The aging oil and gas infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico -- pipelines, wells, platforms, and other rigs -- could well prove another disaster waiting to happen.
"Exposure to mercury pollution could be hitting some wild birds' reproductive prospects hard by causing males to pair with other males."
In a new book, a Dutch researcher says a new class of insecticides, the neonicotinoids, may be causing as much damage to bird populations as the DDT Rachel Carson wrote about in Silent Spring. Some bird populations in Europe are crashing dramatically.
Florida is considering new water quality standards that would force industries and utilities to reduce the amount of pollution they dump into the state's waterways. Industry lobbyists argue against them, claiming they would cost too much. But Department of Environmental Protection officials have questioned industry-written cost estimates.
"Scientists have observed the highest rate of beak abnormalities ever recorded in wild bird populations in Alaska and the Northwest, a study by two federal scientists said." The cause is undetermined, but an environmental cause is suspected.
"The Environmental Protection Agency denied on Thursday a petition by several environmental groups to ban lead in fishing tackle, two months after rejecting the groups' attempt to ban it in hunting ammunition."
"A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to revise a Bush administration recovery plan for the threatened northern spotted owl, and the agency said today it intends to release a draft of the revision next week."
"Fires across Russia, record floods in Pakistan, a huge Greenland iceberg -- this current unprecedented sequence of extreme weather events 'matches' scientific projections of more frequent and intense extreme weather events due to global warming, says an organization of meteorologists from 189 countries."
"On Tuesday, the Center for Biological Diversity and the American Bird Conservancy plan to file a petition with the Environmental Protection Agency seeking a comprehensive nationwide ban on lead-based sporting ammunition and fishing tackle."
"Songbirds such as sparrows and thrushes carry various forms of bird flu and could potentially spread the viruses to pigs and poultry, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday."
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