water pollution
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In the Drink
In other news from the Golden State, regulators in California are reviving a campaign to clean up perchlorate, a Cold War-era pollutant that has been showing up in drinking water supplies across the country. Since the 1950s, the substance has been used as an oxidizer in rockets, munitions, and fireworks. It was not considered particularly […]
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Sign of the Thames
New water-quality targets being established by the European Union could radically change the face of farming in Europe, forcing farmers to scale back or even abandon their practices in some traditionally agricultural areas. The Water Framework Directive will require all rivers, lakes, and canals to be restored to “good ecological quality” within 15 years — […]
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Sh*tting By the Dock of the Bay
Ten years ago, delegates attending the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro wrinkled their noses upon encountering the putrid smells emanating from the heavily polluted Guanabara Bay. The summit cast a spotlight on the plight of Rio’s bay and led to the creation of an internationally funded cleanup project. Now, with the follow-up Earth […]
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Umbra on flushing medications
Dear Umbra, I work with a number of older women who try to be environmentally conscientious. When it comes to discarding outdated medications though, there seems to be conflicting advice. Medical doctors tell me that all such medicines should be flushed down the toilet. Water resource people say, don’t flush, because all those discarded medicines […]
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Dentist the Menace
Here’s one more reason to dread your dentist: Many dental offices flush old fillings down the drain, washing the mercury inside them into the nation’s waterways. That makes dentists the single largest discharger of the toxic metal, according to a national study entitled “Dentist the Menace?” and published by a collection of health and environmental […]
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Michelle Nijhuis reviews Water Wars by Vandana Shiva
I can see the source of the world's water problems from my office window. It's called the Fire Mountain Canal, and it winds its way past peach and apple orchards, through green horse pastures, and around the edge of the dry, juniper-covered mesa where I live. This fat, smooth snake of water seems like a generous thing; after all, it supports the work of local Colorado farmers, who stuff us with cherries, chilies, meat, and other goodies each year. But the canal cheats the river itself, sucking out so much water that the local swimming season ends in June. Thousands of other diversions, big and small, prey on other tributaries in our watershed, eventually shrinking the main stem of the Colorado River down to a ghost of itself.
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The Netherlands tackles nitrogen pollution with a game
Confess: You’ve played more than one hand of solitaire on company time. Tetris anyone? Maybe you’ve even been a MYSTic or a QUAKEr. If you happen to work for the Dutch Ministry of the Environment, playing computer games is now part of your job description. Or at least playing a computer game — the world’s […]
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Umbra on farmed fish
I have a friend who is a homeopathic. She told me that I should stop eating pen-raised salmon because they are fed a lot of antibiotics. I was very disappointed because I thought I was eating a safe product. I don’t know how to get more info about this, but if you guys know anything […]
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Hopping Mad
Atrazine, the most popular herbicide in the U.S., appears to cause a wide range of sexual abnormalities in frogs, according to a study by biologist Tyrone Hayes published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Seventy-five million pounds of atrazine are used in the U.S. every year, and it is the most […]
