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Oil Spill Hits Michigan’s Kalamazoo River

By hudson in July 30th 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under disaster, fresh water, pollution, rivers, watershed, wetland     Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,      

By SHAWN McCARTHY of The Globe and Mail

Canada’s oil sands producers have suffered another black eye in the United States with Enbridge pipeline break that has spilled some three million litres of crude into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River.

The high-profile accident and resulting political outcry comes at a sensitive time for the Canadian industry, which is looking expand pipeline access and exports to the U.S. Canadian officials have sought to quietly capitalize on BP’s catastrophic blowout in the Gulf of Mexico by positioning the oil sands as a greener, safer alternative to offshore crude.

But there is growing opposition to oil sands pipelines – whether Enbridge’s planned Northern Gateway project to the West Coast or Enbridge Keystone XL line to the U.S. Gulf Coast. And the Michigan spill, while small compared to the estimated 800 million litres that have spewed from BP’s well, provides fresh ammunition to the industry’s critics.

The U.S. State Department announced this week it would be delaying its ruling on the Learn more about Keystone XL application while it takes into account a highly critical submission from the Environmental Protection Agency that raised serious questions about the need for and the impact of the pipeline.

Environmental groups are now pointing to the Michigan spill as further evidence that crude pipelines pose serious threats, particularly when they cross fragile ecosystems or critical sources of fresh water.

Enbridge chief executive officer Pat Daniel was in Michigan on Wednesday to supervise the cleanup effort after Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm complained the company’s response had been “anemic.”

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Texas Tech University: Center for Water Law and Policy

By hudson in July 29th 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under aquifer, collaboration, communications, conservation, dams, delta, drinking water, drought, fresh water, infrastructure, irrigation, lake, pollution, rivers, sanitation, technology, watershed, wetland, world water     Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,      

The purpose of the Center for Water Law and Policy is to create and develop opportunities for exploring and assessing legal, regulatory, institutional and policy aspects of water use, from the purely local to the decisively global. The Center is dedicated to pursing these objectives through an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates economic, social, agricultural, environmental, and other societal aspects to water management.

The goal of the Center is to provide relevant and timely information to various law and policy-making bodies as a means of enhancing water-related decision-making processes and to encourage the proactive consideration of water resources objectives. The Center is part of the Texas Tech University interdisciplinary water initiative involving numerous faculty and students who represent the fields of law, public policy, economics, agriculture, geosciences, engineering, biological sciences, and health sciences.

Professor Gabriel Eckstein, an internationally recognized expert in water law, directs the Center for Water Law and Policy. In addition to teaching at the law school, Professor Eckstein serves as an advisor to the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization on global groundwater issues. He has also consulted for the World Commission on Dams, Organization of American States, and US Agency for International Development on various international environmental and water issues, and is the author of numerous articles on water law and policy. Professor Eckstein also directs the Internet-based International Water Law Project.

Learn more about the Center for Water Law and Policy
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Learn about the International Water Law Project

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Will the U.S. EPA Approve an Oil Pipeline Stretching From Canada To Texas?

By hudson in July 28th 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under aquifer, disaster, drinking water, fresh water, infrastructure, pollution, technology, water security, watershed     Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,      

By DAVID SASSOON of The Guardian

The EPA has slowed down the approval process of a permit for a new Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline that a few months ago looked like a shoo-in for a State Department rubber stamp by the fall.

The EPA gave the State department’s draft environmental impact statement for the 2000 mile pipeline that will cut across the nation’s heartland the worst rating possible, noting that if differences between the agencies can’t be resolved, the matter could get referred to the White House for resolution.

In response, the State department announced yesterday it intended to add 90 days to the process of making a decision on the pipeline permit to allow the final environmental impact statement to be reviewed by other federal agencies. Observers think that means there will be no decision until sometime next year.

Last year, a similar pipeline received approval with far less scrutiny. Is environmental security rising to become a matter of primary national interest in the wake of the Gulf oil disaster?

The proposed TransCanada pipeline will carry crude from Alberta’s oil sands to refineries in Texas. Known as the Keystone XL, it would increase the flow of a far more polluting form of oil from the north by 900,000 barrels a day and double US consumption.

The EPA has asked the State Department to consider the national security implications of expanding the nation’s commitment to a relatively high-carbon source of oil, which EPA says has a well-to-wheels carbon footprint 82 percent larger than conventional oil.

Also of concern is what would happen if a pipeline accident caused a serious spill above the Ogallala aquifer which millions of Americans in the Midwest rely on for fresh drinking water as well as irrigation, but many other long-standing environmental impacts are also giving EPA pause.

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Gulf Oil Has Made Its Way Into Lake Pontchartrain

By hudson in July 27th 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under biodiversity, conservation, disaster, fish, flora and fauna, habitat, lake, oceans, pollution, salinity, seawater, wetland, world water     Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,      

Tip of a very nasty iceberg? Perhaps. With hurricane season underway there is no way of knowing the outcome when a category 3 or 4 storm slams oil as well as seawater onto the gulf coast. If you pray in any form, now would probably be a good time to marshal your troops – Hudson.

By KRIS HUDSON of the Wall Street Journal

NEW ORLEANS – Idled commercial fishermen Vincent Caronna and Shirley Roach stewed with colleagues on their docks in the Salt Bayou this week, lamenting that oil from the BP PLC spill had begun seeping into Lake Pontchartrain, a body of water Louisianans had hoped was safe. “It will be a long time before they clean [the lake] up,” Mr. Caronna said, worried that storms could push more oil over manmade barricades and into the 630-square-mile brackish lake. “It will have to be completely restocked,” Ms. Roach said.

Since last weekend, tar balls and oil sheen have been reported on the lake’s eastern edge and in the Rigolets, a waterway that connects the lake to the Gulf eight to nine nautical miles away. Some officials say oil escaped an extensive network of protective piping called boom and skimmer boats only with the aid of recent storms and wind that pushed it into and through the Rigolets. The state has closed 5% of the lake’s area to fishing because of the oil, and fishermen fret that the restrictions will be expanded.

Last year, the lake yielded more than 4.8 million pounds of blue crab, shrimp and fin fish valued at nearly $4.5 million for fishermen, according to the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. It often provides safe fishing when the Gulf is too rough.

The fishermen, their livelihoods devastated by the damage oil has wrought in the Gulf of Mexico, offer some of the most pessimistic views. The oil’s encroachment into Lake Pontchartrain has been relatively minor, with tar balls and sheen being found. So it is as much a psychological assault as a physical one.

But the shallow lake, its southern edge ringed by New Orleans and its suburbs, is a crucial part of the area’s environmental, economic and cultural fabric. Massive efforts in the 1980s and ’90s cleaned the lake of decades of contamination from shell dredging and dairy farms. Since then, it has served as a recreational hub, a fishing grounds and a haven for sea life.

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Large China oil spill threatens sea life, water

By admin in July 21st 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under China, biodiversity, disaster, flora and fauna, habitat, health, pollution, seawater     Tags: , , , , , , ,      

By CARA ANNA and YU BING for Associated Press

BEIJING – China’s largest reported oil spill emptied beaches along the Yellow Sea as its size doubled Wednesday, while cleanup efforts included straw mats and frazzled workers with little more than rubber gloves.

An official warned the spill posed a “severe threat” to sea life and water quality as China’s latest environmental crisis spread off the shores of Dalian, once named China’s most livable city.

One cleanup worker has drowned, his body coated in crude.

“I’ve been to a few bays today and discovered they were almost entirely covered with dark oil,” said Zhong Yu with environmental group Greenpeace China, who spent the day on a boat inspecting the spill.

“The oil is half-solid and half liquid and is as sticky as asphalt,” she told The Associated Press by telephone.

The oil had spread over 165 square miles (430 square kilometers) of water five days since a pipeline at the busy northeastern port exploded, hurting oil shipments from part of China’s strategic oil reserves to the rest of the country. Shipments remained reduced Wednesday.

State media has said no more oil is leaking into the sea, but the total amount of oil spilled is not yet clear.

Greenpeace China released photos Wednesday of inky beaches and of straw mats about 2 square meters (21 square feet) in size scattered on the sea, meant to absorb the oil.

Read article… incredible pictures here

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Environmentalists urge closure of Jordan River baptism site over poor water quality

By admin in July 21st 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under conservation, fresh water, health, irrigation, pollution, rivers, social structures, watershed     Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,      

DPA

FoEME says Israel, Syria and Jordan are diverting 98% the Jordan and are discharging untreated sewage, agricultural run-off, saline water and fish pond effluent into it.

An environmental group Wednesday urged the Israeli government to close down a baptism site at the lower Jordan River until water quality standards for tourists and pilgrims bathing at the holy site were met.

“The Lower Jordan River is arguably the most famous river in the world, of international significance to more than half of humanity due to its rich natural and cultural heritage and its symbolic value and importance to the three monotheistic religions,” Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) said in a statement from Tel Aviv.

“Sadly, the lower Jordan River has long suffered from severe mismanagement,” it added.

Israel, Syria and Jordan were diverting 98 per cent of its water and were discharging untreated sewage, agricultural run-off, saline water and fish pond effluent into it, FoEME said.

The highly polluted water caused a serious health risk, it said.

Gidon Bromberg, FoEME’s Israel Director, also accuses the Tourism Ministry and Nature and Parks Authority of attempting to lower health standards in order to keep the baptism site open.

Located near the Biblical city of Jericho, located in the Jordan Valley on the occupied West Bank, it is one of the biggest tourist attractions in the Holy Land.

More than 100,000 tourists visit it each year.

The Health Ministry told the German Press Agency dpa that no final decision had yet been taken, because the results of samples it had ordered the Nature and Parks Authority to take had yet to come back.

It would not changes its existing guidelines, which allow bathing at the site, until that decision was taken, it said.

Friends of the Earth called on both Israel and Jordan to work on rehabilitating the river, whose poor state it warned was also harming the livelihood of the some 250,00 Jordanians, 60,000 Palestinians and 30,000 Israeli settlers living in the Jordan Valley on either side of the border.

[Ed-Apols for full quote]

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So wasted: The Pacific Garbage Patch

By paulstewart in July 20th 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under conservation, fish, food security, habitat, health, mapping, oceans, pollution, seawater, world water     Tags: , , , , , , ,      

by Tim Siegenbeek van Heukelom for The Lowy Interpreter

Since its discovery in the mid-1990s, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch has attracted attention from scientists, media and activists. More and more evidence is appearing to show that so-called ‘ocean gyres’ – large rotating ocean currents – essentially function as a marine trash vortex for the plastic waste that ends up in the sea.

The plastic debris in the Pacific Garbage Patch is hardly visible from above, so on the outside it doesn’t appear to be a sea-of-rubbish the size of the Northern Territory. Yet, the micro-particles floating around contain all kinds of dangerous toxins, which in some cases might not immediately kill the confused fish feeding on it but will, due to our increasing love and consumption of fish, end up in our own food chain.

Even worse, the Pacific Garbage Patch is not an isolated phenomenon. There are four more ocean gyres also accumulating plastic waste. Only a couple of months ago scientists discovered the North Atlantic Garbage Patch, containing pollution levels similar to the Pacific Patch.

The problem of this non-traditional security threat lies unmistakably in the nature of plastic marine pollution. It is hardly visible, far offshore and barely understood in terms of long-term impact on the environment and food safety.

While the Dutch may have come up with a creative way of dealing with the plastic marine rubbish, a real solution seems to be a long way out. Awareness-raising campaigns are already underway as a much needed first step. Take, for example, the Australian film-maker Richard Pain, who is in training for an attempt to swim through the Pacific Garbage Patch to put this environmental concern higher on the political agenda.

Still, as climate change has evidenced, awareness of a serious global threat does not automatically translate into sustainable solutions. If we can’t even come to an international agreement on fighting climate change, how do we plan to deal with other less well-known matters of pollution?

The critical problem in this case is our perception and use of plastic. We produce plastic to last forever, but design it for a throwaway society. Hence, we fundamentally need to challenge the way we design plastic products. As outlined in the Cradle-to-Cradle philosophy, we may need ‘the transformation of human industry through ecologically intelligent design’.

Visit The Lowy Institute for International Policy

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Temporary cap in place-now what for the Gulf?

By paulstewart in July 18th 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under biodiversity, disaster, habitat, jobs, oceans, pollution, seawater, wetland, world water     Tags: , , , , , ,      

By ALLEN G. BREED, VICKI SMITH and HOLBROOK MOHR for AP

NEW ORLEANS-After three long months, the bleeding from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico has been finally, mercifully stanched. But in so many ways, the prognosis remains uncertain.

Which species will rebound, and which have been pushed beyond the brink? Has the oil accelerated the die-off of marshlands that protect one of America’s great cities and make this the nation’s second most-productive fishing region? What effect will the BP spill have on the future of deep-sea drilling — at once boon and bane — in the Gulf?

And, of more immediate concern to people along the nation’s southern coast, where will the millions of as-yet uncollected, unburned, unseen gallons of oil from the blown-out Deepwater Horizon well end up?

Second-generation Plaquemines Parish resident Sandy Reno isn’t sure she wants to wait around to find out the answers.

“I’m ready to pack up and leave,” says Reno, 43, whose shrimper husband, like so many others along this coast, is now dependent on cleanup work from the company held responsible for the disaster. “When you’ve had enough, you’ve had enough. I’ve had enough already.”

Just as the stumbling federal response to Hurricane Katrina five years ago exposed not just chinks, but spider web networks of fissures in our national armor, the failure to prevent and then quickly stop the spill has shaken many people’s faith in American might.

“We’re a superpower — the United States,” New Orleans chef and sometime fishing guide Eric Schutzman said recently as he took a break from carving up a batch of black drum and redfish caught in an unclosed section of Black Bay. “We put a man on the moon. You’d think we’d have enough brilliant minds to get it all cleaned up and get on with it.”

Since the Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20 and sank 50 miles off the tip of Louisiana, as much as 184 million gallons of crude have hemorrhaged into the gulf.

Read article…on Google news

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The oyster is their world, but oil spill threatens it

By admin in July 18th 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under biodiversity, delta, disaster, fish, flora and fauna, food security, habitat, mangrove, pollution, seawater, world water     Tags: , , , , , ,      

In Louisiana, acres of mollusk beds are off-limits, setting off a chain of devastating events — starting with the oysterman.

By P.J. Huffstutter, Nicole Santa Cruz and Ashley Powers for the Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Los Angeles and the Gulf Coast — Laurentino Cardenas leaned over the edge of his narrow boat, his hands clenched above the murky green surface of the Gulf of Mexico’s Bayou Terrebonne. The name means “good earth” in French, and it has indeed been good to Louisiana.

Oystermen like Cardenas have long scraped the gulf’s floor, clinging to metal rakes as the oysters cling to reefs, with a determination that has allowed them to survive nature’s wrath and man’s mistakes. Until now.

The BP oil spill is killing off a centuries-old way of life, and endangering one of the world’s largest wild oyster systems. Businesses nationwide have been hurt or destroyed because Cardenas and his peers can’t work. Along the way, the oyster has become a barometer of the crisis’ economic reach and a portent of long-term effects.

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Not what you bargained for: China’s massive water scheme delivering polluted goods

By paulstewart in July 15th 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under China, drinking water, infrastructure, irrigation, pollution, resettlement, rivers, water security, wetland, world water     Tags: , , , , , ,      

Brady Yauch for Probe International

While Chinese officials continue to forge ahead with an expensive scheme to move water from the Yangtze river in the south of the country to water-starved cities in the north, fears concerning its cleanliness are surfacing once again. According to a recent report, authorities are concerned over the poor water quality in the eastern leg of the South North Water Diversion (SNWD) project.

Vice-Minister of Environmental Protection Zhang Lijun said officials have shut down thousands of polluting paper mills and breweries in order to improve the quality of the eastern route’s water. The closures come under a State Council-approved directive requiring authorities to ensure that the water meets Grade 3, the minimum standard for drinking water.

But authorities have been struggling with the polluted water for more than eight years, before construction began on the eastern route.

The eastern route will involve a series of canals, connecting a number of river systems, and will channel water, predominantly, through Jiangsu and Shandong provinces—two provinces with the worst water pollution along the route—to Tianjin, on the border of Beijing Municipality. According to a Chinese government website, the eastern leg will span 1156 kilometres.

The director of the massive water project, Zhang Jiyao, says, “there is still a long way to go before local authorities transform the eastern route into a clean-water corridor and ensure the quality won’t decline again.”

Zhang added that, “key pollution-control facilities”—including manmade wetlands and pipelines connecting sewage treatment plants—are slated for the end of this year. According to the state-run China Daily, tests in the first quarter showed that water quality was at least Grade 3 in 23 trunk canals, or 66 percent of the sections planned for the eastern leg, south of the Yellow River.

In recent months, some local officials have expressed concern about the quality of water in the eastern leg, with the official in charge of the pollution treatment planning telling a local reporter, “from the beginning of the project, both Hebei province and Tianjin municipality said they didn’t want the water from the East Route because they were deeply concerned that it would be seriously polluted, especially the section within Shandong province.”

The entire SNWD involves three routes—eastern, central and western. Construction and relocation have started on the eastern and central routes, while the western leg is still in the planning stage.

In total, the project is expected to cost $62-billion—more than double the official estimates for the controversial Three Gorges dam—and will result in relocations of more than 330,000 citizens.

Source and many links to additional reading here…

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