BERLIN, 13 February 2012 (Kyodo) – A documentary film featuring residents forced to evacuate their town, home to the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, was screened Sunday at the Berlin International Film Festival. “I hope nobody in the world will have such an experience like ours again,” Katsutaka Idogawa, mayor of Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, […]
By Arlene Paredes8 February 2012 The ill-fated MV Rena, which brought to New Zealand its worst maritime disaster, has so far cost $130 million, and $28 million of this amount has come from taxpayers, the Bay of Plenty Times reported. However, another episode of bad weather has disrupted the operations to fully assess the damage […]
By HIROKO TABUCHI10 February 2012 IITATE, Japan – As 500 workers in hazmat suits and respirator masks fanned out to decontaminate this village 20 miles from the ravaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors, their confusion was apparent. “Dig five centimeters or 10 centimeters deep here?” a site supervisor asked his colleagues, pointing to a patch of […]
The 2012 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) and Pilot Trend EPI (Trend EPI) rank 132 countries on 22 performance indicators in ten policy categories and two overarching objectives that reflect facets of Environmental Health and Ecosystem Vitality. These indicators provide a gauge of how close countries are to environmental policy goals. The EPI’s proximity-to-target methodology facilitates […]
By Sara Scoville-Weaver 21 December 2011 Royal Dutch Shell’s Nigerian drilling operations in the highly productive Bonga Field were officially brought to a halt yesterday after “less than 40,000 barrels of oil” (1.7 million gallons) were reportedly leaked during a transfer of crude to a tanker. We’ve just processed a radar satellite image taken this […]
Contact: Jeff Miller, (415) 669-73572 February 2012 SACRAMENTO, California – The California Fish and Game Commission voted unanimously today to designate two species of native frogs inhabiting high-elevation lakes in the Sierra Nevada and Southern California mountain ranges as threatened and endangered species under the state’s Endangered Species Act. More than 75 percent of the […]
Yenagoa, Nigeria (IRIN) – Nigeria’s Bayelsa State government said yesterday it would speed up the release of money over the next two weeks to help hundreds of thousands of villagers affected by a Chevron off-shore oil spill in January. The affected areas are Kolo Ama I and II, Akasa, Sanagana, Fish Town, Fropa, Ekeni, Ezetu […]
By Eric Johnson8 February 2012 SEATTLE – Debris from last year’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan is already washing up on Washington beaches, and much more is expected. Oceanographer Dr. Curtis Ebbsmeyer said chunks of wood and plastic and other pieces of flotsam from the tsunami will continue to show up on local beaches for […]
By Sue Sturgis2 November 2011 Rank of coal-fired power plants among America’s biggest sources of air pollution: 1 Of the five leading causes of death in the United States, number to which coal plant pollution contributes: 4 Number of U.S. water bodies impaired by mercury, a particularly toxic component of coal plant pollution: 3,781 Of […]
By arevamirpal::laprimavera 7 February 2012 There was a piece of news about 20,000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium found in earthworms collected in Kawauchi-mura, Fukushima Prefecture (20 kilometers from Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant) in Mainichi Shinbun (2/6/2012). The article says the researchers at the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, a government institution, found radioactive […]