Poor Mexico farmers fear that toxic-sludge irrigation will end

By ELISABETH MALKINPublished: May 4, 2010 MIXQUIAHUALA, Mexico — Night and day, Marcelo Mera Bárcenas slops the fetid water that has coursed 60 miles downhill from the sewers of Mexico City and spreads it over the corn and alfalfa fields of this once arid land. From the roads here in the Mezquital Valley, fields stretch […]

Antibiotic resistance increasing in soil microbes

(American Chemical Society) A team of scientists in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands are reporting disturbing evidence that soil microbes have become progressively more resistant to antibiotics over the last 60 years. Surprisingly, this trend continues despite apparent more stringent rules on use of antibiotics in medicine and agriculture, and improved sewage treatment technology […]

Herbicide-resistant superweeds invade US farmlands

By WILLIAM NEUMAN and ANDREW POLLACKPublished: May 3, 2010 DYERSBURG, Tenn. — For 15 years, Eddie Anderson, a farmer, has been a strict adherent of no-till agriculture, an environmentally friendly technique that all but eliminates plowing to curb erosion and the harmful runoff of fertilizers and pesticides. But not this year. On a recent afternoon […]

As weather tracks with climate scientists’ grim forecasts, Kenya is awash in misery

By MICHAEL BURNHAM AND NATHANIAL GRONEWOLD of GreenwirePublished: May 4, 2010 NAIROBI, Kenya — It’s the rainy season, but the sun is still baking the Mathare Valley slum. A half-million people live in this warren of shacks clustered amid 10 square kilometers of the Mathare River. When the rains fall, drops spill like marbles on […]

Image of the Day: BP Oil Spill Viewed From Orbit, 4 May 2010

Today’s MODIS / Aqua image features a break in the clouds (just barely) to reveal much of the oil slick. Fresh upwelling oil is apparent around the location of the leaking well. Long tendrils of slick and sheen stretch to the east and southwest; the total area of slicks and sheen, possibly including patches of […]

Failed oil-spill booms washing ashore at Orange Beach, Alabama

By Hubert Tate, Photojournalist: Franz Barraza Published : Tuesday, 04 May 2010, 6:18 PM CDT ORANGE BEACH, Alabama (WALA) – Another set of booms could be placed in areas where the original set of booms failed. The beach front near Perdido Pass is one area where the booms have failed. And failure is not a […]

Graph of the Day: Projected Oil Spill Path to 6 May 2010

By Press-Register staffMay 04, 2010, 10:38AM MOBILE, Ala. — The latest forecast track from government experts shows the oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon site still well offshore of Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle by Thursday evening at 6 p.m. The map, prepared Monday at 11 p.m., uses information from overflights, wind data and […]

Two weeks ago: Deepwater Horizon explosion

It’s been two weeks since the blowout and explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon. Here are some photos that have emerged recently, showing the scale of the disaster. Technorati Tags: oil production,oil spill,North America,Gulf of Mexico,pollution

Graph of the Day: Projected Gulf Loop Current, Today + 144 Hours

This is a map of the magnitude of the horizontal velocity of the seawater at the indicated depth. Units are meters per second. RTOFS (Atlantic) is a basin-scale ocean forecast system based on the HYbrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM). RTOFS (Atlantic) is described in the following paper (PDF): “A Real Time Ocean Forecast System for […]

Oil weaves through Chandeleur Islands – Boom failure widespread

By MARY PEREZ – meperez@sunherald.com GULFPORT — Long ribbons of oil from the Deepwater spill now wind through the Chandeleur Islands between 35 miles and 55 miles south of Gulfport. On a 90-minute flight from Apollo Aviation in Gulfport Monday afternoon, reporters and photographers from the Sun Herald, New York Times and Los Angles Times […]

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial