Manitoba’s dark secret

It oozed oil for a confirmed 10 days, or a rumoured 30, depending on the source. But the oil spill, one of the province’s largest, went unnoticed by most media outlets. Upwards of 100,000 litres, approx., 500 barrels, of oil spilled out a broken underground flow line near the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border, covering an area equivalent in size to two football fields a half mile from Carlyle Jorgensen’s farmland and mere metres from Jackson Creek in an area of the province known to house many rare plant and animal species. The leak is reported to have started end of January of this year. The Brandon Sun was the only major news source to cover the spill. Sun reporter Graeme Bruce broke his usual silence and gave other media, Spectator Tribune, the information it needed to start investigating the story, in the interest of getting the word out.

EPA's Fracking Study May Dodge Water Contamination Frequency Issue

PITTSBURGH (AP) — An ongoing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study on natural gas drilling and its potential for groundwater contamination has gotten tentative praise so far from both industry and environmental groups.

Glenn Paulson, the EPA's science adviser, describes the project as "one of the most aggressive public outreach programs in EPA history."

After Decades of Uranium Mining, Navajo Nation Struggles With Devastating Legacy of Contamination

New Mexico’s long history of uranium mining on Native American lands provides fuel for the front end of the nuclear industry and stores much of the mine tailings and radioactive waste from nuclear weapons and power plants. We look at the devastating impact uranium mining continues to have on Native lands with Leona Morgan of Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining, a group dedicated to protecting the water, air, land and health of communities in areas impacted by uranium mines. We’re also joined by Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico and former Los Alamos National Laboratory investigator Chuck Montaño.

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Source: Democracy Now!
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Contaminated soil found at Toronto school

Soil at a Toronto Catholic school has levels of heavy metals and other pollutants exceeding provincial guidelines, a routine environmental assessment has revealed.

St. Josaphat elementary school on Pelham Ave., in the Davenport Rd.- Lansdowne Ave. area, was found to have soil samples with elevated levels of lead, cadmium and zinc.

“Ontario has one of the strictest guidelines in North America,” said John Yan, a Catholic board spokesman. “These same results would have passed in 2004. These are fairly new guidelines.”

No Sign of Oyster Recovery Two Years After BP Oil Spill

With the second anniversary of the BP oil spill fast approaching, attention is once again returning to the damaged Gulf environment, especially to its greatly diminished oyster production.

The worst man-made environmental disaster in U.S. history put 200 million gallons of oil and two million gallons of toxic dispersants into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico with the April 20, 2010 explosion of BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling platform and uncontrolled oil spill it caused.

The Gulf oyster supply is going through a second very limited season with demand not reaching anywhere near pre-BP oil spill levels.

In recent days, plaintiff attorneys on behalf of thousands of Gulf residents and businesses reached settlements with BP's defense team expected to total around $7.8 billion. That's in addition to $6.5 billion paid to about 200,000 individuals and businesses that went with BP's out-of-court fund.

BP, however, has not yet had to pay a dime in compensation for its impact on the Gulf ecosystem. The federal government could pursue both criminal environmental penalties and separate civil action against BP, which together might hit $60 billion.

Canada's Fracking Struggles

Early last year, deep in the forests of northern British Columbia, workers for Apache Corp. performed what the company proclaimed was the biggest hydraulic fracturing operation ever.

The project used 259 million gallons of water and 50,000 tons of sand to frack 16 gas wells side by side. It was "nearly four times larger than any project of its nature in North America," Apache boasted.
The record didn't stand for long. By the end of the year, Apache and its partner, Encana, topped it by half at a neighboring site.

As furious debate over fracking continues in the United States, it is instructive to look at how a similar gas boom is unfolding for our neighbor to the north.

To a large extent, the same themes have emerged as Canada struggles to balance the economic benefits drilling has brought with the reports of water contamination and air pollution that have accompanied them.

The Canadian boom has differed in one regard: The western provinces' exuberant embrace of large-scale fracking offers a vision of what could happen elsewhere if governments clear away at least some of the regulatory hurdles to growth.