The week that was, 10/11-17/2009
The Spruce Mine, Logan Co., West Virginia. Source: The Charleston Gazette. Click on the map to be taken to the Gazette blog "Coal Tatoo."
The Spruce Mine as currently configured would bury more than seven miles of streams. –– Ken Ward, Jr, Coal Tatoo blog at the Charleston Gazette, October 16, 2009
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Friday it planned to use its authority for the first time to revoke a previously issued permit for a West Virginia surface mine. — NPR / AP, October 16, 2009
Region III is aware that EPA has never before used its Section 404(c) authority to review a previously permitted project since Congress enacted the Clean Water Act in 1972. That it is necessary in this circumstance … reflects the magnitude and scale … of this mountaintop removal mining operation — the largest strip mining operation ever proposed in Appalachia …
The week that was, 10/4-10/2009
With its limited appeal to lovers of swamps and turtles, it’s hard to imagine how David M. Carroll’s beautiful new book, his fifth, will find enough buyers to earn its advance, much less turn a profit. — October 4, 2009 Seattle Times review of David M. Carroll’s “Following the Water — a Hydromancer’s Notebook”
Was it really possible that power of such magnitude — diverting water supplies, building suburbs, playing a central role in the fastest growth any American city has ever seen — could be exercised from the offices of a newspaper publisher? — October 4, 2009 New York Times review of the PBS documentary “Inventing LA: The Chandlers and Their Times”
[Las Vegas] is probably the poster child for the most unsustainable city in the world. — former Las Vegas Sun …
The twelve years that were: Desertification
Utah, March 4, 2009. Source: NASA Earth Observatory. Dust blows out of the West Desert, where Las Vegas plans to pump the groundwater. Click on the image to be taken to the Earth Observatory.
Buenos Aires: experts from the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) called for an immediate global response to the increasing number of sand and dust storms. — United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, September 24, 2009
As defined by the UN Convention, desertification is a process of “land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities.” — United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, June, 1997
The [Las Vegas] pumping project will result in likely irreversible loss of critical native vegetation covering a desert expanse equal in size to the state of Vermont. Where water diversion projects like …
The week that was, 9/13-19/2009
Burn scar from the Los Angeles Station Fire, September 16th, 2009. Photo: NASA. Click on the image to be taken to the Earth Observatory.
Most expenses are never assigned to the bottom-line costs of wildfire. — Comment piece in The Oregonian
By Saturday [September 19th] the arson-caused fire that claimed the lives of two firefighters was 93% contained and had cost nearly $84 million to fight. More than 700 firefighters remain on the fire lines. — Los Angeles Times
Although up to 15 percent of the city of Los Angeles’ water comes from local sources such as the Angeles National Forest, other neighboring communities in the San Gabriel Valley rely on the forest watershed for most of their water. — TreePeople press release
…
The week that was, 9/6-12/2009
Finding water on the moon would not only be a major scientific discovery, it would also have a profound effect on plans to establish a semipermanent moon base. Water would not only be useful for drinking, it could also be used to produce oxygen for respiration and to serve as a source of rocket fuel for a trip to Mars. — Los Angeles Times
“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 West Virginia’s largest banks. — From the New York Times series Toxic Waters
The world wasn’t crying out for a periodical on bathing when Leonard Koren introduced Wet magazine in 1976. However, Koren had the imagination and audacity to create his own world, and that’s exactly what he did …
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