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Pollution Heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium and nickel are some of the most common pollutants contaminating approximately 19 percent of arable land in China, according to an official report, The Wall Street Journal reported. The contaminants are deposited in the soil by water and air, and some of the most polluted areas are in […]
California, in the third year of its worst drought ever, faces challenges similar to those of Australia. A panel of water policy experts and Circle of Blue journalists questioned whether the nation’s most populous state has the resolve to enact similar reforms.
Pollution A coal seam gas operation in Australia’s Pilliga forest contaminated groundwater supplies with arsenic, lead and uranium after the facility’s storage ponds leaked, the Guardian reported. The contamination led to a $1,500 fine and calls from environmentalists and farmers to halt the operation, though the company says the groundwater was not part of a […]
Water Pollution China plans to spend $US 330 billion addressing polluted water supplies, more than it is planning to spend on air pollution, Reuters reported. The money will go to efforts to prevent pollution, such as wastewater treatment upgrades, and aims to improve water quality 30 to 50 percent. Coal ash released in a spill […]
Pollution Australian government records show that a nickel refinery illegally discharged wastewater into the Great Barrier Reef marine park, introducing hundreds of tons of nitrogen into the environment, the Guardian reported. The company was not penalized, and said the releases were necessary to prevent overflow from the refinery’s tailings ponds during heavy rains. Environmental officials […]
Agriculture A switch to solar-powered irrigation pumps could save India $US 6 billion each year in electricity and fuel subsidies, Bloomberg News reported. The government is looking to replace 200,000 old pumps with solar pumps in the next five years, but will require farmers that receive subsidies to buy the new pumps to switch to […]
Less snowmelt from Sierra Nevada leads to more pumping of Central Valley’s contaminated groundwater.
Water Quality London’s Thames Tideway Tunnel—a proposed, $US 6.7 billion sewer meant to stop sewage overflows into the Thames River—is not the right solution to the water quality problem, according to a former chief water regulator in the United Kingdom, the Guardian reported. He argues that water utilities should instead be looking at smaller, more […]
EPA proposes tougher federal wastewater guidelines, while electricity generation turns from coal to gas. Photo courtesy of Brent Moore via Flickr Creative Commons A 2008 coal-ash pond failure at the Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee spilled 4.1 million cubic meters (5.4 million cubic yards) of wet coal ash into surrounding communities. While the EPA’s proposed […]
Asia Floods More than 160 people died in Pakistan and Afghanistan during recent flash floods that swept the region, AlertNet reported. Some neighborhoods were flooded waist-deep in Karachi, while farms and homes suffered flood damage in the Afghan provinces of Khost and Nangarhar. India’s Uttarakhand state is still recovering from massive floods and landslides that […]
Steam-generating electric power plants, the biggest source of industrial water pollution in the United States, will have several options to reduce the amount of toxic substances in their wastewater, under a proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule released on Friday. EPA estimates that the rules would lead to a 15 percent reduction in pollutants discharged to […]
