Saturday, August 09, 2014

4 Billion Gallons of Mining Waste Pour Into Pristine B.C. Waterways

Video: Watch 4 Billion Gallons of Mining Waste Pour Into Pristine B.C. Waterways

First Nations, environmentalists and just about everyone else are aghast at the severity of the toxic spill from a tailings pond.

On August 4 the tailings pond of the gold and copper open-pit Polley Mine, operated by Imperial Metals Corp., breached and sent billions of gallons of metals-laden silt and water into waterways awaiting the return of the salmon.

RELATED: Horrific Toxic Spill in B.C. Called Another Exxon Valdez

The mess has only just begun to wreak its environmental havoc, with campgrounds evacuated, a local emergency declared and a fishing ban imposed, among other immediate effects. Long-term damage is not yet known, and Imperial officials say they have no idea why it happened.

But company president Brian Kynoch told CBC News that the tailings pond isn’t so bad and that he would even consider drinking it.

RELATED: Pour Him a Tall One! Mining Exec Insists He'd Drink Water From Tailings Pond

Imperial has been given a deadline for dealing with the situation, the Vancouver Sun reported in a story with extensive video as well.

The jarring footage below from flyovers would seem to belie that notion. The first one was posted by Global BCTV and the second, a half-hour long, is raw footage taken by the local government.



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Mount Polley Mine tailings pond breach is one of the worst in the world: Experts

VANCOUVER – At this point it is unclear just how far reaching the damage is and just how much it will cost to clean up the mess.

Environmental experts say it’s one of the worst tailings pond breaches in the world.

When the pond burst it sent millions of cubic meters of sludge and water cascading through the natural landscape.

It caused massive damage to everything in its path.

The government says it’s really too early to know how long the cleanup will take and how much it will cost.

But we can compare it to a tailings pond breach in Tennessee in 2008. Officials there anticipated the cleanup would take six months, but within that time, they only managed to cleanup three per cent of the destruction.


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At the rate noted in the above article it would take approximately TWENTY YEARS or more to clean up the destruction caused by this tragedy. The company as it is in collusion with the government will more than likely just get a fine and then not have to clean it up in total leaving citizens responsible. I really do not know what else to type. The same words have been typed over and over and over again on this blog. All I can do looking at this is cry. Notice they claim "they have no idea how it happened" even in light of this: Firm that designed original Mount Polley tailings dam says it warned of growing size.

And then the usual line from the company head:

"But company president Brian Kynoch told CBC News that the tailings pond isn’t so bad and that he would even consider drinking it."

I will however, say this in response to the quoted sentence above: I dare you Bryan Kynoch, you soulless ass, I want to see you DRINK THAT WATER IN PUBLIC. So sick of these rich arrogant nature killers saying things like this to validate their ecocide and not following through.

Monday, August 04, 2014

Toledo Bearing Full Brunt of Lake Erie Algae Bloom

UPDATE: 8/5/14: Toledo’s Contaminated Water: Here’s What Went Wrong



Ban has been lifted but personally I would give it a couple days before using it for drinking and cooking. I would also demand transparency in testing and how the water is being processed now. This isn't the end considering retiscince of authorities to regulate fertilizer runoff and the fact that climate change is here to stay.

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A sample glass of Lake Erie water is extracted near the City of Toledo water intake crib on Sunday.
Photograph: Haraz N Ghanbari/AP

Toledo Bearing Full Brunt of Lake Erie Algae Bloom

By Laura Arenschield

The night before Toledo officials warned people not to drink the municipal tap water, Jeff Reutter opened a federal website to check on the algae bloom in western Lake Erie.

The picture didn’t look bad, at first, to Reutter, an expert on toxic algae who is the director of the Ohio Sea Grant College Program. The algae covered Maumee Bay, but the bloom was significantly smaller than the one in 2011 that stretched past Cleveland, ruining summer beach trips for families along the Lake Erie coast.

A closer look gave Reutter pause, though. The most-intense parts of the bloom seemed to have settled right at the mouth of the Maumee River.

“It’s at the greatest concentration right in Maumee Bay,” Reutter said yesterday. “And, unfortunately, that’s where the Toledo water intake is” for the city’s Collins Park Water Treatment Plant.

Early Saturday morning, Toledo officials confirmed Reutter’s fears. Tests at the plant showed levels of the toxin microcystin in Toledo’s drinking water that were above the 1 part per billion that the World Health Organization deems is safe to drink.

Boiling water concentrates that toxin, so a simple boil alert wasn’t an option.

By 2 a.m. Saturday, Toledo had issued a warning that ultimately affected more than 500,000 people: Don’t drink water from the taps. Don’t even cook with it.

Microcystin can cause nerve and liver damage in people and animals. Symptoms can include diarrhea, vomiting, cramping and dizziness.

It was the second time that algae toxins had contaminated a public drinking-water system in Ohio. In September, about 2,000 people served by a water-treatment plant in Ottawa County, in northwestern Ohio, were without safe tap water for drinking or cooking for two days.

Reutter said the bloom over Maumee Bay now is “exactly the same situation” as the bloom that polluted water in Ottawa County last year. The wind patterns have kept it concentrated near where Toledo collects its water rather than spreading it throughout Lake Erie.

“There’s no problem over at Marblehead or any of the islands or Cedar Point or Cleveland,” Reutter said. “But the Toledo area is really getting the full brunt of this right now.”

Adults affected by the warning still can use the water for bathing. The World Health Organization allows up to 20 parts of microcystin per billion parts of water for bathing. Tests at the Toledo plant showed water there had levels as high as 2.5 parts per billion.

George Zonders, a spokesman for Columbus’ public utilities, said it is unlikely that toxic algae could shut down the drinking-water supply here because Columbus gets its water from more than one source. The city is installing a $70 million treatment system in 2016 that will, in part, help deal with algae toxins.

Municipalities treat algae toxins with carbon. The toxins latch on to the carbon, and the combined particles are then removed from the water.

Algae flourish in warm, shallow waters, which makes Lake Erie — the shallowest of the Great Lakes — an inviting home. The algae feed on phosphorus, a key component of the fertilizers farmers spread over fields.

Studies at the National Center for Water Quality Research at Heidelberg University in Tiffin have found a direct link between farming and high levels of phosphorus in watersheds, Laura Johnson, a research scientist there, said yesterday.

“We know it’s coming from agricultural runoff. But in reality, when we think about why these farms are leaking phosphorus, that part of the story is far from clear and far from simple,” Johnson said.

Heavy rains can wash fertilizers from fields into the streams and rivers that feed lakes. Overflowing sewers, failed septic systems and runoff from lawn fertilizers also contribute to phosphorus in the watershed.

Ohio has no laws requiring farmers to limit the amount of phosphorus on their fields or that force farmers to reduce runoff. But lawmakers this past spring took a step toward tackling the algae problem when they offered farmers voluntary training before they use commercial fertilizers on their fields. snip Reutter said scientists and public water and health officials are concerned because the algae bloom in Maumee Bay is likely to spread on Lake Erie. Algae problems typically get worse in September and October when the water is warmer than in the spring.

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Perfect storm... warmer temperatures, heavier rainfalls, increased run off of nitrogen fertilizers combined with poisons like ROUNDUP combined with dysfunctional leadership killing our water. I think it is safe to say that Lake Erie is dying. The water quality has been declining as we see increases in fertilizer run off and heavier precipitation events in this area of the country and flooding due to an amplification of the hydrologic cycle through anthropogenic global warming. It really just at this point makes me cry to see all of this happening now. We are killing our only home and making it uninhabitable and our water dying will surely be the end for us. Sounds too depressing? Not sunny enough with enough sugarcoating? Don't want to read it? Too bad. I'm angry and I am frightened thinking of what we have unleashed by our greed, apathy and incessant placation and arrogance and I won't apologize for that. WATER is our lifeblood and a world without it is no world for humans. I suppose we will have to learn that fact the hard way.





Taken By Storm


This satellite image provided by NOAA shows the algae bloom on Lake Erie in 2011 which according to NOAA was the worst in decades.
Photograph: AP

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Also see:

Friday Night: Tests Come Back At Almost Three Parts Per Billion

Climate change brings mostly bad news for Ohio: Big algae bloom in Lake Erie, very dry 2015 forecast

Farming practices and climate change at root of Toledo water pollution

Great Lakes Going Down?

More Tests Needed on Toledo Water Before Supply Can Be Restored/Empties Bottled Water

Between the West Virginia poisoning in the beginning of this year (which BTW saw a slap on the wrist to Freedom Industries paying a fine of only $11,000 after poisoning the water supply of over 300,00 people, the coal ash spill in North Carolina courtesy of Duke Energy that got them a slap on the wrist as well, the shut offs in Detroit, the extreme drought in California, the algae toxins in Toledo and the myriad effects of fracking in 36 states, the bottled water industry must be in Nirvana. Make no mistake about it, the privatization of our national water supply is something companies like Nestle are salivating over. Things that make you go hmm....

Another World Water Day Gone

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