Environment & Pollution
Coal ash spill 50 times larger than that of Exxon-Valdez - now covering 400 acres with toxic sludge oozing toward drinking water for some in Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama - calls out 'clean coal' myth. Human nature is to take cheap way today and leave mess for future, but that mess is now. And: High levels of arsenic detected in water near spill; EPA, TVA advise avoiding activities that could stir up drying dust - children playing outside, pets outdoors (click 'See also').
The editors
The Anniston Star 2008-12-30 (entry)
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Concentrated animal feeding operations - factory farms - exempted from reporting hazardous emissions from manure. EPA says requirements created unnecessary burden, weren't acted upon. Factory farms produce more waste than Philadelphia annually. And: Livestock producers whose emissions meet or exceed specific thresholds are subject to Clean Air Act requirements, GAO says (click 'See also').
By Stephen Power
The Wall Street Journal. (may require subscription) 2008-12-12 (entry)
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Maryland's chicken farms generate $845 million - and 650 million pounds of manure - annually. Combined with stormwater runoff from overdevelopment, manure runoff into bay kills fish, crabs, oysters that have fed region's growth. Now, Maryland is correctly pushing to limit both by taking land, shoreline off market and by regulating manure disposal.
The editors
The Washington Post 2008-12-08 (entry)
Biochar - created by heating crop waste in airtight conditions - can store carbon dioxide, enrich soil, raise crop yields. Plowed into ground, it may forestall global warming, scientist and supporters (click 'See also') say, pointing to ancient Amazon examples. Ambitious goal would sequester 10 percent annual emissions.
By Gerard Wynn
Reuters; NewsDaily 2008-12-05 (entry)
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Wal-Mart forces suppliers onto sustainable packaging path with mandatory scorecard. The store plans to reduce packaging across its global supply chain by 5 per cent by 2013. Critic says that initiative isn't comprehensive; greenhouse gas measurement, for example, excludes all life cycle steps except material manufacturing.
By Linda Rano
Food Navigator 2008-02-08 (entry)
In 2006 series, writers at The Los Angeles Times explain that pollution and overfishing have altered the basic chemistry of the seas. The oceans now are hospitable for algae, bacteria and jellyfish, but fish, shrimp and marine mammals struggle to live. And overfishing tuna, swordfish, cod and grouper changes the foodchain and removes algae-eaters. Scientist says the world's six billion inhabitants have failed to use homeowner's rule: Be careful what you dump in the swimming pool, and make sure the filter is working.
By Kenneth R. Weiss and Usha Lee McFarling
The Los Angeles Times 2006-07-30 (entry)
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Keeping the fully loaded garbage trucks rolling, and the high fees paid for dumping, seems more important to Erie County officials than the private industry pilot program that would compost Ohio restaurants' food waste and help in recycling effort. How could it be that studying composting options is better than actually composting?
The editors
Sandusky Register (OH) 2007-11-28 (entry)
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In recycling effort, Ohio plant nursery volunteers to compost food waste from nearby restaurants and pay $5 a ton for the privilege. Erie County officials lean toward saying no, because less garbage going into the county landfill means less money for the county.
By Tom Jackson
Sandusky Register (OH) 2007-11-23 (entry)
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San Francisco's fishing fleets face slick of Cosco Busan's bunker fuel stretching from bay into Pacific Ocean, covering prime salmon, halibut, striped bass and Dungeness crabbing spots; already, sport fishing has seen steep decline and long-term health of seafood questioned.
By Brian Hoffman
San Francisco Chronicle 2007-11-09 (entry)
British government, aghast at food waste that contributes nearly 20 percent to landfills and is a potent source of methane, a greenhouse gas, begins national "Love Food Hate Waste campaign;" effort aimed at raising consumer awareness, and food industry is asked to participate.
By Rebecca Smithers
The Guardian (UK) 2007-11-02 (entry)
Microscopic plastic pieces in oceans, most from ship-cleaning products and deteriorating larger plastics, are absorbing pollutants, then being ingested by lugworms - which then are eaten by fish, which are eaten by more fish...and the cycle continues, bringing toxins up the foodchain.
By Henry Fountain
The New York Times 2007-10-30 (entry)
Sugar maples in Vermont are like canaries in a coal mine - as climate change takes hold, sap yield is in question and syrup makers turn to vacuum pumps to achieve the yields they did in perfect sugaring seasons past.
by Ketzel Levine
National Public Radio 2007-10-29 (entry)
Eating fish laden with mercury can cause brain damage in adults and fetuses - a Stanford student was temporarily disabled by his four-can-a-day tuna diet. Coal-fired power plants, which supply half the nation's energy, in 2005, dumped nearly 50 tons into the air, which washed into waterways, then into fish. Safe seafood choices: salmon, shrimp, flounder, scallops, anchovies and sardines.
By Larry Wheeler
Gannett News Service, USA Today 2007-10-31 (entry)
Scrutinizing food ingredients is crucial, but because the water we drink is the same as the water in our toilets, we tolerate the presence of chemicals that would be banned as food additives; it's time to filter drinking water for all.
By Robert D. Morris
The New York Times 2007-10-03 (entry)
Long used in China, integrated aquaculture, with fish waste fertilizing certain plants and fish sold at market, now attractive to researchers and entrepreneurs in Australia; barramundi and Murray cod enrich lettuce, bok choy and herbs.
By Mary-Lou Considine
ECOS magazine; sciencealert.com 2007-08-29 (entry)
College, university cafeterias in Maine remove trays and see reduction in food waste; schools also institute buying locally, sending food waste to pig farms, composting scraps, buying in bulk and limiting seafood to species that are not vulnerable to overfishing.
By Ann S. Kim
Portland Press-Herald (ME) 2007-09-24 (entry)
Though armed and hungry guerrillas with a taste for wild meat often spell doom for mountain gorillas, it's Africa's demand for charcoal - cooking fuel -- that truly is endangering them, leveling forests and spoiling water for drinking and habitats, paleontologist says.
By Richard Leakey
BBC News 2007-09-10 (entry)
From Alps to Vermont, climate changes, from unprecedented heat to new plants, force cheesemakers into adaptations that may change the taste, texture and quality of their products.
By Ketzel Levine
National Public Radio 2007-08-30 (entry)
Ethanol craze looms dangerously large for fish and crabs in Chesapeake, since larger acreage planted in nitrogen-needy corn means more fertilizer runoff into water, which spawns growth of oxygen-depriving algae, study reports.
The Associated Press; Business Week 2007-08-27 (entry)
Mountaintop removal coal mining, with toxic leftovers shoved into streams, foul residents' water and kill the fish; study traces mining pollution to children's nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, and shortness of breath; long-term effects unknown.
By Eric Reece
Orion Magazine 2006-01-01 (entry)
In 2000 in Kentucky, a torrent of coal-mining sludge was released when an earthen dam collapsed after a previous leak; the goo, 20 times the volume of the Exxon Valdez's crude oil spill in Alaska, covered vegetable gardens and suffocated fish as it fouled 100 miles of streams and rivers before dispersing at the Ohio River.
By Peter T. Kilborn
The New York Times 2000-12-25 (entry)
Long the designated caretakers of the poor and disenfranchised, religious communities find their interests growing toward farming and food production for reasons including humane treatment of animals, fair wages to workers and stewardship of the Earth.
By Joan Nathan
The New York Times 2007-08-22 (entry)
Though banned for sale in March, Monsanto's GMO alfalfa seed was already widely planted in Michigan; public interest group sues, citing concerns for human and animal health as well as possible contamination of conventional alfalfa plants through pollination by bees.
By Jeff Kart
The Bay City Times 2007-08-24 (entry)
Grand Forks city council says sugar beet residue won't smell so sweet, and bans its dumping on rented land west of the city; American Crystal Sugar Co., disagrees, saying that the sugar, which causes odor as it decays, will be gone.
The Associated Press; The Bismarck Tribune 0000-00-00 (entry)
After scramble to plant more acreage in corn and cash in on ethanol craze, deepening drought and scorching temperatures shrivel farmers' dreams of record corn harvest in South and Southeastern states.
By Jim Nesbitt
The Sun-News (SC); McClatchy Newspapers 0000-00-00 (entry)
Big water has Coke, Pepsi and Nestle behind all those bottles of all that water being marketed as preferable to the stuff that flows from the tap, with one spokesperson comparing it to French wines and iPods, both of which are shipped long distances.
By Alex Beam
The Boston Globe 2007-08-20 (entry)
Though customers spend more than $14 billion a year on organics and depend on USDA label even for imports, USDA infrastructure, with nine staffers and a $1.5 million budget, languishes; other departments spend about $28 million a year on organic research, data collection and farmer assistance, but the department spent $37 million subsidizing farmers who grew dry peas, an $83 million crop, in 2005.
By Andrew Martin
The New York Times (may require subscription) 0000-00-00 (entry)
Judging from plastic bottles clogging the landfills and SUVs clogging the highways, the news that we're killing ourselves and our world hasn't kicked in, so that makes "The 11th Hour," an unnerving, surprisingly affecting documentary, essential viewing.
By Manohla Dargis
The New York Times 2007-08-17 (entry)
Artist Chris Jordan makes, finds patterns in garbage and other societal markers.
2007-08-16 (entry)
Emaciated grey whales seen off the coast of Baja California may show a crucial break in ocean's food chain; algae mats, home to shrimp-like creatures that whales, walrus and sea ducks feed on, have disappeared as ice melts.
By Leonard Doyle
The Independent (UK) (entry)
Entrepreneurs find booming business in selling biodegradable and compostable cups, bowls and flatware made of sugar cane and corn plastic to local restaurants, but find they must educate restaurateurs on plastics problems first.
By Joanna Hartman
Sierra Sun; Nevada Appeal (entry)
Overfishing, poaching and pollution have depleted worldwide fish stocks to 10 percent of normal; for every pound of shrimp harvested, 10 pounds are discarded, along with turtles and dolphins, conservationists report.
By Eviana Hartman
Washington Post (entry)
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With federal quality standards for bottled water less stringent than they are for tap water and 2 million tons of polyethylene bottles trashed every year in U.S., it makes sense to fill a reusable bottle with filtered water at home, then pack it for work or school.
By Eviana Hartman
Washington Post (entry)
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To irrigate crops, farmers have pumped billions of gallons annually from the Ogallala Aquifer, a lake under parts of Great Plains states, but now, water table has dropped steeply, forcing new "dryland" methods of farming for conservation.
By Debbie Elliott
National Public Radio (entry)
Community-supported agriculture provides cash for farmers when they need it for seeds and equipment in the early spring, and fresh produce - from lettuce to pumpkins - for participants throughout the growing season.
By Peggy Grodinsky
Houston Chronicle (entry)
Local food advocates trumpet food miles, but the Life Cycle Assessment, with comprehensive accounting of all resources that go into food network, from fertilizer to electricity, offers clearer picture; meanwhile, air shipping is the most fuel-intensive, and the fastest growing sector of food transport.
By Drake Bennett
The Boston Globe (entry)
New interactive map allows users to tract proliferation of factory farms by state and county - even number of animals - and it raises questions of whether we pursue the logic of industrialism to its limits, and how badly will it harm the landscape, the people who live in it and democracy itself?
The editors
The New York Times (may require subscription) (entry)
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Coca-Cola, Nestle, and Läckeby Water Group join other food, drink producers in UN agreement to use water more efficiently; lack of access to clean water and sanitation undermines humanitarian, social, environmental, and economic goals.
By Ahmed ElAmin
foodproductiondaily.com (entry)
Starbucks, learning early on that carbon emissions would affect rainfall and temperatures, thus affecting price, quantity and quality of coffee beans (and its bottom line), calculated its carbon footprint and is working to lower the number; other companies are coy.
Sonia Narang
Forbes magazine (entry)
Current agricultural policies distort food costs, waste billions of taxpayer dollars, and subsidize a handful of large farming operations that raise a few selected crops - and subvert subsistence farmers across the globe by dumping cheap surplus goods at below-market prices.
By Senator Richard Lugar and Representative Ron Kind
The Modesto Bee (CA) 2007-07-15 (entry)
It's a $70 billion annual bill, and before, only agribusiness cared, but a tsunami of activists now believes that its subsidies for corn and soy encourage diet-related disease and climate change; instead, they advocate money for sustainable and organic food production, agricultural conservation and for a priority on fresh, local fruits and vegetables.
By Carol Ness
San Francisco Chronicle (entry)
Despite activists' efforts to bamboozle public, price-conscious customers appear happy buying milk containing synthetic hormone, and squeezing more milk from cows via drugs saves natural resources, reduces corn prices, greenhouse gas emissions and manure production; in a more rational world, customers would choose milk so labeled.
By Henry I. Miller
The New York Times (may require subscription) 2007-06-29 (entry)
