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Photo: W.Marsh / Flickr
Some environmentalists fear that industry lobbyists responsible for weakening the Clean Water Act have successfully convinced the Republican leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives to use this year’s Continuing Resolution budget to further weaken CWA regulations. Continue reading Republicans Launch Sneak Attack on Clean Water in Budget 
Acid mine drainage from Spruce Road in Minnesota. Photo: Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness
More than a quarter of a million people a year visit the legendary Boundary Waters Wilderness in Minnesota to hike, camp and canoe its million acres of untouched forests, ancient rocks and fresh water lakes. The natural wilds abound free from the sound of motors, the glare of lamplight, or the views of telephone poles and wires. There are no roads to the inner lakes. It is one of 50 “Destinations of a Lifetime,” according to National Geographic. 
Photo: High Contrast / wikicommons
But the Dutch government-funded agency, which in 2007 was the first to correctly identify that China had overtaken the US as the world’s greatest greenhouse gas polluter, warned that the figures did not mean that rich countries had cleaned up their act. “A large part of production capacity has been suspended, but this could be re-employed as soon as the economy improves. It is likely that a recovering economy would cause emission levels in industrialized countries to go up. Nevertheless, the economic downturn has meant that these countries can meet their reduction obligations with more ease,” said NEAA spokeswoman Anneke Oosterhuis
Before the dam was built, Monsanto and other phosphate mining operations received public attention in the 1990s when selenium runoff began killing hundreds of livestock. In 2007, EPA warned Monsanto that its discharge of excessive amounts of selenium and heavy metals from its South Rasmussen Ridge Mine was violating the Clean Water Act. The pollution control dam was Monsanto’s effort to reduce selenium discharge. “We support efforts to reduce selenium discharges to the creek, but we have serious concerns about the methods Monsanto is using, which is drying up the creek,” said Mark Ryan, a federal Clean Water Act attorney for the EPA in Boise, on Wednesday. “We want to see it (the water) treated and put back into the creek where it belongs.” READ THIS STORY AT MERCURYNEWS.COM Continue reading AP: EPA concerned about Monsanto pollution control dam |
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The EPA is concerned that a dam Monsanto erected to control pollution discharge from their Idaho phosphate mine is drying up Blackfoot River. The EPA now wants the maker of Roundup herbicide to remove selenium and heavy metals from water trapped by the dam and then to discharge clean water downstream.
