A second major sampling of water near gas wells in Pavilion, Wyo., has found a range of gases and contaminants.
The testing of a monitoring well near where several residents say gas drilling has ruined their drinking water supplies found methane, ethane, diesel compounds and phenol, according to news reports.
Tags: · contamination, fracturing, gas drilling, Pavilion, shale gas, Water Pollution
by Abrahm Lustgarten
ProPublica, Nov. 29, 2011, 11:14 a.m.
A deal to sell a controversial central Wyoming natural gas field has fallen apart amidst allegations that drilling there has caused water pollution.
Texas-based Legacy Resources backed out of a $45 million deal to buy the field near Pavillion, Wyom., from EnCana last week, soon after the Environmental Protection Agency said it had detected cancer-causing benzene at 50 times the level safe for humans and other carcinogenic pollutants during its latest round of sampling.
Tags: · 2-butoxyethanol, acetone, benzene, Encana, fracking, fracking fluid, Legacy Resources, naphthalene, toluene, Water Pollution, Wyoming, Wyoming gas contamination
by Marie C. Baca
Special to ProPublica
As the shale gas boom sweeps across the United States, drillers are turning to a controversial legal tool called forced pooling to gain access to minerals beneath private property–in many cases, without the landowners’ permission.
Forced pooling is common in many established oil and gas states, but its use has grown more contentious as concerns rise about drilling safety and homeowners in areas with little drilling history struggle to understand the obscurities of mineral laws.
Joseph Todd, who lives in rural Big Flats, N.Y., wasn’t especially concerned when he learned in 2009 that his half-acre property had become part of a drilling unit. But when methane gas showed up in his drinking water well after the drilling began, he became outraged, describing forced pooling as “eminent domain for gas drillers.”
Tags: · forced pooling, greenrightnow.com, Methane, methane release, natural gas drilling, Water Pollution
Spring has sprung, or is springing — quite early, in case you hadn’t noticed (hmm…wonder why?). And with the season come the chemicals, raining down upon lawn and garden centers everywhere
Ah, I love the smell of Atrazine in the morning. Let us celebrate the beginning of new life –and the end of beneficial insects, pure water, live soil and natural processes!
It is amazing that with our vast knowledge of how chemicals contaminate ecosystems, pollute waterways and boomerang back in food and drink with verifiable carcinogenic and endocrine-disrupting effects, we collectively buy tons of these synthetic chemicals every spring, summer and fall.
Tags: · BarbaraKesslerBlog, birth defects, cancer, chemical lawn treatments, endocrine system, greenrightnow.com, infertility, leukemia, pesticides, reducing chemical pollution, thyroid, Water Pollution
The world’s rivers are in a crisis of unprecedented proportion, according to a new global analysis to be published Sept.30 in the journal Nature.
The report claims to be the first to simultaneously account for the effects of such things as pollution, dam building, agricultural runoff, the conversion of wetlands and the introduction of exotic species.
According to the scientists who produced it, the portrait that emerges is grim: Nearly 80 percent of the world’s human population lives in areas where river waters are highly jeopardized, posing a major threat to human water security and resulting in aquatic environments where thousands of species of plants and animals are at risk of extinction.
“Rivers around the world really are in a crisis state,” says Peter B. McIntyre, a senior author of the study and a professor of zoology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Limnology.
Tags: · City University of New York, Nature journal, river pollution, Toxics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Water Pollution, world's rivers
In a move that could limit overspraying for mosquitoes in U.S. towns and cities and reduce human and wildlife exposure to harmful pesticides, the EPA has proposed new rules that would require companies and municipalities to get special permits before dumping pesticides into waterways. The agency hopes that these rules will reduce pesticide contamination of U.S. surface waters and improve the health of all living beings, including people.
Tags: · larval control of mosquitoes, mosquito control, National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, pesticide industry, pesticides, pollutants, spraying for adult mosquioes, Water Pollution
A sign warns of pollution in the Duwamish River. (Photo: Washington State Dept. of Health)
Tags: · Boeing, Duwamish Waterway, King County International Airport, Rivers, Seattle, Water Pollution
By Melissa Segrest
Green Right Now
The world’s water supply needs protection on all sides. Industrial pollution and human waste contaminate water supplies across the globe, while chemical- and pharmaceutical-laden runoff compromised the water re-supplying our streams and aquifers.
Water: It's limited.
Deforestation and development have drained wetlands, half of which disappeared in the last century.
Tags: · Climate Change, Earth Day, Energy Star, Energy Star appliances, freshwater, Water Conservation, water efficiency, Water Pollution, water runoff, water supply, water use, world's water supply
(The piece below is reprinted with permission from ProPublica, a non-profit news organization focused on in-depth reporting of critical issues.)
In 2005 the U.S. Bureau of Land Management offered up thousands of acres of federal land in Colorado to drilling. Because the land was in the heart of an area that supplies drinking water to 55,000 people in the western part of the state, the plan drew stong opposition from local communities
Tags: · Barnett Shale, citizen concerns, Colorado, fracturing process, Marcelllus Shale, natural gas drilling, natural gas pollution, toxic fracking fluids, Water Pollution, water sheds
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
Who is Christopher Swain and why is he swimming through 1,000 miles of Atlantic Ocean muck?
Freestyling around the net looking for answers, we found the YouTube video, “Dirty for Swain” about how Swain supporters are bathing in sewage…moisturizing with crude oil…and drinking curdled milk (not makin’ it up) to support this eco-activist’s latest aquatic statement, which is taking him from Marblehead, Mass., to Washington D.C.
It might seem like a lot of toxic exposure just to make a point…except that Swain is leading a new wave of interest in cleaner water. With the oceans acidifying under global warming and fisheries collapsing due to excessive commercial fishing, there’s no time to waste, excuse the pun.
Tags: · BarbaraKesslerBlog, Christopher Swain, fisheries, global warming, green enthusiasts, Oceans, Water Pollution
By John DeFore
Green Right Now
Animal-rights activists may be pleased at a new development that should lead to fewer animals being sacrificed in the name of environmental monitoring — or, at least, will result in vastly smaller organisms being used in the guinea-pig role.
The new developments also could save people from becoming inadvertent guinea pigs when their water system becomes contaminated by detecting problems early.
Tags: · contaminants, nanotechnology, Tel Aviv University, Water Pollution, water testing
By Barbara Kessler In case you missed the story about how Americans are getting an inadvertent dosing of pharmaceuticals in their drinking water, check out the original AP investigation that ran Sunday. The probe found traces of antibiotics, heart medications, mood drugs, anti-convulsants and sex hormones in water supplies across the nation, from New York [...]
Tags: · AP, Drugs, Water Pollution
Barbara Kessler
Andrew Winston
Danielle Nierenberg
Anthony Swift