The American Midwest has seen something of an earthquake boom in recent years, and speculation that the earthquakes are related to shale gas drilling has run rampant. In 2001, the frequency of earthquakes from Montana to Alabama began to rise, the number of quakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater reaching 87 in 2009. The 134 [...]
Archive for the ‘Wastewater’ Category
25 Jan
NRC Report Champions the Benefits of Wastewater
As the National Research Council made clear way back in 2001, “In this new century, the United States will be challenged to provide sufficient quantities of high-quality water to its growing population.” According to a new report authored and released by the NRC’s Water Science and Technology Board (made up of sixteen government officials, researchers, [...]
13 May
Duke University Study Finds Methane Contamination in Drinking Water Near Fracking Sites
Last month it was Cornell, and this month it’s Duke, but all these universities are telling us the same thing: hydraulic fracturing comes with environmental risks. While the study from Cornell focused on the global warming effects of methane that escapes from natural gas fracking, a recent study from Duke University found that escaped methane [...]
13 Apr
The Dramatic Dance Between the EPA and CAFOs Continues in Fifth Circuit
The relationship between the Environmental Protection Agency, environmentalist groups, industry representatives, and the federal court can become easily strained by contention over policy, as perfectly indicated by the long-enduring struggle over the EPA’s ability to regulate Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations’ (CAFOs) waste disposal under the Clean Water Act. The Act in its original form required [...]
7 Jan
Clearing Up Oregon’s Definition of Turbidity
Marten Law published an article earlier this week describing the challenges facing Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) as they revise their 30-year-old definition of “turbidity.” What is turbidity? Turbidity is a measure of water clarity or cloudiness, caused by material that is suspended in the water. The material can range from soil particles from [...]
23 Dec
Icky Sickly Water Woes
Two recent news stories showcase the often uninvited residents of our nation’s water resources. Waterways through and surrounding the city of Boston have been receiving unwelcome and illegal dumps of raw sewage and other pollutants, according to a citizen lawsuit filed by the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) in February of 2010. CLF alleges that defendant [...]
16 Nov
Feed An Alga, Starve An Ecosystem: Nutrient Pollution in Florida’s Waters
The EPA today announced the release of finalized “common sense” standards (pending publication in the Federal Register) that will set specific numeric limits on nutrient pollution allowed in Florida’s waters. Currently, excess nitrogen and phosphorus – attributed to sources such as stormwater runoff, industrial waste water discharges, fertilizer from agriculture and livestock production – are [...]
12 Nov
Local Stormwater Management: Yes In My Backyard!
A cistern expert once told me that there are some areas of Seattle (home to Knowledge Mosaic Inc!) in which, if you implement certain stormwater management practices, your property is then considered part of Seattle Public Utilities. I haven’t found the documentation to back this up, but the point is this: each individual can contribute [...]
28 Sep
Open wide for mercury waste rules
Dental amalgam is a filling material used in restoring teeth that is usually made of up to 50% mercury. Use of amalgam is in decline as better substitutes become available, but each time a dentist replaces and disposes of an old mercury filing, that mercury then has a chance to make it into the environment. [...]
27 Sep
Life, wastewater, and taxes
Earlier this year, the IRS published a technical advice memorandum concluding that a certain facility that collects and neutralizes wastewater before it enters the municipality’s publicly owned treatment works (POTW) is a “sewage facility” under Section 142(a)(5) of the Internal Revenue Code. The facility in question first collects the wastewater from a pharmaceutical company’s research [...]
