Tag: wetlands

  • There Are 532 Superfund Sites in Indian Country! How many contaminated sites don’t we know about?

     environmental Strategist™, between the lines:  My question after you read the article below is how many contaminated sites don’t we know about?

    Under CERCLA you are responsible for the environmental condition of your property.  What if a third party contaminates your property and they do not have the financial ability to correct the problem?  Your asset has just become a liability.

    Contamination from third parties can come from air, water, soil, ground water or just over the surface of the land and below are real life examples.

    While this article points out that 25% of Superfund sites are on Tribal land, the other 75% represent and even greater impact on human health and the environment.

    Environmental Strategist™ Risk Management Tip:  Environmental insurance can protect real estate owners if third parties contaminate their property.

    Environmental Trivia Question:  Where are the highest concentration of Superfund Sites in the United States?  Answer below article.

    Kill the Land, Kill the People: There Are 532 Superfund Sites in Indian Country!

    Terri Hansen:  Indian Country Today – 6/17/14

    Of a total of 1,322 Superfund sites as of June 5, 2014, nearly 25 percent of them are in Indian country. Manufacturing, mining and extractive industries are responsible for our list of some of the most environmentally devastated places in Indian country, as specified under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), the official name of the Superfund law enacted by Congress on December 11, 1980. 

    Most of these sites are not cleaned up, though not all of the ones listed below are still active. Some sites are capped, sealing up toxics that persist in the environment. In cases like the Navajo, the Akwesasne Mohawk and the Quapaw Tribe, the human health impacts are known because some doctors and scientists took enough interest to do studies in their regions. Some of those impacts may persist through generations given the involvement, as in the case of the Mohawk, of endocrine disrupters. 

    TheSalt Chuck Mine Superfund site in southeast Alaska operated as a copper-palladium-gold-silver mine from 1916 to 1941. Members of the Organized Village of Kasaan, a federally recognized tribe, traditionally harvested fish, clams, cockles, crab and shrimp from the waters in and around Salt Chuck, unaware for decades that areas of impact were saturated with tailings from the former mine. As if that weren’t enough, Pure Nickel Inc. holds rights to mining leases in the area and began active exploration to do even more mining in summer 2012, according to Ground Truth Trekking.

    The Elem Band of Pomo Indians, whose colony was built on top of the waste of what would become California’s Sulfur Bank Mine Superfund site in 1970, have elevated levels of mercury in their bodies, and now fear for their health. According to an NBC News investigation, nearby Clear Lake is the most mercury-polluted lake in the world, despite the EPA’s spending about $40 million over two decades trying to keep mercury contamination out of the water. Although the EPA cleaned soil from beneath Pomo homes and roads, pollution still seeps beneath the earthen dam built by the former mine operator, Bradley Mining Co. For years, Bradley Mining has fought the government’s efforts to recoup cleanup costs.

    The Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California requested EPA involvement in the cleanup of an abandoned open pit sulfur mine on the eastern slope of California’s Sierra Nevada that became the Leviathan Mine Superfund site. The Washoe Tribe had become concerned that contaminated waters were affecting their lands downstream, causing impacts to culture and health, environmental damage, remediation, monitoring and testing, posting of health advisories, drinking water, effects on pregnancy, and cancer. Aluminum, arsenic, cadmium, iron, manganese, nickel and thallium have beendetectedin surface water and sediment downstream from the mine. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) concluded that exposures could result in cancerous and non-cancerous health effects.

    The abandoned FMC phosphorus facility occupies more than 1,000 acres of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes’ Fort Hall Reservation in Idaho, and lies within Eastern Michaud Flats Superfund site. The primary contaminants of concern at the site are arsenic, elemental phosphorous and gamma radiation. FMC left a legacy of contamination in the air, groundwater, soil and the nearby Portneuf River, which threatened plants, wildlife and human health on the reservation and in surrounding communities. The Shoshone-Bannock have long asked for a cleanup of contaminated soils, but instead the EPA’s 2012 interimremedyis to cap and fill, including areas containing gamma radiation and radionuclides.

    Answer to trivia question:  Silicon Valley

  • ‘New normal’: No one escapes pain in drought areas

    environmental Strategist, between the lines: Everything that exists on our planet is impacted by environmental exposures as the article below points out.  According to the report below “drought now covers about 38 percent of the lower 48 states”, so people living in drought areas are getting a real life experience just how precious a resource water is.

    We can’t control our environment but we can do a better job of utilizing the resources we need to live.  Since 99% + of species that have inhabited earth are extinct the odds say we better wake up or we won’t be smelling any roses.

    Our environment is creating demand for environmental Strategist™ much like computers created demand for IT professionals.  The big difference being one you can live without and one you can’t.  For a better life www.estrategist.com.

    Mark Koba | @MarkKobaCNBC , 5-20-14:

    The dry conditions in the western U.S. are so bad that even many of the companies that are thriving in the drought feel economic pain.

    Case in point—Limoneira, of Santa Paula, California, and one of the largest U.S. growers of lemons and avocados: It reached record revenue of $100 million this year thanks to higher prices brought on by a freeze in South America, said president and CEO Harold Edwards.

    Despite the higher sales, however, getting through the drought is costly, said Edwards, who noted that his firm constantly monitors its underground wells so as not to overuse them.

    “We have to do more water pumping, invest in sprinkler systems, and every extra irrigation costs us,” said Edwards, whose company has some 11,000 acres in agricultural production.

    eS factoid:  80% of the worlds fresh water is used for Agriculture.

    Analysts say that no matter what, farmers, businesses and consumers are going to feel the effects of the drought, and survival will mean shared pain through conditions that show no sign of letting up.

    “This is the new normal,” said Lori Anne Dolqueist, a partner at the law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and an expert in California water regulations. “In terms of the drought, we can’t just expect to wait it out and pray for rain. We have to do a lot more through education on how we use water, stricter laws on water use and other means to get a handle on it,” she said. “And that means a tough conversation for everyone about water.”

    Severity of drought

    The current drought is not a new one. Various states have been in drought conditions for the last three to four years. But the severity of what’s happening now is alarming to many observers.

    For the first time in this century, the entire state of California is in a severe drought or worse, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

    Drought conditions in Oklahoma have farmers there expecting only 20 percent of their normal wheat yield this spring. States like Kansas Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado are also caught in the grasp of extremely dry conditions.

    And a dearth of rain over the past four years in Texas has climatologists saying the state is suffering the worst drought conditions of the past 500 years. Dozens of Texas communities, especially in the southern part, are said to have less than 90 days of water, putting lives at risk.

    California’s drought will deal a severe blow to Central Valley irrigated agriculture and farm communities this year, and could cost the industry $1.7 billion and cause more than 14,500 workers to lose their jobs, according to preliminary results of a new study by the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences.

    Consumers are taking a hit as well: Prices for meat, eggs, fresh fruits and vegetables and other foods are on the rise, in large part because of the drought that has seized western states.

    The drought has an economic trickle-down effect that could leave some towns and communities devastated, said Umar Sheikh, an industry sector credit analyst at insurance firm Euler Hermes.

    “Without water, there are no crops, and you have an exodus of people moving out of the areas,” argued Sheikh. “That means less kids in schools, less tax money for the towns and more dependence on government assistance.”

    With weather conditions as they are, a whole new way of thinking about water use is necessary, said Wayne Tucker, founder of BIO S.I. Technology, which makes microbial soil that helps increase water nutrients and efficiency for agriculture.

    “Instead of planting 5,000 acres of a crop that could use thousands of gallons of water, we need to reduce crop planting to something like 2,000 acres, ” argued Tucker. “We’re not getting the sufficient rainfall we need to keep doing what we have been doing.”

    Lynn Wilson, academic chair at Kaplan University and an environmental researcher said it will take more than just shorter showers to help the situation.

    “We have to look at all kinds of methods to save and produce water, like desalination as expensive as that is, and reusing waste water,” she said.

    Preparation for drought conditions is key, said Euler Hermes’ Sheikh.That means bigger reservoirs for storing water when it rains so there’s enough to go around during dry spells, he said.

    An online wine-selling outlet, NakedWines.com, said it’s helping wine growers in California with its own relief efforts. CEO Rowan Gormley explained that NakedWines, which uses crowd funding from its customers to invest in wineries, allows those wineries to switch to producing other wines that aren’t threatened by the drought.

    The online outlet has also invested in wineries that have their own water sources. But the company’s efforts don’t help everyone—Gromley noted that it’s primarily premium wines whose growers have sufficient water, whereas the drought is a bigger concern for “entry-level wines sourced out of the Central Valley of California.” NakedWines doesn’t focus on those areas.

    ‘Share the burden’

    According to the most recent outlook, drought now covers about 38 percent of the lower 48 states. Most of the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles, northeastern New Mexico, and southwestern Kansas received only a few tenths of an inch of rain from mid-April to mid-May, when precipitation is usually on the increase in this region.

    And drought persistence is highly probable along the West Coast and in the mountain areas of states such as Colorado, where summer is a relatively dry time of year and both surface and subsoil moisture almost always decline.

    Experts say even if there were huge amounts of rainfall in the months ahead, the drought won’t go away, and it’s time to look for new ideas.

    “Whole civilizations in the past have disappeared because of lack of water,” said Kaplan University’s Wilson. “We’re going to be fighting over resources like water and it’s time we looked at them as having limits.”

    —By CNBC’s Mark Koba.