Monday, December 29, 2014

The Demise Of The Mayan Civilization

Listen up, Earthlings!

The ancient Mayan people once lived in the area of the Yucatan Peninsula and modern-day Guatemala. The disappearance of their entire civilization has been a topic pursued by many scholars. Author Ambika Choudhary Mahadjan writes about new research that links the Mayan disappearance to severe drought.


The Blue Hole, Belize - Photo credit Belize.com


Excerpts from the article:

    Findings of a new study now suggest that the ancient race might have been wiped out due to a century old drought. The proof of this new explanation, believe the researchers, might be hidden in an underwater cave in Belize.
    Minerals taken from a famous underwater cave in Belize, known as the Blue Hole, and from adjoining lagoons now confirm that the area was hit by a severe drought between 800 AD and 1,000 AD. After the drought ended and normal conditions returned, these people moved northwards only to disappear again after a few centuries. The sediments found from the Blue Hole now confirm that the final disappearance occurred at the same time as the other dry spell.
    Though this is not the first time that the demise of this civilization has been linked to a drought, there is now concrete evidence pointing in this direction for the first time. That’s because the data come from several spots in a region central to the Mayan heartland, said study co-author André Droxler, an Earth scientist at Rice University.
    Though it is still too early to confirm that the unduly long dry spell over the region was indeed responsible for wiping off one of the most intelligent races in the history of mankind, there is strong evidence pointing in that direction for the first time.


Read the full article here: http://thewestsidestory.net/2014/12/29/26013/underwater-cave-called-blue-hole-belize-unravels-mystery-behind-mayan-disappearance/

Friday, December 26, 2014

More News On The Sinkholes in Siberia

The sinkholes that appeared in the permafrost in Siberia this year received a great deal of media coverage around the world. The latest news is not receiving as much attention, although I think it should.
Excerpts from the article:
The magnificent images of a crater on Yamal Peninsula, caused by collapsing permafrost, have become world famous. But did you know that this permafrost extends to the ocean floor? And it is thawing.
Credit: Image courtesy of CAGE - Center for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Climate and Environment


“Yamal Peninsula in Siberia has recently become world famous. Spectacular sinkholes, appeared as out of nowhere in the permafrost of the area, sparking the speculations of significant release of greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere.

What is less known, is that there is a lot of greenhouse gas methane released from the seabed offshore the West Yamal Peninsula. Gas is released in an area of at least 7500 m2, with gas flares extending up to 25 meters in the water column. Anyhow, there is still a large amount of methane gas that is contained by an impermeable cap of permafrost. And this permafrost is thawing.

"The thawing of permafrost on the ocean floor is an ongoing process, likely to be exaggerated by the global warming of the world´s oceans." says PhD Alexey Portnov at Centre for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Climate and Environment (CAGE) at UiT, The Arctic University of Norway.

It was previously proposed that the permafrost in the Kara Sea, and other Arctic areas, extends to water depths up to 100 meters, creating a seal that gas cannot bypass. Portnov and colleagues have found that the West Yamal shelf is leaking, profoundly, at depths much shallower than that.

Significant amount of gas is leaking at depths between 20 and 50 meters. This suggests that a continuous permafrost seal is much smaller than proposed. Close to the shore the permafrost seal may be few hundred meters thick, but tapers off towards 20 meters water depth. And it is fragile.

"The permafrost is thawing from two sides. The interior of the Earth is warm and is warming the permafrost from the bottom up. It is called geothermal heat flux and it is happening all the time, regardless of human influence," says Portnov.

Permafrost keeps the free methane gas in the sediments. But it also stabilizes gas hydrates, ice-like structures that usually need high pressure and low temperature to form.

"Gas hydrates normally form in water depths over 300 meters, because they depend on high pressure. But under permafrost the gas hydrate may stay stable even where the pressure is not that high, because of the constantly low temperatures."

Gas hydrates contain huge amount of methane gas, and it is destabilization of these that is believed to have caused the craters on the Yamal Peninsula.”



Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Dryden: The Town That Fought Fracking - And Won

Good news in the battle against fracking in New York state.

The town of Dryden in upstate New York is fighting to stop an out-of-state gas company's bid to to force the town to accept industrial gas drilling - including fracking - within the town.

Dryden is actually being sued by Anschutz Exploration Corporation in a bid to force the town to permit gas drilling, which includes fracking.

The people of Dryden stood up against Anschutz Exploration Corporation  and won. Read more about how this town stood up to the oil and gas industry and won.

Read more here: http://earthjustice.org/features/the-story-of-dryden-the-town-that-fought-fracking-and-is-winning

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Anti-fracking Measure P in Santa Barbara County

                 Fight Over Anti-fracking Measure P in Santa Barbara County




                                Video:   Dear Governor Brown: Don't Frack Santa Barbara


*Visit Food And Water Watch


Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Where Did All the Oil Go?

Geology Page has a great article on the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. You might think you have heard it all regrading this disaster, but you haven't.

Excerpts from the article, Where Did All the Oil Go?

Controlled burning of surface oil slicks during the Deepwater Horizon event.
Credit: David Valentine


Due to the environmental disaster's unprecedented scope, assessing the damage caused by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been a challenge. One unsolved puzzle is the location of 2 million barrels of submerged oil thought to be trapped in the deep ocean.

UC Santa Barbara's David Valentine and colleagues from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) and UC Irvine have been able to describe the path the oil followed to create a footprint on the deep ocean floor. The findings appear today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Based on the evidence, our findings suggest that these deposits come from Macondo oil that was first suspended in the deep ocean and then settled to the sea floor without ever reaching the ocean surface," said Valentine, a professor of earth science and biology at UCSB. "The pattern is like a shadow of the tiny oil droplets that were initially trapped at ocean depths around 3,500 feet and pushed around by the deep currents. Some combination of chemistry, biology and physics ultimately caused those droplets to rain down another 1,000 feet to rest on the sea floor."

Monday, October 13, 2014

Creating A Global Water Crisis



Sara Gutterman, co-founder and CEO of Green Builder Media, addresses the water crisis the world faces today. Here are some excerpts from her article:


Water: it is a common agenda for all of us, for every walk of life. It’s our planet’s most valuable resource. Nations are powered by it. Life depends on it. And soon, we’ll be fighting over it.

We are creating our own global crisis—whether we realize it or not, water scarcity is here. If
current usage and population trends continue, global demand for water in 2030 will outstrip
supply by 40 percent.


The full article is available below via Environmental Leader.

Saturday, August 30, 2014

Farmers Generate Energy from Coffee Wastewater

A new article posted by the Environmental Leader shows proclaims:

"It is possible to generate energy, tackle climate change and protect water resources by treating discharges from coffee mills, according to project findings by UTZ Certified."


Photo Credit: Coffee via Shutterstock
Excerpts from the article:

  The Energy from Coffee Wastewater project was launched by UTZ Certified in 2010 in Central America with the goal of addressing environmental and health problems caused by the wastewater produced in the coffee industry.

  As part of the project, custom-made coffee wastewater treatment systems and solid-waste treatment mechanisms were installed in coffee farms in Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala. Results of the project included:
  • Generation of a significant amount of biogas which was used to power households and coffee mills
  • Water reduction of over 50 percent in coffee processing
  • Prevention of greenhouse gas emissions
  • Prevention of local deforestation of native trees
  • Treatment of essentially all water used in coffee processing
  UTZ Certified is currently introducing the technology in Peru and Brazil, and hopes to replicate the initiative in Africa and Asia.


Read the full article here: http://www.environmentalleader.com/2014/08/29/farmers-generate-energy-from-coffee-wastewater/

Thursday, August 28, 2014

The New Water 'Normal' via Environmental Leader

Californians understand drought better than most Americans.

According to Klaus Reichardt, founder and CEO of Waterless Co. Inc, usage and waste are not the only issues that need addressed in the state —and elsewhere.

"Estimates are that the total amount of drinking water lost each year due to leaks is in the neighborhood of 200 billion gallons..."

Leaks! Let me get this straight, 200 billion gallons of water are lost each year due to leaks? Where's the outrage, folks?

Excerpts from the article:

Klaus Reichardt, founder and CEO of Waterless Co. Inc.
 With water restrictions now enforced in California after three years of drought, more and more commercial facilities are looking for ways to reduce water consumption without impacting building user satisfaction.

However, there is a much more significant step that the state and facility managers could be taking that might reduce water consumption by as much as 10 percent, if not more. That step, very simply, is to start plugging leaks. 

Water leaks can often be reduced by simply lowering the amount of pressure in pipes. Water typically leaks from joints, seams of the pipes, and other “points of failure”; with less pressure going through with the use of advanced water management systems, there is less pressure on these points of failure.


Plus – and we have heard this before – investing more in water infrastructure is of critical importance. The fact of the matter is much of the water and sewer infrastructure in the US is decades old. 

We have a challenge before us. Hopefully, it will not take more water main breaks in more parts of the country before we realize that something must be done. 


Read full article here via Environmental Leader: http://www.environmentalleader.com/2014/08/28/the-new-water-normal/

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Choking The Oceans With Plastic - NYT

The New York Times ran an Opinion page article by Charles J. Moore on August 25, 2014. This is a must-read article on Moore's return visit to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

"I was utterly shocked to see the enormous increase in the quantity of plastic waste since my last trip in 2009," writes Moore.


by Alec Doherty


Excerpts from the article:

The world is awash in plastic. It’s in our cars and our carpets, we wrap it around the food we eat and virtually every other product we consume; it has become a key lubricant of globalization — but it’s choking our future in ways that most of us are barely aware.

Plastics are now one of the most common pollutants of ocean waters worldwide. Pushed by winds, tides and currents, plastic particles form with other debris into large swirling glutinous accumulation zones, known to oceanographers as gyres, which comprise as much as 40 percent of the planet’s ocean surface — roughly 25 percent of the entire earth.

The reality is that only by preventing synthetic debris  — most of which is disposable plastic — from getting into the ocean in the first place will a measurable reduction in the ocean’s plastic load be accomplished. Clean-up schemes are legion, but have never been put into practice in the garbage patches.

Read the full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/26/opinion/choking-the-oceans-with-plastic.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share&_r=0

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

NY Raids Clean Water Funds to Pay for Broke Bridge Project

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is facing the wrath of environmentalists today following the news that he "raided" the state's clean water fund to help pay for the replacement for the Tappan Zee Bridge.

"More than $500 million was taken from New York’s water quality program meant to protect the environmental health of the Hudson River estuary. The Cuomo Administration says that the money is a loan between the two quasi-state agencies, and will be repaid."

Link to AlterNet article on Cuomo's decision: http://www.alternet.org/new-york-raids-clean-water-funding-pay-broke-bridge-project


New Yorkers know the importance of this fund to ensuring the safety of the watershed that provides water for NYC's 9 million residents. The Watershed Agreement is a partnership between NYC and communities in the Catskills and the Delaware River Basin to protect the 125 mile area of the watershed, which is maintained through sewage management, sustainable farming practices, limits on development.

How many areas do know of that pay communities upstream to not pollute the water?

Historian and public policy expert David Soll calls NYC’s water supply system, "one of the largest, largely unfiltered municipal water supply systems on the planet." His book Empire of Water canbe found at: http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100180740

Here's a link to the NYC Memorandum of Agreement on the protection of the watershed:  http://www.dos.ny.gov/watershed/nycmoa.html

Thursday, January 30, 2014

More Water Woes

The chemical spill in West Virginia still isn't cleaned up leaving residents without clean drinking water; and now, there's more bad news across the US with parts of California running out of water.

From The Huffington Post:

 

As Drought Persists, 17 California Communities Almost Out Of Water 

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Seventeen rural communities in drought-stricken California are in danger of a severe water shortage within four months, according to a list compiled by state officials.


Wells are running dry or reservoirs are nearly empty in some communities. Others have long-running problems that predate the drought.

The communities range from the area covered by the tiny Lompico County Water District in Santa Cruz County to the cities of Healdsburg and Cloverdale in Sonoma County, the San Jose Mercury News (http://bit.ly/LmgFL2 ) reported Tuesday.

Most of the districts, which serve from 39 to 11,000 residents, have too few customers to collect enough revenue to pay for backup water supplies or repair failing equipment, the newspaper reported.

A storm expected to drop light and moderate rains on Northern California on Wednesday and Thursday won't help much.

The list of vulnerable communities was compiled by the state health department based on a survey last week of the more than 3,000 water agencies in California.

"As the drought goes on, there will be more that probably show up on the list," said Dave Mazzera, acting drinking-water division chief for the state Department of Public Health.
State officials are discussing solutions such as trucking in water and providing funding to drill more wells or connect rural water systems to other water systems, Mazzera said.

Read the full article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/29/california-drought-water-shortage_n_4689106.html

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Tributes to Pete Seeger - Water Advocate, Peacenik

Today fans of Pete Seeger expressed love, admiration, and a great sense of loss at his passing. Here are just a few:

From The Hudson Valley via Facebook

We're deeply saddened at the passing of Hudson Valley legend and American treasure, Pete Seeger. We can't say enough good things about Pete or thank him enough for the inordinate amount of dedication he put in to restoring and preserving the beauty of our region, and the Hudson River, for almost half a century. His work ethic was astounding - performing for adoring crowds both locally and nationally, into his 90s, decades after most people would retire. He now belongs to the ages - his spectacular work, catalog of music, passion and memory will live on, continuing to inspire generations to come. Rest in peace, Pete - thank you for being you, and spending so much of your time with us. 
(Pete Seeger, Clearwater Revival, Croton-on-Hudson, NY, 2001. 
Copyright: Annie Leibovitz.)

 

From the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater via Facebook:

It is with great sadness that we share the passing of our founder and inspiration, Pete Seeger. His legacy will live on through the countless thousands of lives he touched through his music, his kindness, and his work towards a better, more just world. Rest in peace, Pete. You are already missed.


From Dickie Smothers via Facebook:

(The Smothers Brothers & Pete Seeger, 1968)

Pete Seeger - It was a great honor to have known him. His performance of his song, "Waist Deep in The Big Muddy", was the highlight of our 1968 season. What a life he had. "So long it's been good to know you"


From Joseph V. Kuca via Facebook:

THE LION SLEEPS TONIGHT...
Pete Seeger: 1919-2014
Singer, song writer and a friend of the mighty Hudson River, may you rest in peace. No doubt, you're already jammin' in that heavenly Folk City.

 

 

Sunday, January 19, 2014

WV residents sickened after exposure to 'safe' water

HOW SAFE IS YOUR WATER?

From AlJazeera America:

West Virginia residents sickened after exposure to 'safe' water

by


Things may be returning to normal for thousands of West Virginia customers of American Water, which had its water supply contaminated by a chemical spill last week, but tens of thousands are still without fresh water, and many of those who’ve been told their water is OK to drink remain skeptical.

A week after a tank at a chemical storage site owned by Freedom Industries leaked thousands of gallons of 4-methylcyclohexane-methanol, or MCHM, into the Elk River, contaminating the drinking water of 300,000 West Virginia residents, some say they do not trust the insistence of the Environmental Protection Agency and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection that water from the river is becoming safe to drink.

Over 200,000 people are still under a “do not drink” order, but even those who have been told their water is OK are concerned about its health effects.

After getting the all-clear from American Water, Kanawha City resident Shane Casdorph jumped into the shower, but shortly afterward began to feel itchy.

"My ears were burning," Casdorph told the Charleston Gazette. "I've got red places on my feet and back and a red rash on my back."

Kanawha-Charleston Health Department officer Rahul Gupta told the Gazette that at least 100 people had entered the emergency room since the "do not drink" order was lifted. They complained of eye irritation, stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhea.

But Gupta insisted the water was still safe to drink.

Full article available here: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/1/15/residents-still-gettingsickafterwestvirginiawaterdeemedsafe.html

Saturday, January 18, 2014

W. Virginia Chemical Spill Exposes a New Risk to Water From Coal

The following article can be found in its entirety at: http://www.wunderground.com/news/west-virginia-chemical-spill-exposes-new-risk-water-coal-20140118

By: Dina Cappiello and Seth Borenstein
Published: January 18, 2014
 
WASHINGTON — The chemical spill that contaminated water for hundreds of thousands of West Virginians was just the latest and most high-profile case of coal sullying the nation's waters.

For decades, chemicals and waste from the coal industry have tainted hundreds of waterways and groundwater supplies, spoiling private wells, shutting down fishing and rendering streams virtually lifeless, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal environmental data. But because these contaminants are released gradually and in some cases not tracked or regulated, they attract much less attention than a massive spill like the one in West Virginia.

"I've made a career of body counts of dead fish and wildlife made that way from coal," said Dennis Lemly, a U.S. Forest Service research biologist who has spent decades chronicling the deformities pollution from coal mining has caused in fish. "How many years and how many cases does it take before somebody will step up to the plate and say, `Wait a minute, we need to change this'?"

The spill of a coal-cleaning chemical into a river in Charleston, W.Va., that left 300,000 people without water exposes a potentially new and under-regulated risk to water from the coal industry, at a time when the federal government is still trying to close regulatory gaps that have contributed to coal's long legacy of water pollution.

From its mining to the waste created when it is burned for electricity, pollutants associated with coal have contaminated waterways, wells and lakes with far more insidious and longer-lasting contaminants than the chemical that spilled out of a tank farm on the banks of the Elk River.

Chief among them are discharges from coal-fired power plants that alone are responsible for 50 to 60 percent of all toxic pollution entering the nation's water, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. And thanks to even tougher air pollution regulations underway, more pollution from coal-fired power plants is expected to enter the nation's waterways, according to a recent EPA assessment.

"Clean coal means perhaps cleaner atmosphere, but dirtier water," said Avner Vengosh, a Duke University researcher who has monitored discharges from power plant waste ponds and landfills in North Carolina.

In that state, Vengosh and other researchers found contaminants from coal ash disposal sites threatening the drinking water for Charlotte, the nation's 17th-largest city, with cancer-causing arsenic.

"It is kind of a time bomb that can erupt in some kind of specific condition," said Vengosh. The water shows no signs of arsenic contamination now.

In southeastern Ohio, tainted water draining from abandoned coal mines shuttered a century ago still turns portions of the Raccoon Creek orange with iron and coats the half-submerged rocks along its path white with aluminum.

And public drinking water systems in 14 West Virginia counties where mining companies are blasting off mountaintops to get to coal seams exceeded state safe drinking water standards seven times more than non-mining counties, according to a study published in a water quality journal in 2012. The systems provided water for more than a million people.

What's more, the water quality monitoring in mining areas is so inadequate that most health violations likely were not caught, said Michael Hendryx, the study's author and a professor of applied health at Indiana University.

Even with those startling results, the effect of coal-fired power plants stands alone.

The EPA in an environmental assessment last year identified 132 cases where coal-fired power plant waste has damaged rivers, streams and lakes and 123 where it has tainted underground water sources, in many cases legally, officials said. Among them is the massive failure of a waste pond at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant in 2008, which poured more than 5 million cubic yards of ash into a river and spoiled hundreds of acres in a community 35 miles west of Knoxville.

Overall, power plants contributed to the degradation of 399 bodies of water that are drinking water sources, according to the EPA.

But there are no federal limits on the vast majority of chemicals that power plants pipe directly into rivers, streams and reservoirs. The EPA just last year proposed setting limits on a handful of the compounds, the first update since 1982. And more than five years after the Tennessee spill, the EPA has yet to issue federal regulations governing the disposal of coal ash.

Experts say the agency is playing catch-up to solve a problem that began when it required power plants in the 1990s to scrub their air pollution to remove sulfur dioxide. An unintended consequence was that the pollutants captured were dumped into landfills and ponds, many unlined, where they seeped into underground aquifers or were piped into adjacent rivers, reservoirs and lakes.

"As you are pushing air rules that are definitely needed, you need to think of the water. And they didn't," said Eric Schaeffer, a former EPA enforcement official who now heads the Environmental Integrity Project, a group whose research has uncovered previously unknown sites of contamination from power plant waste pits. "Now they are running after the problem."

The federal government has in recent years issued the first-ever regulations for mercury released from power plant smokestacks, the largest source of mercury entering waterways. The EPA has also stepped up its review of mountaintop mining permits, to reduce pollution.

Efforts by the EPA to ease the problem, by requiring mine permits to be judged by a measure of the saltiness in downstream water, have been vacated by a federal court. That decision is now under appeal.

A spokesman for the National Mining Association said the industry operates in accord with extensive and rigorous permitting guidelines.

In addition, pollution still enters the environment from coal mined decades ago.

The EPA estimates 12,000 river miles are tainted by acid mine drainage from long-shuttered coal mines. One of them is Raccoon Creek in southeastern Ohio.

"These mines have been abandoned for a hundred years," said Amy Mackey, Raccoon Creek's watershed coordinator. "There is no one to fall back on."

States take the lead on the water pollution front, but advocacy groups from at least three states in coal country - Kentucky, West Virginia and Indiana - have asked the EPA to step in, arguing that state officials aren't doing enough.



 

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

We Need More Fracktivists

What are you going to drink when there is no more clean drinking water?




Via OWS Week on Facebook.

Friday, January 10, 2014

Chemical spill contaminates water supply in W.Va.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - At least 100,000 customers in nine West Virginia counties were told not to drink, bathe, cook or wash clothes using their tap water because of a chemical spill into the Elk River in Charleston, with Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin declaring a state of emergency Thursday for all those areas.
A Freedom Industries worker places a boom in the Elk River. AP


The chemical, a foaming agent used in the coal preparation process, leaked from a tank at Freedom Industries, overran a containment area and went into the river earlier Thursday. The amount that spilled wasn't immediately known, but West Virginia American Water has a treatment plant nearby and it is the company's customers who are affected.

"The water has been contaminated," said Tomblin, who didn't know how long the emergency declaration would last.
Officials, though, said they aren't sure what hazard the spill poses to humans and that there were no immediate reports of people getting sick. It also was not immediately clear how much spilled into the river and in what concentration.

"I don't know if the water is not safe," said water company president Jeff McIntyre.
Tomblin said he's asking the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assist the state with supplies of bottled water. But people weren't waiting.

Once word got out about the governor's declaration, customers stripped store shelves in many areas of items such as bottled water, paper cups and bowls.
As many as 50 customers had lined up to buy water at a convenience store near the state Capitol in Charleston.

"It was chaos, that's what it was," cashier Danny Cardwell said.

The don't-drink-the-water declaration involves customers in the counties of Kanawha, Boone, Cabell, Clay, Jackson, Lincoln, Logan, Putnam and Roane. Most of the counties surround the capital city of Charleston, where there was a chemical smell similar to licorice in the air both outdoors and in areas where it had already reached the water supply on Thursday night.

West Virginia lawmakers who just started their session this week won't conduct business on Friday because of the problem and State Department of Education spokeswoman Liza Cordeiro said schools in at least five of the counties will be closed. Many students already missed some time this week because of the frigid weather.

McIntyre said the advisory was issued "because we don't know. I don't have anything to indicate the water is not safe. It's an abundance of caution that we're taking this step. We don't do this lightly, tell our customers not to use the water."

McIntyre said testing is being conducted to determine the concentrations of the chemical that have gone through the water system. But he said the chemical was in a much weaker concentration when it reached the water treatment plant through the river.

"Until we get out and flush the actual system and do more testing, we can't say how long this (advisory) will last at this time," McIntyre said. When the advisory was first issued for five counties, that as many as 100,000 customers were affected. The company has 170,000 customers in 17 West Virginia counties, as well as in Ohio and Virginia.

Freedom Industries did not immediately respond for comment. The Elk River flows into the Kanawha River in downtown Charleston. The Kanawha eventually flows into the Ohio River at Point Pleasant, about 55 miles to the northwest.

Senate Majority Leader John Unger, D-Martinsburg, said all committee meetings have been canceled and lawmakers will adjourn until at least Monday. Other government offices also will be closed.
Unger, who co-chairs the Joint Legislative Oversight Commission on State Water Resources, said dozens of miles of pipe are affected by the spill.

"Flushing it out, that's going to take some time," Unger told The Associated Press. "You can imagine the infrastructure of the piping through the city and all of those counties."
McIntyre and Tomblin said boiling water first to remove impurities won't help as it sometimes does.

"Don't make baby formula," McIntyre said. "Don't brush your teeth. Don't shower. Toilet flushing only."

McIntyre and state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management director Jimmy Gianato said the chemical isn't lethal in its strongest form. Kanawha County emergency officials said the chemical is called 4-methylcyclohexane methanol.

According to a fact sheet from Fisher Scientific, the chemical is harmful if swallowed and causes eye and skin irritation and could be harmful if inhaled.

Tomblin said the advisory also extends to restaurants, hospitals, nursing homes and other establishments that use tap water.

West Virginia Delegate Michael Manypenny, D-Taylor, who co-chairs the water resources committee with Unger, said he's been pushing for stronger oversight of industries in order to protect the state's water resources. He said the spill will add fuel to his argument.

"This leaves a lot of questions," he said. "And I think we're going to need an inquiry on why this happens and what we can do to prevent it."

Read full article here 

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

10 Cities That Could Run Out Of Water

Growing Populations, Stressed Water Supplies

This article by Terrell Johnson appeared on The Weather Channel website, December 18, 2013.

Securing access to plentiful, renewable sources of fresh water is among the biggest struggles large cities around the world face. Growing populations and declining fresh water supplies – from rapidly depleting aquifers as well as drought-stricken reservoirs and rivers – mean that cities are scrambling to find solutions.

In the pages that follow, we look at 10 major U.S. cities facing some of the nation's most acute water shortages, and the hurdles they face in obtaining enough water to meet their citizens', and industries', needs.

Read more...