Monday, 28 Nov 2005

Torch Songhua

China chemical-spill crisis eases, but water's still not safe to drink

As Americans gorged on turkey and pumpkin pie, a 50-mile-long toxic chemical spill was flowing along the Songhua River through northern China -- the worst environmental disaster in the nation's recent history. The crisis began on Nov. 13, when two explosions at a state-owned petrochemical plant in Jilin killed five workers, injured 70, forced about 10,000 to flee, and dumped 100 tons of benzene (among other nasties) into the Songhua. As the slick hit the industrial city of Harbin, officials shut down the city's water system and trucked in drinking water for 3.8 million residents -- but also tried to cover up the contamination crisis, setting off a panicked exodus and infuriating citizens across the country. Now the waterworks have been restarted, but officials say the water still isn't safe for drinking or bathing. The spill is flowing toward Russia, where it's expected to reach the 580,000 residents of Khabarovsk within weeks.


You know that book Everyone Poops? They ought to make another one to go along with it: Everyone Flushes. Because everyone does, and a looooooot of water gets wasted along the way. While today's toilets use less water than the bowls of old, that's no help to many apartment-dwellers and others who are stuck with aged commodes. Today a reader asks how to save water when pulling the lever, and Umbra Fisk gushes forth advice.

Against Montreal Odds

Pro-Kyoto Canadian gov't likely to fall as Montreal climate meet begins

Some 10,000 officials, activists, and scientists from more than 180 countries are gathering in Montreal today for a U.N. climate-change summit. It was supposed to be Canada's moment to shine: Its influential and persuasive environment minister Stephane Dion, a strong Kyoto advocate, is chairing the summit and intends to lead negotiations on what should come after the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. But alas, distraction. The Liberal government of Prime Minister Paul Martin will likely be felled by a no-confidence vote today in the House of Commons. That would trigger elections in early 2006, and if the Liberals lose out, Dion could be replaced by a minister from the Conservative Party, which has its political base in the oil-rich Alberta province and isn't terribly fond of the Kyoto agreement. "It's the nightmare scenario that environmental activists around the world have been hoping would be avoided," said Elizabeth May of Sierra Club Canada.


As head of the nonprofit 1% for the Planet, Terry Kellogg urges companies to commit to donating at least 1 percent of their revenues to eco-causes. Because if they all did, he says, the environmental movement would never need another bake sale. As InterActivist this week, Kellogg chats about the importance of "voting" as a consumer, his hyper-consciousness about home heating, and why musician Jack Johnson is an environmental leader.

Consciousness of Streams

Sprawl is dirtying streams and posing threat to U.S. drinking water

Storm-water runoff threatens nearly every urban and suburban stream in the U.S., with serious implications for the country's drinking water. Used to be rain fell largely onto meadows, forests, and fields, where it was absorbed by plants or filtered into the underground water table, eventually percolating up to replenish streams. It was a fab system for everything involved: wee stream critters, bank-side plants, and people craving potable water. But today, rain encounters ever-growing expanses of roof and pavement, courses through gutters and conduits, and heads toward streams with erosive speed, washing away plants and animals and depositing loads of trash and pollutants. Without nature's slow filtering, dirtier streams are flowing into the rivers that supply many with drinking water, increasing the costs of water treatment. Activists, scientists, and officials nationwide are turning to stream restoration and low-impact development plans like green roofs in an effort to improve stream health.

I Wish They All Could Be California Copycats

New York, Massachusetts to adopt tougher auto-emissions standards

The New York State Environmental Board voted unanimously this month to adopt California's toughest-in-the-nation rules for cutting automotive greenhouse-gassiness. The new rules, which will be phased in with 2009 model-year cars, aim to cut carbon dioxide emissions about 30 percent by 2016 -- effectively improving auto fuel economy by roughly 40 percent. Massachusetts is set to adopt the same standards by the end of the year. The stricter standards are expected to eventually sweep the Northeast and the entire West Coast, which together comprise about a third of auto sales in the U.S. -- forming a powerful regulatory counterweight to more lax federal emissions standards. Big Auto, sensing a grassroots shift in public opinion, plans to upgrade all its new cars. Ha ha! We kid. Actually, Big Auto has already moved to block the New York regulations and plans to do the same in every state that attempts to adopt California's standards.