Acid drainage not just a mine issue anymore

As in Jeddo Mine Tunnel just outside the old anthracite coal city of Hazleton, APa. Now there’s a new wrinkle to this deadly pollution as this article from Colorado notes.

Montana governor OKs some trout egg shipments

Others are held up, though, as the guv tries to use them as a blackmail of sorts to get the Interior Department to change (due to politics, not science) how it manages some wildlife species, like bison. What a joke. Read about it all here.

New books focus on the Southwest and water

My wife’s dream was to move to Tucson. We even looked at houses there during one of our two trips to Tucson in recent years. Anyway, the two books reviewed in this article paint a picture of water scarcity and drought for the future. When you really think it over, i.e., how did Phoenix happen, you realize that the Sonora Desert – a land of 100-plus degree weather again and again – is hardly the place to put such a megalopolis.

Judge blocks deer culling plan at Binghamton, N.Y., campus

Yes, sports fans, our legal system is truly infested with ecological illiterates. The proof is outlined in this article from the Binghamton, N.Y., paper.

A conservation billboard

Found and photographed in New Mexico five years ago. Good stuff.

Sewage system overflows taint the landscape

In one watershed of northeastern Pennsylvania, a municipal water-treatment plant discharges cleaned water into a stream (the Little Nescopeck Creek) which is dead because of acid mine drainage. More than 30 square miles of old underground anthracite coal tunnels send poisoned water into the Jeddo Tunnel, which then discharges the mess (and has for a century) into Little Nescopeck. In turn, that stream joins Nescopeck Creek. In turn, that stream, now dead, joins the Susquehanna River. And, in turn, that river provides much of the freshwater entering Chesapeake Bay. Yes, we all live downstream. And in municipality after municipality, it seems, people continue to forget that lesson as this article makes clear.

Bright signs for salmon in Maine streambeds

This is encouraging news from Maine. In the Pacific Northwest, the greatest thing humans could do to help recover salmon runs is start taking down some of the hydroelectric dams that have blocked their migrations now for many decades.

Springtime for toxics

Toxics; as in mercury emitted by coal-fired power plants. The EPA has taken action to finally stop the pollution, but the pro-pollution Republicans are pissed off now, as NY Times columnist Paul Krugman explains. People who care – and I mean really care – about the future have got to ensure that one of these polluter-friendly Republicans is NOT elected (or is “selected?”) president in 2012.

Harsh political atmosphere puts climate science behind curve

That is the gist of this feature from today’s NY Times. While the politicos listen the denalists and their campaign contributions, the world gets in deeper kimchi.

Going carless: Montana family proves it can be done

The couple portrayed in this article are not only saving money, they’re also burning calories, not gasoline. And they’re not polluting via the tailpipe of a car. No noise pollution, healthy bodies, etc.