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A report on the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” in the Baldwin Hills area of Los Angeles is being questioned by local residents and environmental groups. The report found no evidence of environmental or health impacts. Critics claim that it fails to consider potential long-term impacts and questioned the selection of one reviewer [...]
Continue Reading →A study in the State of New York conducted over the past twelve years by the US Geological Survey found elevated levels of methane in 9% of the state’s groundwater. The findings are consistent with measurements in the rest of the Northeast.
Methane is highly flammable and a potent greenhouse gas. Of particular concern is that 2% of [...]
Continue Reading →Raytheon has received approval for a plan to clean up a toxic waste spill that has polluted groundwater in St. Petersburg for the past thirty years. The spill occured at a manufacturing plant under a previous owner. Raytheon’s plan is to drill hundreds of wells to boil the groundwater under the site and vaporize the contaminants. [...]
Continue Reading →Cadiz has been trying to sell groundwater from the Mojave desert to Southern California cities for 15 years. The environmental impact report for the project was accepted last week by the Santa Margarita Water District in Orange County. Santa Margarita also agreed to buy one-tenth of the project’s proposed annual yield. If it goes ahead [...]
Continue Reading →Risk analysts at SUNY Stony Brook say that treatment of wastewater represents the greatest hazard that fracking operations pose to drinking water safety. The researchers say that industrial water treatment plants are generally unable to handle wastewater from hydraulic fracturing. They determined that this makes wastewater disposal orders of magnitude more hazardous than the potential for wells to leak [...]
Continue Reading →The Pepacton Reservoir, which normally provides New York City with a quarter of its drinking water, was re-connected to the city’s distribution system last week. It had been closed to drain and repair leaking fuel tanks that contained 3200 gallons of diesel fuel and gasoline. The Department of Environmental Protection believes that the tanks were left behind [...]
Continue Reading →24 million gallons of spilled jet fuel have contaminated an aquifer in Albequerque, and are making their way towards the wells that serve as the city’s primary source of drinking water. The spill occured over a period of 40 years at Kirtland Air Force Base, two miles from the nearest drinking water well. The plume [...]
Continue Reading →A study by the US Geological Survey found high levels of nitrate in 25 percent of the Upper Santa Ana Watershed, high levels of perchlorate in 11 percent of the of the aquifer system, and moderate levels in a further 53 percent. This aquifer system is used to provide drinking water to the Inland Empire. The study [...]
Continue Reading →Officials at the Ohio Department of Public Health are offering free arsenic testing to owners of private wells in the State. The data will help them work with the US Geological Survey to identify areas where groundwater contains dangerously high levels of arsenic. Arsenic is a naturally occuring contaminant in many parts of the US, and has been linked [...]
Continue Reading →Warmer summers could cause more frequent blooms of toxic blue-green algae (also known as cyanobacteria), and cause them to produce more toxins. Cyanobacteria are naturally occuring in reservoirs, and blooms in drinking water supplies have been linked to gastrointestinal disorders, and other illnesses.
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Global Warming Favors Proliferation of Toxic Cyanobacteria – [...]
Continue Reading →A study by the US Geological Survey has identified the presence of contaminants in potentially harmful concentrations in some New England bedrock groundwater supplies. Among the natural and man-made chemicals most commonly detected were arsenic, uranium, radon, nitrates, MtBE, and chloroform. Many of these were frequently detected above their EPA’s Maximum Contaminant Level.
“This study confirmed [...]
Continue Reading →Surveys and retail trends show that consumers are looking for ways to use plastic water bottles less often due to growing concerns about chemicals leaching from the plastic. One beneficiary of this trend are reusable glass bottles.
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Wary of Plastic, and Waste, Some Consumers Turn to Glass – The [...]
Continue Reading →The EPA has suggested demolishing three buildings at a Superfund site in downtown Columbus, OH to clean up soil contaminated by local dry cleaners. The soil contains tetrachloroethylene, a carcinogenic chemical commonly used in dry cleaning, and has been contaminating local groundwater since the 1980′s. The EPA believes that demolishing the buildings will facilitate the cleanup process.
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Continue Reading →A new study by the University at Buffalo finds that implementation of environmental regulations reduces the rate of environmental violations due to drilling shale gas wells. The study looked at drilling in Pennsylvania between 2008 and 2011, and found marked reductions in the number of violations per well. In 2008, 58% of wells incurred an environmental violation while in [...]
Continue Reading →In 2000 Congress established the $135 million San Gabriel Basin Restoration Fund to treat carcinogens and rocket-fuel contamination in the San Gabriel Basin aquifer, as well as the San Gabriel Basin Water Quality Authority to oversee the cleanup effort. The fund still contains $53 million for operating and maintaining treatment plants, but without an extension for the [...]
Continue Reading →Wednesday 25 April 2012
Controversial “fracking” for shale gas should only take place at least 600 metres down from aquifers used for water supplies, scientists said on Wednesday.
A new study revealed the process, which uses high-pressure liquid pumped deep underground to split shale rock and release gas, caused fractures running upwards and downwards through [...]
Continue Reading →Associated Press
PITTSBURGH — A former top environmental official says Pennsylvania’s successful efforts to keep Marcellus Shale wastewater away from drinking water supplies should be extended to all other oil and gas drillers.
“It’s the same industry. It is the same contaminants. And the goal should be the same,” said George Jugovic Jr., who was [...]
Continue Reading →(New York, N.Y.) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today announced that it has entered into an agreement with the General Electric Company and SI Group, Inc. (formerly Schenectady Chemical) to collect and properly dispose of contaminated ground water and liquid leaching from the Dewey Loeffel landfill that is threatening several nearby drinking water wells. The [...]
Continue Reading →By Greg Stohr and Mark Drajem on March 21, 2012
The U.S. Supreme Court blunted a commonly used Environmental Protection Agency enforcement tool, siding with landowners and companies that said the federal agency was abusing its power…
The ruling will have its primary impact on disputes over the Clean Water Act, the federal law that [...]
Continue Reading →Associated Press
SCRANTON, Pa. — Federal environmental regulators said Thursday that well water testing at 11 homes in a northeastern Pennsylvania village where a gas driller was accused of polluting the aquifer failed to show elevated levels of contamination.
The Environmental Protection Agency, which is sampling well water at dozens of homes in Dimock, Susquehanna [...]
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