No this is not news from China…
This is news from Colorado (MSNBC):
More than 1 billion gallons of contaminated water — enough to fill 1,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools — is trapped in a tunnel in the mountains above the historic town of Leadville and threatening to blow.
Lake County Commissioners have declared a local state of emergency for fear that this winter’s above-average snowpack will melt and cause a catastrophic tidal wave.
The water is backed up in abandoned mine shafts and a 2.1-mile drainage tunnel that is partially collapsed, creating the pooling of water contaminated with heavy metals.
The town is living in a constant state of fear. I don’t blame them. I think that Americans tend to look at “third world” nations as the ones that are having difficulty maintaining water safety standards. As this article shows, we shouldn’t be casting stones in their direction.
Never fear though, officials are on the job…
Peter Soeth, a spokesman for the Bureau of Reclamation, which acquired the drainage tunnel in 1959, said there was no immediate threat to Leadville’s 2,700 residents.
Officials point out that a speaker system to broadcast evacuation notices has already been installed near a mobile home park that has 300 residents near the tunnel’s portal.
Original Love Canal (Niagara Falls, NY)
Love Canal II (Endicott, NY) – AP:
State health and environmental officials will conduct another round of testing for signs of hazardous chemicals flowing in the ground below homes near a former IBM manufacturing site in Endicott.
[snip]
Samples collected outside homes last summer gave scientists a more complete picture of a subterranean plume of trichloroethylene (TCE) in the ground and penetrating into homes as a toxic vapor. To date, TCE vapors have affected more than 700 properties, mostly in Endicott and the town of Union.
The vapors were first detected in 2003. Exposure to TCE, a metal cleaning solvent, has been linked to illnesses ranging from kidney cancer to brain damage.
(emphasis mine)
As of June of this year Chinese shops will no longer be handing out thin, flimsy plastic bags. The government has banned the practice. You know the bags I’m talking about right? The bags you get at the grocery store that are made from petrochemicals and don’t readily decompose so we see them everywhere in the landscape, not to mention the harm done to wildlife who often mistake them for food.
So far more than 11 billion of them have been used worldwide in 2008; and it’s only Janurary 9th. Only 1% of these bags are recycled. So hats off to the Chinese for taking this step to curb pollution. After all the solution is pretty simple, just take your own bag. Here are just a few to choose from. (The Onya bags sound great for those of us who periodically forget to take our reusable bag to the store.)
Reusable Bags
The Bullseye Diet Bag
The “Please Stop Using Plastic Bags” Bag
Bags made from recycled plastic bottles
Onya Bags (folds into a pouch the size of a key ring)
Onya Bags (UK)
Dig Your Veg Bag (UK)
Carry a Bag (UK)
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