By Chase Martin4 April 2014 (LiveScience) – Florida’s Gulf Coast is renowned for its soft white beaches, balmy weather, and calm, clear waters. It’s also infamous for being a mecca of debris from oil-rig related tragedies, which until recently, were thought to have mostly finished their attack on Gulf-Coast beaches. But even after four years, […]
By Chris Samoray 2 April 2014 (mongabay.com) – Every year, 20 million tons of plastic enters the world’s oceans. In 2012, the Rio +20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development dubbed marine plastic litter “a major environmental issue that the world must address,” and asked for management action by 2025. One group of researchers started […]
By Tom Cohen2 April 2014 (CNN) – Another debris field, another new and so-far futile focus in the search for Flight MH370. More than three weeks after the Malaysia Airlines jet disappeared, one thing has been made clear: the ocean is full of garbage, literally. “It isn’t like looking for a needle in a haystack,” […]
By Frances Beinecke28 March 2014 (Washington Post) – Twenty-five years ago this month, the Exxon Valdez struck a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound and dumped 11 million gallons of crude oil into the water. The public was shocked by photos of oil-soaked otters and reports that coastal residents had lost their livelihoods. The cleanup effort […]
By Larry Pynn29 March 2014 Vancouver (Vancouver Sun) – The federal government has chosen a remote stretch of B.C. coastline to square off against aboriginals in a fight over an imminent commercial roe-herring fishery. Federal fisheries minister Gail Shea is being blamed for an escalating conflict over a forthcoming commercial gillnet fishery that has resulted […]
By Arielle Duhaime-Ross24 March 2014 (The Verge) – Last December, scientists announced that dolphins in Louisiana were experiencing lung diseases and low birthrates in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that released more than 636 million liters of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Now, researchers have also found evidence […]
Contact: Dustin Cranor, dcranor@oceana.org, 954-348-1314, 954-348-1314 (cell); Amelia Vorpahl, avorpahl@oceana.org, 202-467-1968, 202-476-0632 (cell) Washington, D.C., 20 March 2014 (Oceana) – Today, Oceana released a new report exposing nine of the dirtiest fisheries in the United States. These nine fisheries combined throw away almost half of what they catch and are responsible for more than 50 […]
By Gregor Waschinski 9 hours ago Washington (AFP) – On a cold March night 25 years ago, the supertanker Exxon Valdez struck a reef off the coast of Alaska, spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil into the sea. Images of oil-soaked birds and fouled beaches horrified the United States, leading to tighter regulation and […]
By Diana Marcum and Evan Halper February 14, 2014, 9:14 p.m. FIREBAUGH, California (Los Angeles Times) – Standing Friday afternoon on cracked, parched earth where melons would usually grow, President Obama brought both a message of aid and an ominous warning to drought-stricken California as he outlined more than $160 million in federal assistance. The […]
By John Upton13 Februry 2014 (Grist) – The coal power industry has dumped a lot of toxic crap into yet another river. This latest incident is not to be confused with the spill of toxic coal-cleaning chemicals that poisoned a West Virginia river last month and left 300,000 people without drinking water. Nor is it […]
