Mikisew Cree First Nations, the study found fish and animals consumed as part of a traditional diet contained unusually high concentrations of contaminants emitted during the extraction and upgrading of bitumen. Twenty-three cases of cancer were reported among 94 people interviewed as part of the three-year, $1-million study, which was partially paid for by Health Canada and peer-reviewed by its scientists.

Texas Sheriff Wants Criminal Charges Filed In Fracking Pollution Case

July 10, 2014 David Hasemyer, www.insideclimatenews.org Resist! Fracking, Law, pollution, Texas

A Texas waste hauling company that is already facing civil charges for a March accident that spread toxic drilling waste along a rural road could also be facing criminal charges. Karnes County Sheriff Dwayne Villanueva said he will ask county prosecutors to file a criminal complaint against On Point Services LLC after the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and the Texas Railroad Commission close their civil cases against the company. "We are prepared to ask the district attorney's office to review the case for action," Villanueva said. "There are two different levels of enforcement here: the civil by the state and the criminal by the county." The incident occurred March 10 when investigators say 1,260 gallons of liquid waste from an On Point truck coated eight miles of roadway near the rural communities of Falls City and Hobson. Roads were closed for three days and the Texas Department of Transportation conducted a costly cleanup. The incident highlights the growing problem of how to dispose of the billions of gallons of contaminated fluids left over from the nation's hydraulic-fracturing or fracking boom.

World’s Oceans Face ‘Irreparable Damage’

July 9, 2014 The Real News, www.therealnews.com Educate! Environment, Fish, Oceans, pollution

There are a number of things happening to the ocean, and one of them is the fish in the ocean. And there has been and continues to be quite a lot of overfishing. And more and more we see that the catch we are getting from the ocean is stabilizing more even declining overall globally. But for some specific fisheries, there have been collapses in it, and the classical one is the cod stocks off Newfoundland in Eastern Canada. So there are some collapses and overall resistible stabilizing of global catches because there's no more place to go fishing in. We started fishing by the coasts, rather close to the coasts. And as those were depleted, we kept moving further into the ocean and deeper. And now there's no place to go. What this means is that the fishing effort, that is, the amount of people and machines we take out to catch fish, is increasing whiles we are getting less and less back in terms of returns. So that is on the fish side. And then, when you move into the marine pollution, there's a lot of debris, plastic being absorbed or taken in by the ocean. And this has huge consequences, right? Some of these things stay in the water forever almost, and they split and become very little pieces of plastic that the fish see and think is food, is algae, and then they eat them, and there are consequences all over.

Activists Shut Down Seneca Biomass Plant

July 8, 2014 Cascadia Forest Defenders, www.earthfirstjournal.org Resist! Cascadia, Environment, pollution, Privatization, Protest

Scores of activists with Cascadia Forest Defenders and Earth First! converged on the Seneca Jones biomass plant this morning to protest the company’s privatization of public lands in the Elliott State Forest and ongoing pollution in West Eugene. Currently several people have locked themselves to equipment at the plant, effectively blocking the “truck dump” where biomass is loaded into the incinerator. A banner has been dropped off of a tower reading: “Seneca Jones: Privatizing the coast range, polluting West Eugene.” The activists are bringing attention to Seneca Jones Timber’s role in privatizing the Elliott State Forest. This month Seneca closed on their purchase of 788 acres in the Elliott, called East Hakki Ridge. Co-owner of Seneca Kathy Jones recently expressed the company’s intention to clearcut East Hakki and replace it with Douglas fir plantation. Cascadia Forest Defender Richard Haley commented, “However Kathy Jones paints it, her company is a bad neighbor everywhere it operates. Here in Eugene, Seneca pollutes. In the Elliott, Seneca clearcuts and puts up ‘no trespassing’ signs in pristine, never before logged forest. East Hakki is no longer a place where locals can go hunt, fish, hike, camp or watch birds. Now it is corporate property.”

Baltimore Youth Stop Incinerator Construction

July 3, 2014 Brentin Mock, www.grist.org Resist! Baltimore, Environment, health, pollution, Youth

Baltimore air polluter fumbles, and kids score one for their hard-hit community. After close to three years of youth-led organizing against a massive incinerator planned for their South Baltimore Fairfield neighborhood, the young activists got their first taste of victory recently, when the state of Maryland ordered Energy Answers International, the company building the incinerator, to stop construction on the project. Assistant Attorney General Roberta R. James sent a letter to Energy Answers on June 20 alerting the company that it was in violation of the state’s air pollution control laws and regulations. Specifically, the incinerator company failed to purchase offsets for the hundreds of tons of toxic air pollutants the incinerator will emit when it gets up and running, which many in the Fairfield community hope won’t happen. The offsets — a company’s agreement to pay another company to clean up its emissions so that it can keep polluting — are mandatory under Energy Answers’ permit provisions. The company was required to begin buying offsets when it started construction last year.

Enbridge Pipeline Symposium Fails To Convince Audience

June 30, 2014 Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands, www.michigancats.org Resist! Enbridge, Pipeline, pollution

Last Tuesday evening, Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council, an environmental advocacy organization in Northern Michigan, hosted representatives from Enbridge, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), the Environmental Protection Agency, the US Coast Guard and several other agencies at a high school in Petoskey, Michigan to talk about Enbridge’s Line 5. Line 5 is probably the most noteworthy crude oil pipeline in Enbridge’s Lakehead system. It runs right underneath the Straights of Mackinac, which connects lakes Michigan and Huron. If line 5 were to spill into the Straights of Mackinac (and line 5 has spilled in the past in Michigan), it would devastate the water supplies of 30 million people in the US and Canada as well as essentially annihilate Michigan’s economy. Enbridge sent their best PR representatives to assuage the people of northern Michigan, to say that everything was alright, Enbridge has learned its lesson from Kalamazoo and that the pipes are now all safer. But they presented dubious claims which further cast doubt on their trustworthiness. Among some of the misleading things that Enbridge representatives said was that the portion of the line 5 that runs under the Mackinac Straits is comprised of seamless pipes. This ignores the fact that the 5-mile segments of line 5 under the Straits are obviously welded together, which Beth Wallace from Pipeline Safety Trust was quick to point out. In response the Enbridge representative gave a hurried reassurance that the welds are being regularly monitored.

The Fight To Ban Gold Mining And Save El Salvador’s Water Supply

June 30, 2014 Julia Paley, www.fpif.org Resist! El Salvador, Mining, pollution, Water

“For us, the mine is death.” Those words, spoken by the president of a rural grassroots organization, capture the intensity and urgency of the struggle against mining in El Salvador. Mining has reaped devastating consequences in El Salvador. Toxins from mining operations have made 90 percent of El Salvador’s water undrinkable. Lung and kidney diseases run rampant among miners. Community leaders and activists who resist are hounded and cut down. The 15-minute documentary Gold or Water: The Struggle Against Metallic Mining in El Salvador dramatically illustrates Salvadorans’ passionate efforts to ward off mining from aggressive multinational firms. You can watch it in full here: The film focuses on the fight against Pacific Rim, a Canadian/Australian company that seeks to extract gold near the head of the Lempa River, from which nearly 70 percent of El Salvadorans get their water. Opposition is so strong that two successive governments have declared a moratorium on metallic mining. Over 62 percent of the population supports a permanent ban.

Counties Urge Revocation Of Pipeline Permit

June 28, 2014 Jake Kurtz, www.hngnews.com Resist! Enbridge, Oil, pollution, Wisconsin

Dane County supervisors approved a resolution Thursday urging the Department of Natural Resources to revoke a permit awarded earlier that day to Enbridge Energy and undertake a environmental review of plans the company has to boost production along its main Wisconsin oil pipeline. Installed in 2006, Enbridge’s Line 61 transports roughly 400,000 barrels of Canadian tar sands soil per day from Superior to Pontiac, Ill. The 42-inch diameter line crosses northeast Dane County through the towns of York and Medina. But Enbridge has plans to increase Line 61’s capacity to 1.2 million barrels per day by late 2015 with the construction or modification of pump stations throughout Wisconsin. The project was first announced approximately two years ago. According to Enbridge, the two-phase expansion is part of “ongoing efforts to meet North America’s needs for reliable and secure transportation of petroleum energy supplies,” and the project “will help generate benefits for local economies,” in the form of jobs, tax revenue and the purchase of goods and services. Enbridge is also working to beef up the capacity by adding new pump stations to its Alberta Clipper pipeline that runs from Alberta, Canada through North Dakota and northern Minnesota to Superior.

Cove Point Fracked Gas Export Threatens Safety Of Residents

June 20, 2014 Karen Gibbs, www.ecowatch.com Resist! Fracking, pollution, Safety, Virginia

As a resident of the town of Lusby, MD, where a Virginia-based energy giant Dominion Resources wants to build a massive $3.8 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility, I’ve sought out and received a significant education on the safety risks inherent in this industry over the past year. In the process, I’ve returned again and again to this question: Is my safety—and that of the thousands of families living within several miles of this project—a significant concern to federal regulators? These are facts, not mere speculation: on Sept. 13, 2013, a gas processing facility partly owned by Dominion Resources exploded in Natrium, WV. On March 31, an LNG plant exploded in Plymouth, WA, injuring five workers and rupturing an LNG storage tank, resulting in the formation of a flammable vapor gas cloud. On April 23, another major gas processing facility exploded in Opal, WY, forcing the evacuation of the entire town of about 95 residents. These facts are highly significant because the potential consequences of a similar explosion at Dominion’s proposed Cove Point LNG export facility in Lusby could be far more severe.

Company Offers Cash To Ease D.C. Residents’ Fear

June 16, 2014 Emily Atkin, www.thinkprogress.org Educate! D.C., Oil, Oil Trains, pollution, Washington, Washington D.C.

In an apparent attempt to ease health and safety concerns over CSX Corp.’s plan to reconstruct a freight train tunnel in Southeast D.C., the U.S. Department of Transportation on Friday said the company would offer money to the residents most harmed by the project. But residents are not taking the bait, saying the money is not worth the risk the project poses to their lives and livelihoods. “It’s an insult,” said Maureen Cohen Harrington, whose home would border the trench that CSX plans to dig so that freight trains can run while it reconstructs the Virginia Avenue Tunnel. “These amounts give no recognition to the relentless and overwhelming disruption this will cause, or to the lethal risk that it will present.” Residents are concerned that CSX’s freight trains — which sometimes carry crude oil and other hazardous materials — are at an increased risk of derailment while running through an open trench alongside the tunnel, which is next to an elevated highway and numerous homes.

First Nations Will Not Allow Pulp Operation To Re-Open

June 14, 2014 Aaron Beswick and Michael Gorman, www.thechronicleherald.ca Resist! First Nations, pollution, Protest, Water

One of the largest industrial employers in Pictou County remains shut down. The Pictou Landing First Nation is holding to its demand that it won’t allow Northern Pulp to reopen until they get a firm commitment from the province to remediate and clean up the Boat Harbour industrial waste treatment site. The province, which owns the site, doesn’t yet know how much it would cost to clean up the waste that has poured into the former tidal lagoon from the kraft pulp mill since it opened in 1967. “We’ve done a number of cost analyses on it, both looking at cleanup at various stages and various options,” said Premier Stephen McNeil on Thursday. However, McNeil said his government needs an update on what is actually in Boat Harbour before it can estimate the plan for and cost of a cleanup. That information, he said, might not come until later this year. But until the province commits to the Pictou Landing First Nation band council with firm timelines for cleanup, Chief Andrea Paul is maintaining that she won’t lift her community’s blockade of the site of the broken effluent pipe.

Chemical Leak In Canada Sparks A First Nations Blockade

June 13, 2014 Miles Howe, www.news.vice.com Resist! Canada, Environment, First Nations, pollution

On Tuesday morning, staff at the Northern Pulp-owned Abercrombie Point pulp and paper mill in Pictou County, Nova Scotia, observed that a pipe carrying raw effluent to its final destination of the Boat Harbor Treatment Facility had sprung a leak and was spewing its contents into the adjacent waters of Pictou Harbor. Northern Pulp spokesperson Dave MacKenzie could not verify how many hours the leak had been going on for, nor if the pipe itself had been absolutely severed — and was thus spewing its total contents into the harbor. The official mill stance is that the leak was discovered at about 7AM and the shutdown process: “began immediately and took a couple of hours.” Pictou Landing First Nation resident Jonathan Beadle, however, suspects that the leak had gone undetected through the previous night — and that the pipe itself was completely ruptured at the leak point.

Federal Court Allows Coal Ash Litigation To Continue Against Duke Energy

June 12, 2014 Waterkeeper Alliance, www.ecowatch.com Resist! Coal, Law, pollution, Water

Conservation groups represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center won a major victory Monday night when a federal court ruled that they may go forward with challenges to coal ash pollution contaminating an important public fishery near Wilmington, NC and drinking water supplies for a nearby community. The court rejected numerous arguments by Duke Energy seeking to dismiss the lawsuit brought by Cape Fear River Watch, Sierra Club and Waterkeeper Alliance. “This ruling is a major step towards protecting people who depend on nearby drinking wells for clean water and on fish from Sutton Lake for their next meal,” said Frank Holleman, the senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center who represented the groups in court. “The court said Sutton Lake belongs to North Carolinians and rejected Duke Energy’s attempt to avoid its responsibility for polluting groundwater and drinking water supplies and convert Sutton Lake into its wastewater dump.” The state drew national press when it stepped in at the last minute to try to block the citizens groups’ Clean Water Act lawsuit by filing an enforcement action in state court.

Will Fracking Cause Our Next Nuclear Disaster?

June 11, 2014 Dahr Jamail, www.truth-out.org Educate! Fracking, Nuclear, pollution, Radiation

The idea of storing radioactive nuclear waste inside a hollowed-out salt cavern might look good on paper. The concept is to carve out the insides of the caverns, deep underground, then carefully move in the waste. Over time, the logic goes, the salt will move in and insulate the containers for thousands of generations. "The whole game is to engineer something that can contain those contaminants on the order of tens of thousands of years," Tim Judson, the executive director of the Nuclear Information Resource Service (NIRS), told Truthout. NIRS is intended to be a national information and networking center for citizens and environmental activists concerned about nuclear power, radioactive waste, radiation and sustainable energy issues, according to Judson. Salt-cavern storage was the plan for the Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP), the world's third-deepest geological repository, constructed and licensed to permanently dispose of radioactive waste for 10,000 years. The repository sits approximately 26 miles east of the town of Carlsbad in southeastern New Mexico. Since shipments began in 1999, more than 80,000 cubic meters and 11,000 shipments of waste have been transferred to WIPP.

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