There was a time when people only said “fracking” to avoid using a more objectionable word. Now it can be found in national headlines, and if it’s no longer a curse word, it is proving to be a serious new environmental curse.

Fracking is shorthand for hydraulic fracturing, a rapidly growing method for extracting oil and natural gas that may (or may not) have deadly consequences. Energy companies inject a mixture of water, sand and assorted chemicals — often including diesel fuel — at high pressure into underground wells, cracking open rock formations that would otherwise trap the valuable fossil fuels. Because this was a relatively uncommon practice until recently, oil lobbyists have been extremely successful in exempting hydraulic fracturing from many of the federal regulations that govern the release of dangerous chemicals into the environment. Today natural gas extraction is soaring and so is the practice of fracking, and the public is taking notice. It’s about time.

The worry is that the chemicals used in fracking, sometimes including the carcinogen benzene, are contaminating water supplies. No one has conclusively demonstrated such contamination, but then there has been shockingly little study of the issue — and considerable evidence that political interference has discouraged regulators from thoroughly examining it. Environmental Protection Agency insiders charge that a 2004 agency study of fracking, which found that the practice posed little threat to drinking water, was seriously flawed as a result of pressure from the Bush administration and industry. The EPA is working on a new study due next year.

Complicating efforts to understand the impact of fracking is that there is no federal rule forcing oil companies to disclose what chemicals they’re using. So states — including California — are taking action.

AB 591 from Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont) would require companies to disclose the chemicals injected into wells, which would be posted on a state website. It’s patterned on a similar bill in Texas that’s considered by environmental groups to be a national model, though the California version goes further. Industry officials are opposing the bill because, unlike the one in Texas (and similar disclosure requirements approved in such states as Arkansas, Wyoming and Colorado), it doesn’t allow companies to withhold information considered trade secrets.

Requiring disclosure of potentially deadly chemicals released into the environment is an extremely modest step (indeed, it should be a federal responsibility). We understand the need to protect trade secrets, and wouldn’t object if Wieckowski’s bill were amended to afford the disclosure protections typically granted to polluters in California. But this bill is too important to be overlooked by our distracted Legislature.

from our friends at the LA Times

Bees partly loaded with pollen return to their hive. (Frank Rumpenhorst, AFP/Getty Images / May 6, 2011)

The buzzing swarms may seem scary, but we humans—and our vegetables and flowers—couldn’t get along without them

I’ve grown accustomed to the bugs that flit around my desk at home while I write. They’re the buddies of my office mate, a puppy who naps straddling the doggy door, with his head propping open the plastic flap to outside.

That’s an open invitation to insects sweltering in our Valley backyard. Rio spends entire afternoons chasing down the flies that venture inside.

But Rio didn’t know what to make of the buzzing that greeted us on the hottest afternoon of the year last week.

Bees. Lots of bees. In the hallway, the bathroom, the office; moving as if they were in a stupor, hovering in the air while I swatted them down.

They milled against the windows and patio doors, and for each one I killed, two more seemed to show up.

I flung open the door to the garage, bent on getting the insect spray, and felt like I’d stumbled into a horror movie: swarms of bees, hundreds it seemed, buzzed frantically just above my head, in the corner near my water heater.

I did what any reasonable person would do: slammed the door shut, ran to computer and Googled “bee removal San Fernando Valley.”

I’m an animal lover and a green-leaning gal, but still I was surprised by what I saw online. There were a couple of “extermination” offers, but most listings sounded like the work of “Wild Kingdom” supporters.

“Saving bees is our business,” said one. “Don’t kill those bees!” urged another. “Bee removal and relocation,” most promised. “We save and remove hives.”

I wasn’t trying to relocate the little buggers. I just wanted them out of my garage.

I called the outfit that offered “emergency service at no extra charge.” A bee removal expert would be at my door at sunrise, he promised. In the meantime, he warned, don’t open that door. (As if!)

I expected an oddball guy in bee-keeping garb — a hood, long sleeves, some sort of Ghostbuster equipment to smoke them out. Instead I got Max, a chatty young man in a tank top and shorts, who’d been running from call to call.

Bee removal firms are working overtime now, because bees are as busy as … well, bees. Pollination demands soar in the spring, so bee colonies split up and spread out, searching en masse for new homes.

Seeking refuge from the heat — high temperatures melt the honey they make — bees love building inside of chimneys and walls. They’ll find a quarter-inch hole and make a beeline for it. Once they mark a space in your home with their pheromones, you might as well hand them the deed to your property.

Getting rid of the family apidae isn’t easy or cheap. It can run into the thousands of dollars if walls have to come down and hives pulled out.

But why all the obsession with keeping bees safe?

Because humans couldn’t exist without bees. Those vegetables at the farmers’ market, the lemons on my backyard tree, the roses ringing my front lawn … all courtesy of pollination by bees.

“They kind of have a bad image,” said Al Edrisi, whose company Bee Friendly is one of the largest in California. They donate the hives they remove to local beekeeping operations.

“Anything that can sting you, hurt you, send you to the hospital, maybe possibly kill you … you can think of that as the enemy,” he said.

But when they swarm — like those bees in my garage — they’re not about to attack us, he said. They’re just protecting the queen inside. “They twirl around her, keeping her safe. Because if she’s damaged or injured or dies, the whole colony dissipates and fails.”

The queen is the colony’s mother. And the most crucial mission in bee removal is to save the queen from harm. “When we take a swarm we don’t get all the bees. Some are out collecting pollen or water.” When they come back and realize the hive is gone, they cluster up in the size of a baseball, attach themselves to a wall and stay there together until they die off.

“They can’t join another colony because they won’t be accepted,” Edrisi said. “There’s nothing we can do to save them. That’s the natural cycle of life”—and the collateral damage of ridding ourselves of something that’s both a necessity and a nuisance in human lives.

My garage apparently didn’t make the cut as a suitable place for a hive to set up. When Max walked in, there were no bees around. He peered inside the walls, poked through boxes, scoured the floor around the water heater where I’d spotted them.

I was beginning to wonder if I’d dreamed it all when he spotted a clump of dead and dying bees plastered against the windows on my garage door.

The bees I had seen probably were scouts, looking for a place to set up shop. They were buzzing around the top of my water heater because it offered shade, seclusion and water.

Some had made their way inside through tiny holes around the pipes. Then their instincts drew them toward the light; they’d popped out inside my home through gaps in my recessed lighting. He found no hive, no hidden bees. They’d probably moved on not long after I called.

The dozens of tiny bodies we found were bees that died trying to find a way out. “They flew toward the windows,” he said, “and exhausted themselves trying to get out.”

He reached down and plucked one from the floor. His voice took on that tone I use with my puppy. “C’mon, little guy.” It stirred, barely alive.

And I know that it’s irrational, but I felt guilty for wanting them gone.

from our friends at the LATimes

sandy.banks@latimes.com

Gulf Coast recovery after the BP oilpocalypse

Is BP following through on its pledge to “make things right” in the Gulf Coast? How has the government response been to the spill and what can be improved? What must be done to ensure a robust environmental and economic recovery for the Gulf?

Michael Conathan, CAP’s Director of Ocean Policy, has the answers in this ”Ask the Expert” video.

from our friends at Climate Progess.org

By Alyssa Danigelis

Noise from wind turbine blades, inadvertent bat and bird kills and even the way wind turbines look have made installing them anything but a breeze. New York design firm Atelier DNA has an alternative concept that ditches blades in favor of stalks. Resembling thin cattails, the Windstalks generate electricity when the wind sets them waving. The designers came up with the idea for the planned city Masdar, a 2.3-square-mile, automobile-free area being built outside of Abu Dhabi. Atelier DNA’s “Windstalk” project came in second in the Land Art Generator competition a contest sponsored by Madsar to identify the best work of art that generates renewable energy from a pool of international submissions.

The proposed design calls for 1,203 “stalks,” each 180-feet high with concrete bases that are between about 33- and 66-feet wide. The carbon-fiber stalks, reinforced with resin, are about a foot wide at the base tapering to about 2 inches at the top. Each stalk will contain alternating layers of electrodes and ceramic discs made from piezoelectric material, which generates a current when put under pressure. In the case of the stalks, the discs will compress as they sway in the wind, creating a charge.

“The idea came from trying to find kinetic models in nature that could be tapped to produce energy,” explained Atelier DNA founding partner Darío Núñez-Ameni.

In the proposal for Masdar, the Windstalk wind farm spans 280,000 square feet. Based on rough estimates, said Núñez-Ameni the output would be comparable to that of a conventional wind farm covering the same area.

“Our system is very efficient in that there is no friction loss associated with more mechanical systems such as conventional wind turbines,” he said.

Each base is slightly different, and is sloped so that rain will funnel into the areas between the concrete to help plants grow wild. These bases form a sort of public park space and serve a technological purpose. Each one contains a torque generator that converts the kinetic energy from the stalk into energy using shock absorber cylinders similar to the kind being developed by Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Levant Power .

Wind isn’t constant, though, so Núñez-Ameni says two large chambers below the whole site will work like a battery to store energy. The idea is based on existing hydroelectric pumped storage systems. Water in the upper chamber will flow through turbines to the lower chamber, releasing stored energy until the wind starts up again.

The top of each tall stalk has an LED lamp that glows when the wind is blowing — more intensely during strong winds and not all when the air is still. The firm anticipates that the stalks will behave naturally, vibrating and fluttering in the air.

“Windstalk is completely silent, and the image associated with them is something we’re already used to seeing in a field of wheat or reeds in a marsh. Our hope is that people living close to them will like to walk through the field — especially at night — under their own, private sky of swarming stars,” said Núñez-Ameni.

After completion, a Windstalk should be able to produce as much electricity as a single wind turbine, with the advantage that output could be increased with a denser array of stalks. Density is not possible with conventional turbines, which need to be spaced about three times the rotor’s diameter in order to avoid air turbulence. But Windstalks work on chaos and turbulence so they can be installed much closer together, said Núñez-Ameni.

Núñez-Ameni also reports that the firm is currently working on taking the Windstalk idea underwater. Called Wavestalk, the whole system would be inverted to harness energy from the flow of ocean currents and waves. The firm’s long-term goal is to build a large system in the United States, either on land or in the water.

from our friends at Discovery News

Keep in mind that there’s a bit of stats tweaking going on here. ISAAA has calculated that total by adding together all areas of land cultivated with GM crops since their introduction in 1996. In 2009 current land under GM cultivation was 148 million hectares.

Brazil saw the fastest increase in GM crop adoption last year, but area under GM cultivation fell in Europe. Just joining the GM crowd in 2010 were Pakistan and Burma which both began planting GM cotton for the first time.

We’ve detailed pretty much every talking point on why GM crops aren’t the saviors of humanity that their manufacturers would like you to think they are dozens of times–from corporate control of crops, to subversion of millennia-old agricultural practice, to farmers suicides in developing nations, to the fact that crop yields aren’t nearly as good as claimed (often), to increased use of herbicides (more profit), potential health problems, etc etc etc.

by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY

from our allies at TreeHuggers.com

A new office building for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is going to be home to a whole raft of green building technologies that are becoming pretty familiar, along with something a little unexpected: a beautifully disguised “green” sewage treatment plant right plunk in the middle of the lobby. Talk about hiding in plain sight! The installation, designed by the company Worrell Water Technologies, is integrated into the lobby design as well as exterior landscaping.

Constructed Wetlands for Wastewater Treatment

The installation is basically a constructed wetland, which is a wastewater treatment system that breaks down pollutants with plants and naturally occurring  biological processes. The result isn’t necessarily potable quality, but it’s good enough for irrigation, maintenance, and other res-uses such as toilet flushing. Constructed wetlands save a significant amount of energy compared to conventional treatment, and they can be used as an energy-efficient way to clean up sites contaminated with industrial pollutants. Constructed wetlands have the characteristics of a natural wetland, so they also double as wildlife habitats.

Constructed Wetlands Knocking at the Door

Worrell Water’s contribution is to move the concept into lush, formal landscaping for buildings through its “Living Machine” system.  The system uses a series of carefully engineered steps that mimic tidal flows, compressing natural decomposition into a fast, tightly controlled operation that can fit into a relatively small area.  That opens up some interesting possibilities for outdoor landscaping, such as the new walkway planned for one of the busiest border crossings in the U.S., which will take visitors on a pleasant stroll a through a Living Machine constructed wetland. But, why stop at the front door – Worrell has also introduced the system partly indoors, one stunning example being the tony El Monte Sagrado resort.

The New San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Building

Siting a Living Machine at a sprawling resort is one thing, but putting the concept to work at a high-rise building in a densely packed urban area presents quite a challenge. The PUC expects to save about 750,000 gallons of water yearly and produce another 900,000 gallons of treated water that can be use for non-potable purposes. Energy to run the system will come from the building’s solar cladding and wind turbines. If it proves adaptable and cost efficient, it could fit right in with President Obama’s new Better Buildings energy efficiency initiative, so stay tuned.

Story by: Tina Casey

From our allies at cleantechnica.com

AN OPEN LETTER TO JOURNALISTS FROM GASLAND DIRECTOR JOSH FOX IN RESPONSE TO ATTACKS BY GAS INDUSTRY

by Josh Fox on Tuesday, February 8, 2011

With the recent Oscar nomination of my documentary film GASLAND, Big Gas and their PR attack machine hit a new low in its blatant disregard for the truth.

In an unprecedented move, an oil and gas industry front group sent a letter to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences saying that the film should be ineligible for best documentary feature.

We are honored and encouraged by the Academy’s nomination.  It is terrific to be acknowledged as filmmakers by the film world’s most prestigious honor.  But perhaps more than that, I believe that the nomination has provided hope, inspiration and affirmation for the thousands of families out there who are suffering because of natural gas drilling.  The Oscars are about dreams, and I know that for all of us living with the nightmare of gas drilling the nomination provides further proof that someone out there cares.

Now Big Gas wants to take that away, as they have shattered the American dream for so many.

GASLAND exposes the disaster being caused across the U.S. by the largest domestic natural gas drilling campaign history and how the contentious Halliburton-developed drilling technology called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking threatens the water supply of millions.

Fracking is a whole-scale industrialization process that pumps millions of gallons of toxic material directly into the ground. Thousands of documented contamination cases show the harmful chemicals used have been turning up in people’s water supplies in fracking areas all over the map.

We stand behind the testimonials, facts, science and investigative journalism in the film 100 percent.  We have issued a point-by-point rebuttal of the group’s claims (“Affirming Gasland”), posted on our website: www.gaslandthemovie.com

It’s not just us they’re after.  The gas industry goes after anyone who tries to punch a hole in their lie. Last week the same pro-drilling group, Energy in Depth (EID), attacked an investigative piece on drilling pollution by ProPublica, the highly credible public interest journalism organization.

And just last week, T. Boone Pickens, the most visible promoter of gas fracking, went on The Daily Show claiming that he personally has fracked over 3,000 wells and never witnessed any contamination cases, even when Jon Stewart asked him about GASLAND point blank.  He simply stated over and over again the industry lie, that fracking is safe.  Not a single word of acknowledgement, or responsibility for the claims of thousands and the threat posed to millions.

The gas industry believes it can create a new reality in which their nationwide onshore drilling campaign isn’t a disaster.  But no amount of PR money or slick ads can keep the stories of contamination coming from thousands of Americans from being any less true.

On Monday, Congressional investigators called out frackers for pumping millions of gallons of diesel fuel directly into the ground, exposing drinking water sources to benzene and other carcinogens. This makes EID’s specious and misleading attack on the science and data in GASLAND  especially ironic since Halliburton stonewalled Congressman Henry Waxman’s investigation into fracking, refusing to provide data on their use of diesel and other harmful chemicals injected in the fracking process.

There are major watershed areas providing water to millions of Americans that are at risk here, including the watershed areas for New York City and Philadelphia. The catastrophe has been widely covered not only in GASLAND, but also by hundreds of news stories, films and TV segments. This is a moment of crisis that cannot be understated.

Even before its release, the power of the film was not lost on the industry. In the March 24th edition of the Oil and Gas Journal, Skip Horvath, the president of the Natural Gas Supply Association said that GASLAND is “well done. It holds people’s attention. And it could block our industry.”

GASLAND was seen by millions and I personally toured with the film to over 100 cities. In affected areas, people came to the screenings with their contaminated water samples in tow. They came to have the truth they know shared and confirmed.

As Maurice D. Hinchey, U.S. Representative (NY-22) recently said, “Thanks to GASLAND and the millions of grassroots activists across the country, we finally have a counterweight to the influence of the oil and gas industry in our nation’s capital.”

Big Gas is blocking the truth in their pursuit of hundreds of billions of dollars of profit. Their clear goal is to ensure our nation remains addicted to fossil fuels for the rest of this century. They seek to stifle the development of truly renewable energy.

They’re playing dirty in more ways than one, attacking the film and the testimonials and science in it instead of taking responsibility and addressing the contamination, destruction and harm that they are creating. I now know how the people in my documentary feel, to have the things they know to be true and the questions they are raising so blatantly discounted and smeared. It is truly unfortunate that the gas-drilling industry continues to deny what is so obvious to Americans living in gaslands across the nation.

Josh Fox

Director, GASLAND

www.gaslandthemovie.com

Media Contact:

Josh Baran – jcbaran@gmail.com

Genetifically Modified Alfalfa Officially On The Way

by Barry Estabrook

On Thursday, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that the United State Department of Agriculture (USDA) had approved the unrestricted planting of genetically modified alfalfa sold by Monsanto Co. and Forge Genetics, despite protests from organic groups and public health advocates and comments from nearly 250,000 citizens asking the department to keep this GMO genie in its bottle. With this announcement, the Obama administration showed whose side it is on in the battle between proponents of sustainable, organic agriculture and the big businesses that profit from conventional, chemical agriculture. Big Ag won. It wasn’t even close.

“Thousands of people spoke out about this contamination,” Fantel said.
“They were ignored”

If you eat meat or dairy, you indirectly consume alfalfa. It is a leading source of hay for cattle. In terms of acreage, alfalfa is the United States’ fourth biggest crop behind corn, soybeans, and wheat. It is also notoriously promiscuous, and its pollen can be carried by bees and other insects for five miles, making it all but certain that the GMO crop, designed to survive applications of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, will contaminate much of the country’s conventional alfalfa. Because GMO products are not allowed in USDA-certified foods, it could become all but impossible to produce organic milk and meat in many areas unless organic farmers switch to less desirable sources of forage.

Earlier, the USDA said that it was weighing three options: (1) complete deregulation of GM alfalfa; (2) allowing it to be planted but requiring five-mile buffers between it and non-GM alfalfa; and (3) allowing unrestricted planting except in seed-growing regions to prevent contamination. Vilsack went for the first: the most Big-Ag-friendly choice.

“This is very disappointing,” said Will Fantle, co-director of the Wisconsin-based Cornucopia Institute, an organic and small-farm watchdog group that is a plaintiff in a lawsuit brought against the USDA claiming that it did not take the required legal steps before originally approving GM alfalfa in 2007. “Tens of thousands of people spoke out against this contamination,” Fantle said. “They were completely ignored. It looks like the biotech industry has all the political power.”

“This creates a perplexing situation when the market calls for a supply of crops free of genetic engineering,” said Christine Bushway, Executive Director and CEO of theOrganic Trade Association in a press release. “The organic standards prohibit the use of genetic engineering, and consumers will not tolerate the accidental presence of genetic engineered materials in organic products, yet GE crops continue to proliferate unchecked.”

Widespread application of Roundup, Monsanto’s trade name for the weed-killing chemical called glyphosate, has already led to the proliferation of “superweeds” that have mutated and can survive applications of the chemical. Currently, Australia ranks first in the world for weed resistance to herbicides. Speaking to a farmers’ group in January, Stephen Powles, a renowned resistance expert at the University of Western Australia, warned that the United States might overtake his country if present trends continue.

The Obama administration’s decision makes it all but certain that the dubious honor will soon be ours.

Full article available from our friends at Atlantic Monthly

Author:
John DeCock

Environmental Activist And Writer

There’s no reason for concern about the mass death of bees through Colony Collapse Disorder. No reason at all unless you happen to be a plant who relies on pollination or a living being who is planning to sustain life by eating food. If you don’t fall into either of those categories, you might want to increase your stock in German agribusiness giant Bayer. They’re making a ton of money selling a pesticide called Clothianidin, marketed under the upbeat friendly name “Pancho.” ¡Olé! ¡Qué veneno excepcional!

If you’re in one of the other categories, and I confess to being in at least one, you have some cause for concern. A document leaked on Wednesday disclosed that the Bush Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency approved use of this pesticide in spite of the fact that there was clear scientific evidence that it represented a serious threat to bees. It has been in use since 2003, used broadly to treat corn. Agribusiness conglomerates have blanketed the midwest with corn monoculture over nearly 100 million acres. That’s a lot of bee poison.

Clothianidin is in a family of pesticides called “neonicotinoids”. This means the pesticide is used to treat seeds. The neonicotinoids are then transferred into the pollen where they kill pests, including the pollenators.

Bayer was granted “conditional registration” by the EPA and given a deadline of December 2004 to complete a study addressing the toxic effects of Clothianidan on bees. This meant they were free to market their product widely and this is exactly what they did. The use of the pesticide became pervasive and began having real world impact in the first growing season of its use.

Bayer applied for and was granted an extended deadline. Sales of Clothianidin continued and increased. When the final study was delivered in 2007, it was a complete joke, a poorly controlled and invalid study by any reasonable standard of scientific method. However, on the basis of this study, the pesticide was given full registration. Pancho continued to poison the bee population at ever-increasing levels.

Enter the Obama administration and a new and better era for the EPA under Lisa Jackson. Two scientists from the EPA Environmental Fate and Effects Division (EFED), Michael Barret and Joseph DeCant, issued a memo, leaked to Colorado Beekeeper Tom Theobald, on November 3, which documented the serious dangers of the pesticide to bee populations, stating:

Clothianidin’s major risk concern is to nontarget insects (that is, honey bees). Clothianidin is a neonicotinoid insecticide that is both persistent and systemic. Acute toxicity studies to honey bees show that clothianidin is highly toxic on both a contact and an oral basis. Although EFED does not conduct… risk assessments on non-target insects, information from standard tests and field studies, as well as incident reports involving other neonicotinoids insecticides (e.g., imidacloprid) suggest the potential for long term toxic risk to honey bees and other beneficial insects.

In spite of this assessment, Clothianidin has retained its registration and is going to be available for the spring planting season in the United States unless the EPA reverses itself. Several European countries have withdrawn registration in response to the weight of scientific evidence of harm to bee colonies.

You can take action on this issue by signing a petition to demand that the EPA withdraw registration for Clothianidin. Expressing your concerns directly to Administrator Lisa Jackson is also important.

We will live with the effects of the Bush Administration’s deference to corporate profits over the public good for many generations in many ways. Wherever we have the chance to right one of these wrongs, we need to push the big, clumsy mechanisms of government to grind forward and do the right thing.

from our friends at Huffington Post

Follow John DeCock on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jdecock

Minefields or Coalfields: Should Big Coal Change Name For Mountaintop Removal/Strip Mining?

In a new episode of Big Coal Gone Wild last week, coal lobbyists announced their intentions to rebrand mountaintop removal mining as “mountaintop development.” For besieged residents living near mountaintop removal sites in Appalachia — and in the 20-odd states that allow strip-mining — this announcement has triggered another name suggestion: Given that millions of pounds of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil explosives are detonated daily near historic American communities, should Big Coal-controlled areas be renamed as “minefields,” and not coalfields. Check out this typical detonation of one of our American mountains — in West Virginia, among over 500 that have been blown to bits to reach thin seams of coal — and decide:

(blasting footage by Chad Stevens)

Minefields is an apt name, in fact.

Notwithstanding the fact that an estimated 50-60 percent of the coal mining jobs have been eliminated by the shift to highly mechanized and explosive strip mining operations in the last 25 years, local economies have been left in ruin, and nearly 1.2 million acres of hardwood forests and adjacent settlements have been completely wiped by out the reckless mining operations, Rob Perks at the Natural Resources Defense Council notes:

NRDC’s recent analysis found that the industry’s promise of reclaiming flat land for economic development is a big, flat lie. Our study — “Reclamation FAIL” — revealed that of the 1.2 million acres, including 500 mountains, that have been demolished by coal companies in Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee, over 89% of sites have no post-mining development.

Coal Tattoo journalist Ken Ward examined the veracity of mining industry claims this week.

Nearly a hundred years ago, a US soldier had a better chance of surviving in the fields of combat than a miner in West Virginia — over 104,000 coal miners have died in accidents and disasters, and an estimated 200,000 coal miners have died from black lung disease.

At a hearing last week in West Virginia, hundreds of citizens appealed to a new judicial panel to recognize the deleterious impact of coal slurry contamination of their drinking water.

Across the strip mined fields today, from Wyoming to Illinois to West Virginia, showers of toxic silica and coal dust, fly rock, and thunderous blasting have turned communities into minefields of unthinkable levels of destruction.

from our friends at Huffington Post

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
One of the most important political and economic thinkers of our time, this Canadian journalist and author (The Shock Doctrine and No Logo) penetrates the veils of corporate globalization to expose transnational capital’s most ruthless strategies yet to exploit catastrophe from Baghdad to New Orleans. She portrays her vision of how people’s movements can counter the disaster of disaster capitalism.

28mn

from our friends at Bioneers.org

‘We have never seen anything like this,’ chief researcher says

A close up of one of the impacted corals. A small amount of apparently living tissue on the tips of some branches is orange. Most of the skeleton is bare or covered by brown flocculent material.

Scientists returning from an expedition off the Gulf Coast said Friday they found dead and dying deepwater coral near the BP oil spill site that was covered in a brown substance.

“The compelling evidence that we collected constitutes a smoking gun” that the substance is tied to the BP spill, the chief researcher on the cruise, Penn State biologist Charles Fisher, said in a statement Friday.

“We have never seen anything like this,” he added. “The visual data for recent and ongoing death are crystal clear and consistent over at least 30 colonies; the site is close to the Deepwater Horizon; the research site is at the right depth and direction to have been impacted by a deep-water plume, based on NOAA models and empirical data; and the impact was detected only a few months after the spill was contained.”

“These kinds of coral are normally beautiful, brightly colored,” Fisher said. “What you saw was a field of brown corals with exposed skeleton — white, brittle stars tightly wound around the skeleton, not waving their arms like they usually do.”

Fisher described the soft and hard coral they found seven miles southwest of the well as an underwater graveyard. He said oil probably passed over the coral and killed it.

The coral has “been dying for months,” he said. “What we are looking at is a combination of dead gooey tissues and sediment. Gunk is a good word for what it is.”
The researchers found the evidence at a site 4,600 feet deep.
“Ninety percent of 40 large corals were heavily affected and showed dead and dying parts and discoloration,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a statement. NOAA sponsored the cruise. “Another site 400 meters (1,200 feet) away had a colony of stony coral similarly affected and partially covered with a similar brown substance.”

One of the impacted corals with attached brittle starfish. Although the orange tips on some branches of the coral is the color of living tissue, it is unlikely that any living tissue remains on this animal.

NOAA Chief Jane Lubchenco said she was concerned about “impacts to marine life in places in the Gulf that are not easily seen.”

For the government, the findings were a departure from earlier statements. Until now, federal teams have painted relatively rosy pictures about the spill’s effect on the sea and its ecosystem, saying they had not found any damage on the ocean floor.

In early August, a federal report said that nearly 70 percent of the 170 million gallons of oil that gushed from the well into the sea had dissolved naturally, or was burned, skimmed, dispersed or captured, with almost nothing left to see — at least on top of the water. The report was blasted by scientists.

Still, NOAA stopped short of attributing the substance to oil from the spill, or to the chemical dispersants used to break up some of the oil.

“Further testing will also determine if the substance is oil, and if so, whether it is consistent with the release from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill,” NOAA said.
The researchers from government and academia worked off a ship that had a remotely operated vehicle that took samples and photographs. The ship returned to port on Thursday after three weeks at sea.

Eric Cordes, a Temple University marine scientist on the expedition, said his colleagues have identified about 25 other sites in the vicinity of the well where similar damage may have occurred. An expedition is planned for next month to explore those sites.

When coral is threatened, its first reaction is to release large amounts of mucus, “and anything drifting by in the water column would get bound up in this mucus,” Cordes said. “And that is what this (brown) substance would be: A variety of things bound up in the mucus.”

Ocean Conservancy, a group that had worked on the Exxon Valdez oil spill restoration efforts, urged the Obama administration to constantly and consistently monitor the subsea areas around the BP site.

“The deep sea coral damage that has been identified by federal scientists is another reminder that the governments must vigorously explore all possible injury from this oil disaster and seek appropriate compensation in support of Gulf restoration,” Stan Senner, Ocean Conservancy’s director of conservation science, said in a statement.

“The Gulf of Mexico is a special place, providing the nation with food, jobs, and a unique way of life,” he added. “Measuring its full impact will take years, and fully restoring the Gulf will take decades.”

A Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force ordered by President Barack Obama last month will have its first public meeting on Monday. Made up of federal and state agencies, it is headed by Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Coral is essential to the Gulf because it provides a habitat for fish and other organisms such as snails and crabs, making any large-scale death of coral a problem for many species. It might need years, or even decades, to grow back.

“It’s cold on the bottom, and things don’t grow as quickly,” said Paul Montagna, a marine scientist at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi. He was not on the expedition.

Montagna said the affected area is so large, and scientists’ ability to explore it with underwater robots so limited that “we’ll never be able to see everything that happened down there.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Thanks to our friends at msnbc.com staff and news service reports
updated 11/5/2010

Even before Thursday’s findings by the presidential Oil Spill Commission became public, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier ordered Halliburton to turn over to federal investigators samples of the cement the company used to try to seal the Macondo oil well in April before it exploded.

Michael DeMocker, The Times-Picayune

Barbier, who is handling the consolidated civil litigation regarding the massive BP oil spill, originally ordered remaining samples of the exact cement slurry used in the well to be held under seal. But on Wednesday, he signed an order directing Halliburton to release to Marine Board investigators more than 2 gallons of the mixture that wasn’t poured into BP’s well.

The action is timely, given that President Barack Obama’s Oil Spill Commission released a report Thursday that said independent tests of Halliburton’s foam cement recipe showed it to be unstable.

Halliburton responded late Thursday night by claiming the mixture the commission used to test the cement may have used different additives. The Oil Spill Commission contended that it received the exact ingredients for the mixture from Halliburton, but the company claimed it had actually used a “unique blend of cement and additives” while the commission used “off-the-shelf” ingredients.

Cement is used to help metal tubes lining the well to adhere to the well’s earthen walls. Cement is poured into the well as a liquid and hardens into place. Halliburton’s foam cement is filled with little nitrogen bubbles, allowing it to flex with the expansion and contraction of the drilled-out hole as it is subjected to extreme heat and pressure, miles under the sea floor.

But if the foam isn’t stable, nitrogen can break out and the bubbles can get too large, increasing the possibility that the cement barrier could collapse.

The commission acknowledged that the only way to test the stability of the foam cement precisely would be to use the exact mixture left over from the BP project. That’s what Barbier has ordered released to Marine Board investigators from the Coast Guard and the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.

However, Barbier’s order notes that the cement samples are degrading over time and warns that “no destructive testing on the cementing components will be conducted without further order from the court.”

Although Halliburton took issue with some of the Oil Spill Commission’s findings, the company acknowledged that it used a specific cement mixture under orders from BP, but never tested its stability before pouring it into the well.

Many people believe that cement failure was among the key causes of the blowout, although it remains unclear if the apparent foam stability problems were at fault. The Oil Spill Commission acknowledged that a cement failure alone does not cause a blowout and it’s generally believed that several shortcomings contributed to the accident.

David Hammer, The Times-Picayune

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