Environment Archive

Does your Town Need a Disclaimer as a Defense?

January 16th, 2011. By Hunter West

Imagine, driving down a highway enroute to a major city and encountering the ‘Welcome’ sign that often heralds a municipality’s singular asset, or slogan. “Welcome to Anytown: the Friendly City,” or for that matter ‘You Are Entering the Sunshine State…” 

Well how about this… 

“Welcome to Anytown. Our Smog Can Kill You. Wear a Mask. Stay Indoors, Shut the Windows and Have a Nice Day.” 

Or, 

“Welcome to Anyville. You’ve Been Warned…” 

A study appeared last week in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that warns against the possibility of adverse effects for healthy people living in, or within close proximity to air pollution. 

Specifically, the impact air pollution may have on heart arrhythmias that could lead to sudden death. 

The possibility that dirty air could prove a problem for people with heart conditions has been debated for some time. But this is something new, because now we are talking about healthy people, with relatively healthy hearts. 

The small study found that air pollution could interfere with the heart’s inherent capacity to reset its electrical properties in an orderly manner, according to the researchers involved. That can lead to arrhythmias—which can cause sudden death in certain individuals. 

Mind you, the study was small—just 25 participants. However, this is the first time that concern Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Air Pollution, Heart Arrhythmias
Posted in Drugs/Medical, Environment | No Comments »

Fracking and Flammable Tap Water? NY Says Hell No…for now

December 16th, 2010. By LucyC

New York Governor David Paterson no doubt made New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg a very happy man recently, when he signed an executive order halting the controversial natural gas drilling process called hydraulic fracturing—or fracking—in the state until July 1, 2011.

The fracking process is controversial to say the least because it may be associated with harmful effects on the environment, specifically underground drinking water. Folks in the eastern states of New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia are particularly concerned because they sit on shale formations such as the Marcellus Formation, which are estimated to contain trillions of cubic feet of natural gas.

The governor signed the order to stop horizontal fracking in New York state on Saturday. The ban will remain in place until the state Department of Environmental Conservation completes a comprehensive review to determine what, if any dangers are associated with this process.

But the folks who live in areas where hydraulic fracking is taking place—areas such as the Delaware River Basin in Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, claim they are Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: fracking, hydraulic fracking, hydraulic fracturing, hydraulic-fracturing-water-contamination-epa-fracking-hydrofracking, NY
Posted in Emerging Issues, Environment | No Comments »

Do the Residents of San Bruno need Erin Brockovich?

September 17th, 2010. By LucyC

We all read with horror the accounts of the massive San Bruno explosion on September 9th that rocked an entire California suburb, killed four people (at last count), vaporized 38 homes, damaged a further 120 and pretty much laid waste to the surrounding 15 acres of land. Residents were ordered to evacuate, many lucky to have escaped with their lives. 

The explosion took place at dinner time, 6:24 pm, on a Thursday evening. It was caused by a rupture in a natural gas line that ran underneath the community. According to reports, the residents had complained to the utility company that they had smelt gas prior to the explosion—days prior in some cases. 

You may be interested to know that the utility company that owns the gas pipeline is none other than Pacific Gas and Electric, or PG&E. Ringing any bells? Remember Erin Brockovich? She took PG&E on over the deadly toxic waste called hexavalent chromium that the company was illegally dumping and which, in turn, was essentially poisoning residents in an area of southern California. People were dying of cancer, in fact. Brockovich, immortalized by Julia Roberts in the blockbuster movie of the same name, discovered that PG&E was trying to buy land that was contaminated by hexavalent chromium. To make a long story short—Brockovich and the people she represented won the day—but it took some doing. 

Now, to be clear, I’m not saying that the San Bruno explosion was caused by some kind of oversight, deliberate or otherwise, by PG&E, but if the company had received reports Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Erin Brockovich, Gas Explosion, PG&E, San Bruno
Posted in Environment | 1 Comment »

BP Spill, San Bruno Fire, Fracking…Time to Stop Blind Faith in Gas

September 12th, 2010. By AbiK

As I read the accounts of those living in the area affected by the San Bruno gas fire, one phrase keeps coming back to me: “I didn’t know…” While the specifics of each “I didn’t know” or “had I known” vary, they all stem from one thing—we—homeowners and residential gas consumers—don’t really know what the heck we’re sitting on top of when it comes to underground gas lines.

In an odd way, the BP oil spill has been our wake-call—albeit at a terrible price. But, thanks to BP, we now question how gas is obtained and distributed. Sure, the folks living in the heart of the Marcellus Shale region have long been sitting on pins and needles wondering what hydraulic fracking means to their water supply, for example, but that type of regional concern wouldn’t have gotten some of the more national press coverage it has recently received had it not been for BP.

Ditto the San Bruno gas fire. Sure, it would’ve made the headlines, but, as with other localized gas pipe explosions of years gone by, it would’ve been reported as a tragic explosion affecting a very small area in the scheme of things. There may have been a few localized investigative reports—but that would’ve been about it. Now, however, people are starting to question a few things about the US natural gas industry. Things like, just how safe is it? And things like, what happens to San Bruno in the aftermath of the gas line rupture—did any gas leak into the ground? are the remaining pipes in the area safe? what about those reports of a gas smell? and on and on…

I’ve posted about hydraulic fracturing—you can read more about that and the concerns folks have about it from upstate New York to West Virginia here on LawyersAndSettlements.com. It only took a few reports about livestock becoming sick from leaks coming out of nearby fracking operations to make me raise an eyebrow and join the anti-fracking side. Of course, the gas companies continue to tout its safety—and, I suppose when you look at aggregate numbers, it is relatively “safe”—but would you want your kids drinking water that potentially contained chemicals (or gas?) involved with the fracking process? Didn’t think so…

So, back to the “I didn’t know”.

A report the other day in the PressDemocrat.com talks about how we really don’t know Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: AGA, BP, fracking, hydraulic fracturing, hydraulic-fracturing-water-contamination-epa-fracking-hydrofracking, natural gas, San Bruno, San Bruno Gas Fire
Posted in Environment | 5 Comments »

Startling Study: 91% Canadians have BPA in their Urine

August 19th, 2010. By Hunter West

It may be the title and a line from a romantic Peter Frampton song, but in this context it is anything but endearing. 

I’m In You… 

In this case, you’d rather the suitor not—especially Canadians who learned on Monday that according to a national survey through the analysis of thousands of representative samples, 91 percent of the population of Canada is found to have bisphenol A (BPA) in their urine. 

The good news is that BPA is excreted from the body after about six hours. But here’s the bad news: such a high percentage suggests that Canadians are exposed to BPA on a regular basis and from a variety of sources. What’s more, according to a report from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the findings mirror those of other international studies. 

So it’s something we all have to fret about. 

BPA was banned from baby bottles some time ago—and therein lay the most serious concern over the man-made substance. Some studies on animals suggest that low levels of exposure to BPA very early in life can affect brain development and behavior, but scientists are unsure how these findings might be relevant to human health, according to Statistics Canada. 

But baby bottles aside, BPA lurks in a lot of other stuff, too: water bottles and Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: BPA
Posted in Drugs/Medical, Environment | No Comments »