Jessica Biel Joins Celebrities In Scaling Mt. Kilimanjaro For Clean Water

Jessica Biel has announced that she will be joining Isabel Lucas and Lupe Fiasco in scaling Mt. Kilimanjaro this January to help raise awareness for clean water. The expedition is the brainchild of singer and producer Kenna; whose own father suffered from waterborne diseases as a child in Ethiopia.

Back in April, it was Biel’s boyfriend, singer Justin Timberlake, who first announced the project in an interview with GQ. “I’ve been training four times a week to get my VO2 [oxygen consumption] levels up to expand my lungs,” Timberlake said. “We’ll climb for a week straight, carrying 30 pounds on our backs. It’s going to be intense.” Unless something has changed, we assume he’s still connected with the effort — but representatives for the campaign are reportedly not confirming anything one way or another.

Said Biel in a statement announcing her participation, “This is a basic human necessity that needs to be addressed now. I’m proud to help any way I can in order to raise awareness toward the life-threatening clean water crisis happening not only in Africa but around the world.”

Apparently, more celebrities are set to be announced in the coming weeks. You can check out the slick official site for the “Summit on the Summit” campaign — and get involved – by clicking here.

Source: www.ecorazzi.com

Courts Reviewing Environmental Impact of Natural Gas Drilling

By Kate Winston, Inside EPA, Sept 18, 2009

Key federal courts are backing activists in suits under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to review the impacts of natural gas drilling fluids on underground aquifers, rulings that activists hope will bolster pending bills to restore EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) authority to oversee hydraulic fracturing — a controversial gas drilling procedure that requires injection of chemicals into wells.

Activists also say such precedent will likely spur other groups to use NEPA to challenge the use of chemicals in gas drilling, a practice that is expected to increase as more electricity producers switch to the fuel to comply with upcoming climate change regulations.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit — which includes key gas drilling states of Oklahoma, Wyoming, Kansas, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico — in April ruled in State of New Mexico ex rel. v. Bureau of Land Management that the bureau must conduct further analysis under NEPA of the drilling activities covered by its resource management plan for the Otera Mesa region, including providing more evidence that drilling would not harm the aquifer.

Meanwhile, a federal district court in Colorado Sept. 3 granted environmentalists’ request for a preliminary injunction to block exploratory oil and gas drilling in the Baca National Wildlife Refuge until the resolution of the case, San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council et al. v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [FWS]. In the ruling, Judge Walker Miller found in favor of activists on a number of issues, including activists’ claims that the FWS’ environmental assessment (EA) for the project likely violated NEPA by failing to analyze potential impacts of drilling and failing to analyze alternatives that would have a smaller environmental impact.

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Health Ills Abound as Farm Runoff Fouls Wells

By Charles Duhigg, The New York Times

MORRISON, Wis. — All it took was an early thaw for the drinking water here to become unsafe.

There are 41,000 dairy cows in Brown County, which includes Morrison, and they produce more than 260 million gallons of manure each year, much of which is spread on nearby grain fields. Other farmers receive fees to cover their land with slaughterhouse waste and treated sewage.

In measured amounts, that waste acts as fertilizer. But if the amounts are excessive, bacteria and chemicals can flow into the ground and contaminate residents’ tap water.

In Morrison, more than 100 wells were polluted by agricultural runoff within a few months, according to local officials. As parasites and bacteria seeped into drinking water, residents suffered from chronic diarrhea, stomach illnesses and severe ear infections.

“Sometimes it smells like a barn coming out of the faucet,” said Lisa Barnard, who lives a few towns over, and just 15 miles from the city of Green Bay.

Tests of her water showed it contained E. coli, coliform bacteria and other contaminants found in manure. Last year, her 5-year-old son developed ear infections that eventually required an operation. Her doctor told her they were most likely caused by bathing in polluted water, she said.

Yet runoff from all but the largest farms is essentially unregulated by many of the federal laws intended to prevent pollution and protect drinking water sources. The Clean Water Act of 1972 largely regulates only chemicals or contaminants that move through pipes or ditches, which means it does not typically apply to waste that is sprayed on a field and seeps into groundwater.

As a result, many of the agricultural pollutants that contaminate drinking water sources are often subject only to state or county regulations. And those laws have failed to protect some residents living nearby.

To address this problem, the federal Environmental Protection Agency has created special rules for the biggest farms, like those with at least 700 cows.

But thousands of large animal feedlots that should be regulated by those rules are effectively ignored because farmers never file paperwork, E.P.A. officials say.

And regulations passed during the administration of President George W. Bush allow many of those farms to self-certify that they will not pollute, and thereby largely escape regulation.

In a statement, the E.P.A. wrote that officials were working closely with the Agriculture Department and other federal agencies to reduce pollution and bring large farms into compliance.

Agricultural runoff is the single largest source of water pollution in the nation’s rivers and streams, according to the E.P.A. An estimated 19.5 million Americans fall ill each year from waterborne parasites, viruses or bacteria, including those stemming from human and animal waste, according to a study published last year in the scientific journal Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology.

The problem is not limited to Wisconsin. In California, up to 15 percent of wells in agricultural areas exceed a federal contaminant threshold, according to studies. Major waterways like the Chesapeake Bay have been seriously damaged by agricultural pollution, according to government reports.

In Arkansas and Maryland, residents have accused chicken farm owners of polluting drinking water. In 2005, Oklahoma’s attorney general sued 13 poultry companies, claiming they had damaged one of the state’s most important watersheds.

In Brown County, part of one of the nation’s largest milk-producing regions, agriculture brings in $3 billion a year. But the dairies collectively also create as much as a million gallons of waste each day. Many cows are fed a high-protein diet, which creates a more liquid manure that is easier to spray on fields.

In 2006, an unusually early thaw in Brown County melted frozen fields, including some that were covered in manure. Within days, according to a county study, more than 100 wells were contaminated with coliform bacteria, E. coli, or nitrates — byproducts of manure or other fertilizers.

“Land application requirements in place at that time were not sufficiently designed or monitored to prevent the pollution of wells,” one official wrote.

Some residents did not realize that their water was contaminated until their neighbors fell ill, which prompted them to test their own water.

“We were terrified,” said Aleisha Petri, whose water was polluted for months, until her husband dumped enough bleach in the well to kill the contaminants. Neighbors spent thousands of dollars digging new wells.

One resident said that he had seen cow organs dumped on a neighboring field, and his dog had dug up animal carcasses and bones.

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Source: The New York Times

Clean Water Laws are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering

By CHARLES DUHIGG, The New York Times

Jennifer Hall-Massey knows not to drink the tap water in her home near Charleston, W.Va.

In fact, her entire family tries to avoid any contact with the water. Her youngest son has scabs on his arms, legs and chest where the bathwater — polluted with lead, nickel and other heavy metals — caused painful rashes. Many of his brother’s teeth were capped to replace enamel that was eaten away.

Neighbors apply special lotions after showering because their skin burns. Tests show that their tap water contains arsenic, barium, lead, manganese and other chemicals at concentrations federal regulators say could contribute to cancer and damage the kidneys and nervous system.

“How can we get digital cable and Internet in our homes, but not clean water?” said Mrs. Hall-Massey, a senior accountant at one of the state’s largest banks.

She and her husband, Charles, do not live in some remote corner of Appalachia. Charleston, the state capital, is less than 17 miles from her home.

“How is this still happening today?” she asked.

When Mrs. Hall-Massey and 264 neighbors sued nine nearby coal companies, accusing them of putting dangerous waste into local water supplies, their lawyer did not have to look far for evidence. As required by state law, some of the companies had disclosed in reports to regulators that they were pumping into the ground illegal concentrations of chemicals — the same pollutants that flowed from residents’ taps.

But state regulators never fined or punished those companies for breaking those pollution laws.

This pattern is not limited to West Virginia. Almost four decades ago, Congress passed the Clean Water Act to force polluters to disclose the toxins they dump into waterways and to give regulators the power to fine or jail offenders. States have passed pollution statutes of their own. But in recent years, violations of the Clean Water Act have risen steadily across the nation, an extensive review of water pollution records by The New York Times found.

In the last five years alone, chemical factories, manufacturing plants and other workplaces have violated water pollution laws more than half a million times. The violations range from failing to report emissions to dumping toxins at concentrations regulators say might contribute to cancer, birth defects and other illnesses.

However, the vast majority of those polluters have escaped punishment. State officials have repeatedly ignored obvious illegal dumping, and the Environmental Protection Agency, which can prosecute polluters when states fail to act, has often declined to intervene.

But concerns over these toxins are great enough that Congress and the E.P.A. regulate more than 100 pollutants through the Clean Water Act and strictly limit 91 chemicals or contaminants in tap water through the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Regulators themselves acknowledge lapses. The new E.P.A. administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, said in an interview that despite many successes since the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, today the nation’s water does not meet public health goals, and enforcement of water pollution laws is unacceptably low. She added that strengthening water protections is among her top priorities. State regulators say they are doing their best with insufficient resources.

The Times obtained hundreds of thousands of water pollution records through Freedom of Information Act requests to every state and the E.P.A., and compiled a national database of water pollution violations that is more comprehensive than those maintained by states or the E.P.A. (For an interactive version, which can show violations in any community, visit www.nytimes.com/toxicwaters.)

In addition, The Times interviewed more than 250 state and federal regulators, water-system managers, environmental advocates and scientists.

That research shows that an estimated one in 10 Americans have been exposed to drinking water that contains dangerous chemicals or fails to meet a federal health benchmark in other ways.

Those exposures include carcinogens in the tap water of major American cities and unsafe chemicals in drinking-water wells. Wells, which are not typically regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, are more likely to contain contaminants than municipal water systems.

Because most of today’s water pollution has no scent or taste, many people who consume dangerous chemicals do not realize it, even after they become sick, researchers say.

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Source: The New York Times

Govt Stands by as Mercury Taints Water

By JASON DEAREN (AP)

NEW IDRIA, Calif. — Abandoned mercury mines throughout central California’s rugged coastal mountains are polluting the state’s major waterways, rendering fish unsafe to eat and risking the health of at least 100,000 impoverished people.

But an Associated Press investigation found that the federal government has tried to clean up fewer than a dozen of the hundreds of mines — and most cleanups have failed to stem the contamination.

Although the mining ceased decades ago, records and interviews show the vast majority of sites have not even been studied to assess the pollution, let alone been touched.

While millions live in the affected Delta region, the pollution disproportionately hurts the poor and immigrants who rely on local fish as part of their diet, according to a study conducted by University of California, Davis ecologist Fraser Shilling. His research found that 100,000 people, which he calls a conservative estimate, regularly eat tainted fish at levels deemed unsafe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

But neither the state nor federal government has studied long-term health effects of mercury on the people who regularly eat fish from these waters.

The legacy of more than a century of mercury mining in California — which produced more of the silvery metal than anywhere else in the nation — harms people and the environment in myriad ways.

Far to the north, American Indians who live atop mine waste on the shores of one of the world’s most mercury-polluted lakes have elevated levels of the heavy metal in their bodies and fears about their health.

And other mercury mines are the biggest sources of the pollution in San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the largest estuary on the Pacific Coast.

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FRAC Act Under Consideration to Protect U.S. Drinking Water

A September, 2009 letter was signed by 160 national, regional, state and local organizations, including conservation, faith, sportsmen and community organizations, urging members of Congress to co-sponsor S. 1215/ H.R. 2766, the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (FRAC) Act.

This important legislation would repeal an exemption in the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) for an oil and gas technique called hydraulic fracturing. It would also require public disclosure of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing fluids.

Signatories to letter in support of the FRAC Act include (among others): American Rivers, Center for Food Safety, Earthjustice, Environmental Working Group, Food & Water Watch, National Audubon Society, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Public Citizen’s Energy Program, and the Rural Community Assistance Partnership, Inc.

Oil and gas production is present in over 30 states, and a consistent national standard is needed for this practice. Hydraulic fracturing involves the injection of fluids into oil or gas wells at very high pressure in order to crack open the underground formation and allow oil or gas to flow out more easily. These fluids often contain toxic chemicals, some of which remain underground. The pressure places stress on the oil or gas well and can lead to unpredictable consequences.

Reports of drinking water contamination come from Colorado, Texas, Arkansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Alabama and Wyoming.

While states regulate oil and gas production, state rules vary widely and a federal floor is needed. As stated in a study by the Hastings College of the Law, “many of the state regulatory schemes date from earlier waves of resource extraction, and have not kept pace with changed technologies, nor with a deepening concern for public health and the environment.” For example, a recent report issued by the Ground Water Protection Council found that some states do not require a well’s surface casing to be set through the deepest ground water zone.

Protection of drinking water is a national concern that should not be left to a patchwork of state regulations.

In 2005, Congress exempted hydraulic fracturing from the SDWA to the benefit of Halliburton and other oil and gas companies. It is time to close the Halliburton Loophole and hold the oil and gas production industry to the same standards as any other industry.

Please support the efforts to keep our drinking water safe. For ideas on how to make a difference around the FRAC Act, visit Nuprana’s Advocacy section.

Click here to read the full letter in support of the FRAC Act.

Water Problems from Drilling are Widespread in Pennsylvania

By Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica

When methane began bubbling out of kitchen taps near a gas drilling site in Pennsylvania last winter, a state regulator described the problem as “an anomaly.” But at the time he made that statement to ProPublica, that same official was investigating a similar case affecting more than a dozen homes near gas wells halfway across the state.

In fact, methane related to the natural gas industry has contaminated water wells in at least seven Pennsylvania counties since 2004 and is common enough that the state hired a full-time inspector dedicated to the issue in 2006. In one case, methane was detected in water sampled over 15 square miles. In another, a methane leak led to an explosion that killed a couple and their 17-month-old grandson.

Methane is the largest component of natural gas. Since it evaporates out of drinking water, it is not considered toxic, but in the air it can lead to explosions. When methane is found in water supplies, it can also signal that deeply drilled gas wells are linked with drinking water systems.

In many cases the methane seepage comes from thousands of old abandoned gas wells that riddle Pennsylvania’s geology, state inspectors say. But other cases, including several this year and the 2004 disaster that left three people dead, were linked to problems with newly drilled, active natural gas wells.

The issue came to the forefront in January when methane was found in the water at 16 homes in the small town of Dimock, in northeastern Pennsylvania. State officials cited Cabot Oil & Gas for several violations they say allowed the gas to seep out of the well structures and into water supplies there. The Department of Environmental Protection asked the company to encase its lower well pipes completely in concrete — a process known in the industry as “cementing” — and assured the public that the contamination in Dimock was rare.

But according to a department spokeswoman, there have been at least 52 separate cases of what the state calls “methane migration” in the past five years. In two of the 2009 cases, regulators responded to complaints from more than 32 households and asked gas companies to supply clean water to at least a dozen homes with contaminated wells.

An undated report from the Pittsburgh Geological Society posted to the DEP’s Web site makes it clear that old wells and new drilling can lead to stray gas problems. “Although it rarely makes headlines,” the report reads, “damage or threats caused by gas migration is a common problem in Western Pennsylvania.”

The case Lobins was investigating at the same time as the Dimock case concerned a string of problems in Bradford, a rural town 200 miles west of Dimock along the state’s northern border. Shortly after a contractor for Schreiner Oil and Gas drilled several dozen wells in the area last spring, residents began complaining of murky and foul-smelling tap water. When the DEP investigated, it found methane in three water wells and metals in six others. It asked Schreiner to supply water to eight homes, and the company has begun installing water treatment systems at each house. While no new gas wells have been drilled in the Bradford area, according to the DEP, the existing ones continue to operate.

Michael Schreiner, Schreiner’s president, declined to comment for this article.

Lobins said the problems in Bradford — as in many of the contamination cases across the state — stem from a bad cementing job around the core of the well. In most gas drilling, the well pipe is encased in layers of concrete to keep it isolated from surrounding groundwater. The concrete also contains the enormous pressure exerted on the system during the process of hydraulic fracturing, which pumps water, sand and chemicals to the well bottom to break up rock.

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Source: AlterNet

Obama May Reverse Bush on Perchlorate Levels in Drinking Water

By Amy Littlefield

The Obama administration may be poised to reverse another Bush administration decision on toxic chemicals.

Under President Bush in 2008, the Environment Protection Agency decided not to regulate perchlorate, a chemical used to make rocket fuel that has been found in drinking water and has been linked to thyroid hormone disruption in young children. Now, it looks like the agency is reconsidering that stance.

In California, perchlorate used in manufacturing has seeped into groundwater. High levels of the chemical in drinking water has caused alarm in Rialto and Santa Clarita. The chemical has also turned up in tainted lettuce. In the absence of federal regulations, California moved to set state standards for perchlorate in drinking water in 2006. Massachusetts was the only other state with an enforceable standard on the chemical.

That same year, the EPA drew a response from scientists at its the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, who said the agency’s recommended standard on perchlorate failed to protect infants and children.

Now, EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson has said the organization will take another look at the chemical and accept public comments.

“It is critically important to protect sensitive populations, particularly infants and young children, from perchlorate in drinking water,” Jackson said. “As we re- re-evaluate the science around perchlorate, we will seek public input before making a regulatory determination based on the best science.”

The chemical is used to make fireworks, flares and rocket propellant.

Learn more about perchlorate and its impact on fertility and child development.

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Source: LA Times

Exxon Liable for Tainted Water in Queens

By Mireya Navarro, New York Times

Lawyers for New York City are trying to convince a jury in a federal trial that Exxon Mobil knew that an additive that it used in gasoline would contaminate groundwater.

The trial, which began on Tuesday before Judge Shira A. Scheindlin of United States District Court in Manhattan, is one of hundreds of cases that have been presented around the country against oil companies over the additive, M.T.B.E., a chemical compound that replaced lead in gasoline as an octane enhancer. Such enhancers boost engine performance and help prevent knocking.

New York City’s case against Exxon Mobil arose from the contamination of groundwater wells in Jamaica, Queens, that are designated as part of a backup system for drinking water in emergencies or droughts. In 2003, the city sued 23 oil companies over the contamination; it has reached settlements with 22, for a combined $15 million.

The Environmental Protection Agency says that even low levels of M.T.B.E. can make water undrinkable because of its taste and odor. While researchers have limited data on its health effects on humans, it is considered a carcinogen in high doses in animals.

Like ethanol, M.T.B.E., methyl tert-butyl ether, helps gasoline burn more cleanly and reduces tailpipe emissions. But it is also highly soluble in water, and fuel leaks from storage tanks and other sources have contaminated groundwater that is often a source of drinking water.

Twenty-five states, including New York, have restricted or banned M.T.B.E.

In opening statements on Tuesday, the lawyer for the city, Victor Sher, argued that Exxon, which started using M.B.T.E. in the 1980s, ignored evidence from its own scientists of a strong risk of groundwater contamination should the compound be added to gasoline. Mr. Sher argued that the company could have used ethanol, a more expensive octane enhancer that does not pose the same hazard.

Mr. Sher said 39 of 68 wells in Queens show M.T.B.E. contamination. But the focus of the trial is five contaminated wells that can yield about 10 million gallons a day to supplement water sources in cases of failure in the upstate reservoir system that provides New York City’s drinking water. City officials say a $250 million treatment facility would have to be built to make the water in the wells drinkable.

The company says that the wells are contaminated by other industry in the area. It adds that the city does not intend to build the treatment plant and has other projects under way to provide other backup sources of water.

The jury must rule on several elements of the case, including whether the city intends to build the treatment plant, the extent of M.T.B.E. contamination and the size of any punitive damages.

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Source: New York Times

Union Pacific to Pay for Water Act Violations

By John Boyd, Journal of Commerce Online

Union Pacific Railroad will pay civil penalties of $800,000 and is restoring some Nevada stream areas at an estimated cost of $31 million, the Department of Justice said, to settle alleged Clean Water Act violations in 2005.

In January 2005, the government said, UP’s tracks in the Clover Creek and Meadow Valley Wash areas “sustained significant damage following a flood in southern Nevada” and the railroad “made time-critical actions to repair damage.”

But Justice said “UP also conducted extensive non-emergency construction and stream alteration work without obtaining the required Clean Water Act permits, which could have minimized and compensated for the damage to the streams.”

That work included building “massive structures to control stream flows, such as dikes, berms, levees and diversions within the stream systems,” some up to 15 feet high and as much as thousands of feet in length.

The proposed decree said “Union Pacific has already performed substantial removal, restoration, and re-vegetation work at many sites.” It also said “nothing in this consent decree shall constitute or be construed as an admission of liability or wrongdoing by Union Pacific.”

John C. Cruden, acting assistant attorney general for the department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, said work the railroad agreed to undertake in the settlement “will restore Clover Creek and Meadow Valley Wash.”

Kush said “most of the requested work is complete.” Justice said UP agreed to restore 122 acres of mountain-desert streams and wetlands, in 21 sections in Clark and Lincoln Counties, Nev.

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Source: The Journal of Commerce Online

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