Earthbytes

USGS: 30-Year Scientific Record Examines the Recovery of Mining-Damaged Idaho Stream

A Rainbow Trout Rests Among Cobble Substrate in Panther Creek. Photo credit: Christopher Mebane/USGS

Okay, here’s a pre-Earth Day success story from Idaho!

Panther Creek, a tributary of the Salmon River, “has mostly recovered” from severe damage caused by toxic runoff from the former Blackbird Mine, an inactive mine west of Salmon, Lemhi County, Idaho. The recovery was documented in a long term study recently published by USGS scientitsts in the journal Elementa.

Underground and open pit mining of cobalt, silver and copper caused contaminated discharges from the flow of storm water and snowmelt through soil, sediments and tailings at the mine. It was so bad that from the 1960s through the 1980s, scientists found no fish and very few aquatic insects in Panther Creek. Serious cleanup began at this mine in 1995 by collecting runoff and treating the water for copper and cobalt pollution. Waste-rock pile at the mine were also stabilized.

According to the study, full recovery of salmonid populations occurred within about 12 years. Panther Creek now supports diverse species including Chinook salmon, steelhead, rainbow trout and bull trout.

“I was involved in studies in the early 1990s that documented the extent of the environmental damage,” said USGS biologist Christopher Mebane. “So it’s gratifying to also document the speed and extent to which the ecosystem recovered after cleanup measures started taking hold.”

Mebane is lead author on the paper and collaborated with scientists from EcoMetrix, an environmental consulting group, and Rio Tinto, one of the companies participating in the Blackbird Mine Site Group, which cooperatively manages cleanup activities. 

“Among other things, this study demonstrates the value of long-term monitoring,” said Mebane. “A tremendous amount of money is spent each year on river restoration, but it’s rare to find examples where data were systematically collected, year after year, to learn if cleanup activities really translated into tangible improvements in fish populations and other parts of an ecosystem.”

The complete study, “Recovery of a Mining-Damaged Stream Ecosystem” is available to read or download free from the online journal issue of Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene.

World is watching Mora County battle vs. fracking - The Santa Fe New Mexican

I lived and worked in New Mexico for eight years -- though I didn't live in Mora County, I often traveled through it on days off or trips to Colorado. I wasn't so much a community activist at that time, either -- more aligned and active through one or another of the "big greens".

I like this article by Staci Matlock for several reasons. First, she  represents the issue of fracking in the context of life in this part of New Mexico. Then she goes a little deeper than many reporters are willing to go these days into the complexities of politics in multicultural communities and the dynamics shaped by colonization, settlement, land use, land ownership, water rights, and so on. Anyone who does organizing in multiracial/multicultural communities will likely appreciate the situation there. I really enjoyed reading this article and getting a deeper look at a place I was usually just traveling through...

People around the U.S. and the world who are deeply concerned about the influence of big corporations and the potential environmental damage from hydraulic fracturing methods — used to tap oil and gas supplies — cheer on Mora County.

But there’s more to this story — nuances and tensions that are hard to uncover unless you were born and raised in this hard-scrabble, beautiful and resilient Northern New Mexico county.

Read the rest of the story at www.santafenewmexican.com

Related articles

Lawsuit challenges Mora County oil, gas ban

Oil and gas ban spurs lawsuit in New Mexico county

Is Fracking A Civil Right? A New Court Case May Decide

Oil and gas ban spurs lawsuit in NM county

Mora County oil and gas drilling ban heading to court

PLOS ONE: The Environmental Price Tag on a Ton of Mountaintop Removal Coal

A new study on Appalachian mountaintop removal coal was published in PLOS ONE today. You can download the study at that site. Here's the abstract:

While several thousand square kilometers of land area have been subject to surface mining in the Central Appalachians, no reliable estimate exists for how much coal is produced per unit landscape disturbance. We provide this estimate using regional satellite-derived mine delineations and historical county-level coal production data for the period 1985–2005, and further relate the aerial extent of mining disturbance to stream impairment and loss of ecosystem carbon sequestration potential. To meet current US coal demands, an area the size of Washington DC would need to be mined every 81 days. A one-year supply of coal would result in ~2,300 km of stream impairment and a loss of ecosystem carbon sequestration capacity comparable to the global warming potential of >33,000 US homes. For the first time, the environmental impacts of surface coal mining can be directly scaled with coal production rates.

Citation: Lutz BD, Bernhardt ES, Schlesinger WH (2013) The Environmental Price Tag on a Ton of Mountaintop Removal Coal. PLoS ONE 8(9): e73203. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0073203

via www.plosone.org

 

See also:

Study: Damage from mountaintop removal mining is "staggering" compared to the energy benefits (Ken Ward, Charleston Gazette, 9/11/13)

Related articles

Study pinpoints pollution from mountaintop removal

Calculating the true cost of a ton of mountaintop coal

Kentucky's Coal Challenges - Public Health, Clean Water, and Clean Air

Strong Grassroots Activism Helps Defeat Mountaintop Removal Scheme in Virginia

President Obama: Honor the treaties. Protect the sacred. Forward on Climate. No Keystone XL.

Thousands of citizens have gathered on the mall in DC today to ask President Obama to move forward on climate and energy policy. The activists involved represent different campaigns and strategies to protect the Earth and restore ecological balance. Today they all march as one.

For several months, First Nations citizens of Canada, Native American Nations and many non-Indigenous allies have worked to reaffirm unity of the human family and love for Mother Earth. Check out the video and other links below to explore the growing movement.

 

 

Related articles:

Sunday rally could tip balance against Keystone pipeline (Paul Koring, Globe and Mail, 2/17/13)

Harper government presses Obama to approve Keystone XL Pipeline (Yves Engler at rabble.ca, 2/17/13)

The best solution on climate change requires Congress to act (Bernie Sanders in The Guardian, 2/16/13)

A Presidential Decision That Could Change the World: The Strategic Importance of Keystone XL (Michael Klare, 2/10/13)

Four States Introduce Keystone XL Resolutions, Lifting Language From ALEC and TransCanada (Brendan Fischer, 2/16/13)

Why Organized Labor Must Stand Against the Keystone XL Pipeline (Mark Vorpahl, Occupy.com, 2/13/13)

Time for President Obama to Choose Sides on Keystone XL Jamie Henn, 350.org, 2/13/13)

 

Related articles

Thousands Converge: Demand Action from Obama to Avoid 'Climate Disaster'

Crowd gathers for Forward on Climate Keystone XL protest in Washington, D.C.: slideshow

Tens of thousands to rally against Keystone XL in Washington, organizers say

Wall asks U.S. ambassador to clarify Obama's Keystone comments

Earth Observatory Image of the Day: Gas Drilling, North Dakota

acquired November 12, 2012 download large image (4 MB, JPEG, 6000x6000)

acquired November 12, 2012 download GeoTIFF file (14 MB, TIFF)

acquired November 12, 2012 download Google Earth file (KML)

Northwestern North Dakota is one of the least-densely populated parts of the United States. Cities and people are scarce, but satellite imagery shows the area has been aglow at night in recent years. The reason: the area is home to the Bakken shale formation, a site where gas and oil production are booming.

On November 12, 2012, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite captured this nighttime view of widespread drilling throughout the area. Most of the bright specks are lights associated with drilling equipment and temporary housing near drilling sites, though a few are evidence of gas flaring. Some of the brighter areas correspond to towns and cities including Williston, Minot, and Dickinson.

The image was captured by the VIIRS “day-night band,” which detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses “smart” light sensors to observe dim signals such as gas flares, auroras, wildfires, city lights, and reflected moonlight. When VIIRS acquired the image, the Moon was in its waning crescent phase, so the landscape was reflecting only a small amount of light.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, natural gas production from the Bakken shale has increased more than 20-fold between 2007 and 2010. Gas production averaged over 485 million cubic feet per day in September 2011, compared to the 2005 average of about 160 million cubic feet per day. Due to the lack of a gas pipeline and processing facilities in the region, about 29 percent of that gas is flared.

Learn more about the VIIRS day-night band and nighttime imaging of Earth in our new feature story: Out of the Blue and Into the Black.

• References

• NASA (n.d.) Suomi NPP. Accessed Nov. 29, 2012.
• U.S. Energy Information Administration (2011, Nov. 23) Over One-Third of Natural Gas Produced in North Dakota is Flared or Otherwise Not Marketed. Accessed Nov. 29, 2012.

1. Further Reading

2. Lee, T. (2006, Feb). The NPOESS VIIRS Day/Night Visible Sensor. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
3. Miller, S. (2012, Aug. 10). Suomi Satellite Brings to Light a Unique Frontier of Nighttime Environmental Sensing Capabilities. Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences.
4. NASA (n.d.) Suomi NPP. Accessed Nov. 29, 2012.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using VIIRS Day-Night Band data from the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership. Suomi NPP is the result of a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of Defense. Caption by Adam Voiland.

Instrument: 

Suomi NPP - VIIRS

via earthobservatory.nasa.gov

The "landman" cometh: Promised Land

All of a sudden some movies that I really want to see are opening soon. Here's one of them:

 

Related articles

Why is the Fracking Industry Worried Sick Over Promised Land?

You Need to See This Movie

Oil and Gas Industry Set to Attack Matt Damon's "Promised Land"

Economic Hitmen (video)

John Perkin's view of a "mutant viral capitalism" and how it operates to oppress people and nature.

 

Bill Chameides: Obama's Energy Plan by the Numbers

Here's a companion word analysis of the Obama Administration's energy plan using the Wordle app (see the Romney-Ryan plan in the previous post).

Read Bill's analysis at www.huffingtonpost.com

Bill Chameides: The Romney-Ryan Energy Plan by the Numbers

In an interesting analysis of the Romney-Ryan Energy Plan, Bill Chameides used the "word cloud" app. Word clouds can be a very revealing way to look at ideas.

Read the rest of Bill's analysis (which includes a link to a pdf of the Plan) at www.huffingtonpost.com

 

Tell Obama: No fastracking for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline permit!

Wow, NRDC couldn't have found a better celebrity to help stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The Closer herself! Take a look:

 

Now -- if you haven't already done so -- please ask President Obama to close the valve for good on some of the dirtiest oil on planet Earth!

For a few precious moments, it seemed the Keystone XL pipeline permit would get a second look after Obama stood up to the oil industry and delayed a decision pending further environmental review. But Big Oil's Congressional lapdogs have now forced a 60-day review that is way too short for adequate analysis, let alone an informed decision from the President.

In the past few days, industry claims that the pipeline would be safe has been challenged by whistleblower Mike Klink, an engineer who says he was fired by Bechtel after he called them out for shoddy materials and poor craftsmanship during construction of the original Keystone pipeline.

Klink himself wrote an awesome article in December 2011 that called safety of Keystone XL into question.