Mike Barrett - Factory Farms Produce 100 Times More Waste than U.S. Population

If you thought you were a major contributor to pollution, just wait until you hear this. Factory farms produce 100 times more waste than every single person in the United States combined. The amount of waste produced by these factories is in such mass quantities that it is virtually impossible to clean up properly. Much of this waste is dumped into the water supply, drastically increasing overall water pollution as well as contributing to the pollution found in drinking water.

Back in 2008 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made a decision that affected many factory farms. They stated that any confined animal feeding operation (CAFO), also known as factory farms, “designed, constructed, operated, and maintained in a manner such that the CAFO will discharge” animal waste must apply for a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit under the Clean Water Act. The livestock industry ridiculed this notion.

There have been past rulings concerning this issue that forced farmers to have a permit to discharge waste and to have a set plan as to how the waste would be discharged, or they would face civil or criminal penalties. The 2008 ruling went further with the issue, putting even more criteria in place to follow.

Read More:

http://naturalsociety.com/factory-farms-produce-100-times-waste-us-population/

Groundwater Depletion in Semiarid Regions of Texas and California Threatens US Food Security

The nation's food supply may be vulnerable to rapid groundwater depletion from irrigated agriculture, according to a new study by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and elsewhere.

The study, which appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, paints the highest resolution picture yet of how groundwater depletion varies across space and time in California's Central Valley and the High Plains of the central U.S. Researchers hope this information will enable more sustainable use of water in these areas, although they think irrigated agriculture may be unsustainable in some parts.

"We're already seeing changes in both areas," said Bridget Scanlon, senior research scientist at The University of Texas at Austin's Bureau of Economic Geology and lead author of the study. "We're seeing decreases in rural populations in the High Plains. Increasing urbanization is replacing farms in the Central Valley. And during droughts some farmers are forced to fallow their land. These trends will only accelerate as water scarcity issues become more severe."

Three results of the new study are particularly striking: First, during the most recent drought in California's Central Valley, from 2006 to 2009, farmers in the south depleted enough groundwater to fill the nation's largest human-made reservoir, Lake Mead near Las Vegas -- a level of groundwater depletion that is unsustainable at current recharge rates.

Second, a third of the groundwater depletion in the High Plains occurs in just 4% of the land area. And third, the researchers project that if current trends continue some parts of the southern High Plains that currently support irrigated agriculture, mostly in the Texas Panhandle and western Kansas, will be unable to do so within a few decades.

Read More:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120528154857.htm

Marco Torres - Shrimp At Grocery Retailers Contains Antibiotics and Carcinogens Affecting DNA

Ron Kendall, director of The Institute of Environmental and Human Health (TIEHH) at Texas Tech, said researchers tested only the muscle tissues consumed by people. When concluded, they found evidence of three antibiotics in 30 samples tested. 

Though the sample sizes were small, he said finding antibiotic residues at all is cause for concern. Todd Anderson, a professor of environmental toxicology, and instrument manager QingSong Cai conducted the shrimp analyses. 

"We estimate that at least 80% of all shrimp imported to grocery retailers comes from farmed sources with similar practices," said Graham Beaton, a head toxicologist and food inspector. 

"We know that 80% of all farmed shrimp comes from Asia, mostly from Thailand and China who are well known for producing 'dirty shrimp'." 

Shrimp farming has changed from traditional, small-scale businesses in Southeast Asia into a global industry whose primary motive is profit. Technological advances have led to growing shrimp at ever higher densities, and broodstock is shipped worldwide. 

Sodium Tripolyphosphate is in more than 90% of packaged shrimp and seafood, something of great concern, especially since it's also used in detergents, antifreeze and flame retardants. 

This controversial additive can make expired products appear firmer and glossier, and fool consumers into buying old or spoiled fish, shrimp and other seafood foods that could ultimately make people sick. Worse yet, exposure to the chemical itself could also be very harmful. 

Read More:

http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245764-Shrimp-At-Grocery-Retailers-Contains-Antibiotics-and-Carcinogens-Affecting-DNA#.T71QTfVrQp8.email

Prof. Thomas J. Nagy - How the US Deliberately Destroyed Iraq's Water Supply

In September 2001 Professor Thomas Nagy of George Washington University, D.C., revealed the existence of Defense Intelligence Agency documents “proving beyond a doubt that, contrary to the Geneva Convention, the U.S. government intentionally used sanctions against Iraq to degrade the country’s water supply after the Gulf War. 

"The United States knew the cost that civilian Iraqis, mostly children, would pay, and it went ahead anyway.” On May 12, 1996 some of the horrible consequences of this policy were revealed when the CBS news program 60 Minutes reported that roughly half million Iraqi children had died as a consequence of U.S. imposed sanctions. 

This led to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s infamous answer to the question, “is the price worth it?” Her reply was yes “we think the price is worth it.” Albright later apologized, not for the murderous policy for which she was partially responsible, but rather for the fact that her answer to the above question had “aggravated our public relations problems” in the Middle East. 

As to domestic reaction, her comment “went unremarked in the U.S.” Subsequently, in 2003, the U.S. invaded Iraq using the strategy of “rapid dominance” (more popularly known as “shock and awe”). The object of this strategy was to “paralyze” the enemy’s “will to carry on” through the disruption of “means of communication, transportation, food production, water supply, and other aspects of infrastructure.” One of the targets of the bombing campaign that led off the invasion was Iraq’s electrical grid. That directly impacted the country’s ability to process clean water." 

Read More:

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31011

Paul Greenberg - The Clean Water Act at 40: There’s Still Much Left to Do

When you turn 40, three questions inevitably arise:
1) Who am I?
2) What have I done?
3) What else can I do?

Forty years ago, the U.S. Congress, in an uncharacteristically uncowardly move, overwhelmingly overrode President Nixon’s veto and passed the most powerful law for the protection of water in American (and perhaps world) history. Yes, this year the Clean Water Act officially enters its midlife crisis years.

Since it is a law, and not a person, we won’t expect it to buy a red sports car and hook up with another law half its age. But having aged and weathered and yet oftentimes stood firm against its adversaries even if its knees became not quite what they used to be, it is worth asking this much buffeted piece of legislation in its 40th year, the three essential questions of mid-life.

So, to begin with, Clean Water Act, who are you?

Read More:

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/the_clean_water_act_at_40_theres_still_much_left_to_do/2532/

UN Chief: Ocean's Biodiversity Must Be Protected

Speaking on the International World Biodiversity Day, UN chief Ban Ki-Moon on Tuesday warned that over-consumption and rampant pollution was threatening the world's ocean and marine biodiverity. "Despite its importance, marine biodiversity has not fared well at human hands," he said in a prepared statement.

"Commercial over-exploitation of the world’s fish stocks is severe," he continued.  "Many species have been hunted to fractions of their original populations.  More than half of global fisheries are exhausted, and a further third are depleted.  Between 30 and 35 per cent of critical marine environments — such as sea grasses, mangroves and coral reefs — are estimated to have been destroyed.  Plastic debris continues to kill marine life, and pollution from land is creating areas of coastal waters that are almost devoid of oxygen.  Added to all of this, increased burning of fossil fuels is affecting the global climate, making the sea surface warmer, causing sea level to rise and increasing ocean acidity, with consequences we are only beginning to comprehend."

Echoing Moon's message, Braulio Ferreira de Souza Diaz, the UN's Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, said that "human society has yet to learn about the value of the biodiversity of the oceans. Only four per cent of the marine ecosystem has been protected while the rest is facing severe threat,” and warned that oceans all over the world are fast turning acidic which could lead to destruction of the entire marine wealth.

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/05/23?print

Climate scientists say they have solved riddle of rising sea

Massive extraction of groundwater can resolve a puzzle over a rise in sealevels in past decades, scientists in Japan said on Sunday.

Global sea levels rose by an average of 1.8 millimetres (0.07 inches) per year from 1961-2003, according to data from tide gauges.

But the big question is how much of this can be pinned to global warming.

In its landmark 2007 report, the UN's Nobel-winningIntergovernmental Panel onClimate Change (IPCC) ascribed 1.1mm (0.04 inches) per year to thermal expansion of the oceans -- water expands when it is heated -- and to meltwater from glaciers, icecaps and the Greenland and Antarctica icecaps.

That left 0.7mm (0.03 inches) per year unaccounted for, a mystery that left many scientists wondering if the data were correct or if there were some source that had eluded everyone.

Read More:

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Climate_scientists_say_they_have_solved_riddle_of_rising_sea_999.html

UMD Finding May Hold Key to Gaia Theory of Earth as Living Organism

Discovery ultimately could lead to better climate understanding and prediction

COLLEGE PARK, Md.  Is Earth really a sort of giant living organism as the Gaia hypothesis predicts? A new discovery made at the University of Maryland may provide a key to answering this question. This key of sulfur could allow scientists to unlock heretofore hidden interactions between ocean organisms, atmosphere, and land -- interactions that might provide evidence supporting this famous theory.

The Gaia hypothesis -- first articulated by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis in the 1970s -- holds that Earth's physical and biological processes are inextricably connected to form a self-regulating, essentially sentient, system.

One of the early predictions of this hypothesis was that there should be a sulfur compound made by organisms in the oceans that was stable enough against oxidation in water to allow its transfer to the air. Either the sulfur compound itself, or its atmospheric oxidation product, would have to return sulfur from the sea to the land surfaces. The most likely candidate for this role was deemed to be dimethylsulfide.

Read More:

http://newsdesk.umd.edu/uniini/release.cfm?ArticleID=2698

Tiny Plants Could Cut Costs, Shrink Environmental Footprint

Tall, waving corn fields that line Midwestern roads may one day be replaced by dwarfed versions that require less water, fertilizer and other inputs, thanks to a fungicide commonly used on golf courses.

Burkhard Schulz, a Purdue University assistant professor of plant biochemical and molecular genetics, had earlier found that knocking out the steroid function in corn plants would create tiny versions that only had female sex characteristics. But brassinazole, the chemical used to inhibit the plant steroid biosynthesis, was prohibitively expensive.

One gram of brassinazole could cost as much as $25,000, so Schulz started looking into other options. He found that propiconazole, used to treat fungal dollar spot disease on golf courses, is more potent and costs about 10 cents for the same amount.

"Any research where you needed to treat large plants for long periods of time would have been impossible," Schulz said. "Those tests before would have cost us millions of dollars. Now, they cost us $25. This will open up research in crops that was not possible before."

Read More:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120515104638.htm

"We've Never Seen Anything Like This" Mutations and Deformities in Gulf Seafood Post BP Spill

The words "We've never seen anything like it" are repeated by scientists, seafood processors and fishermen throughout the gulf region. A feature article from Al Jazeera English, Gulf seafood deformities alarm scientists, examines the alarming abnormalities turning up in fish, shrimp, crab and other species since the BP oil spill.

We are really witnessing only the beginning of the fallout from this disaster. While sea creatures with mutated genomes may not actively contain oil or toxic chemicals, how will these mutations impact their survival? Fishers interviewed in that article are reporting massive decreases in the catches. I don't see how BP can ever make this right. How do you compensate a country for wiping out one of their richest sources of food?

BP's Deepwater Horizon spill and the subsequent, unprecedented dump of toxic chemical dispersants has damaged fisheries and affected the genomes of gulf seafood.

Along with collapsing fisheries, signs of malignant impact on the regional ecosystem are ominous: horribly mutated shrimp, fish with oozing sores, underdeveloped blue crabs lacking claws, eyeless crabs and shrimp - and interviewees' fingers point towards BP's oil pollution disaster as being the cause.

The Al Jazeera piece is a must read. I can't do it justice here with just a few paragraphs but here are some quotes from various fishers and scientists interviewed for the article. The eerily constant refrain of "we've never seen anything like this" runs through the piece.

Tracy Kuhn and her husband Mike Roberts, commercial fishers from Louisiana:

Read More:

HTTP://WWW.DAILYKOS.COM/STORY/2012/04/18/1084285/--WE-VE-NEVER-SEEN-ANYTHING-LIKE-THIS-MUTATIONS-AND-DEFORMITIES-IN-GULF-SEAFOOD-POST-BP-SPILL