“Southwestern Alaska contains a reservoir of gold worth an estimated $120 billion. The lakes and tributaries in the region feed into Bristol Bay and a fishery that generates $500 million a year.“
Category Archives: pollution
Waste shipments to WIPP to soon resume
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/WR-Waste-shipments-to-WIPP-expected-to-resume-soon-1602174.html
“The shipment of transuranic wastes from generator sites to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico is set to resume in April. The US Department of Energy (DoE) expects a total of 128 shipments to be made to WIPP over the next 12 months.”
Scary huh?
U.S., Canada slow to tackle Great Lakes chemical pollution, says report | MLive.com
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2017/01/ijc_tap_great_lakes_report.html
“In November, the IJC issued a 25-page report advising both governments take decisive steps to protect human health and the environment by reducing polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in the lakes. The brominated flame retardants, which are bioaccumulative and found in many products, have been in use since the 1970s and exposure has been linked to cancers, reproductive health, thyroid, neurobehavioral and developmental disorders.”
US and Canada efforts towards cleaning up PCBs and other toxic chemicals in Au Sable river and Lake Huron.
Dams produce more greenhouse gas emissions than we thought — Quartz
http://qz.com/797380/reservoirs-methane-emissions-climate-change/
Katherine Ellen Foley on the problem with “clean” hydropower. “Globally, the reservoirs created by dams may actually contribute almost a gigaton of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions—about 25% more than they had previously thought. This means that we’ve almost certainly been underestimating how much greenhouse gas we’ve been shooting into the atmosphere.”
Another reason to let rivers run their natural course….too late to stop China’s 3 River Dam on Yangtze.
Great Lakes water quality issues to be focus of public forum – News – Voice News
http://www.voicenews.com/articles/2016/09/09/news/doc57d2f5619eab5141364661.txt
Weigh in on environmental issues on Oct 4, in Toronto Canada. If you are a citizen of the US or Canada you are invited to participate. Go to IJC.ORG to find out more. So your part to protect the Great Lakes.
The Status of Wetlands Toady
Despite the acknowledgment of the importance of wetlands to nature, the USA loses 60,000 acres of wetlands a year. Read on for more specifics on the state of wetlands today in the USA.
Rediscovering Native American roots at pipeline protest – BBC News
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37171280
“Since April, over 3000 Native American people have been camping in Cannon Ball, North Dakota. They are trying to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which would run underneath the Missouri river near the Cheyenne river reservation.”
Video by Anna Bressanin
Greenland Inuit oppose open-pit uranium mine on Arctic mountain-top – The Ecologist
“Recently I [Bill Williams] was invited to assess an old Danish uranium exploration site in Kvanefjeld in southern Greenland.”
Inuit Ataqatigiit – the opposition party in the national parliament – had asked me to talk to local people about the health implications of re-opening the defunct mine.
An Australian firm called Greenland Minerals and Energy (GME) has big plans to extract uranium and rare earth minerals here. It would be a world first: an open-pit uranium mine on an Arctic mountain-top.
Any questions?
Oregon train derailment spills oil, sparks fire
https://www.yahoo.com/news/oregon-train-derailment-spills-oil-sparks-fire-204604432.html
Oil spills are preventable. Read excerpt:
“Including Friday’s accident, at least 26 oil trains have been involved in major fires or derailments during the past decade in the U.S. and Canada, according to Associated Press analysis of accident records from the two countries.
The worst was a 2013 derailment that killed 47 people in Lac-Megantic, Quebec. Damage from that accident has been estimated at $1.2 billion or higher.”
USGS Release: Protecting Water in the Red River: There’s a Map for That (3/14/2016 5:50:23 PM)
http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=4472#.VujiACMpDqB
Introduction of a new tool to help managers make critical water decisions concerning the Red river Basin between to USA and Canada. Read on:
“Understanding the facts makes it easier to achieve cooperative solutions to complex problems such as managing nutrient pollution,” said IJC U.S. Section Chair Lana Pollack. “A geographic display of information can be a powerful aid to understanding the facts.”
Lake Levels 