Category Archives: Pollution

September 10, 2017

Banned Pesticides Showing Up in California Water

Posted on September 10, 2017 by ifnm| Comments Off on Banned Pesticides Showing Up in California Water

The chemicals have turned thousands of acres of forest into waste dumps so toxic that law enforcement officers have been hospitalized after inadvertently touching plants and equipment, and scores of animals have died.

Toxic chemicals from illegal marijuana farms hidden deep in California’s forests are showing up in rivers and streams that feed the state’s water supply, prompting fears that humans and animals may be at risk, data reviewed by Reuters show.

The presence of potentially deadly pollutants in eight Northern and Central California watersheds is the latest sign of damage to the environment from thousands of illegal cannabis plantations, many of them run by drug cartels serving customers in other states, according to law enforcement.

“I don’t drink out of the creeks – and I used to,” said Sergeant Nathaniel Trujillo, a narcotics expert with the sheriff’s department of Trinity County, about 200 miles north of San Francisco. “I grew up drinking out of them.”

California accounts for more than 90 percent of illegal U.S. marijuana farming. There are as many as 50,000 marijuana farms in California according to state estimates, and even though voters legalized the drug last November, only about 16,000 growers are expected to seek licenses when commercial cultivation becomes legal next year.

Many of the illegal growers use fertilizers and pesticides long restricted or banned in the United States, including carbofuran and zinc phosphide.

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Posted in California Story, Drugs and Cartels, Pollution, Public Health/Safety

July 19, 2017

A Toxic Invasion in Southern CA Threatens National Security

Posted on July 19, 2017 by ifnm| Comments Off on A Toxic Invasion in Southern CA Threatens National Security

Politichicks reporter Michelle Mears took a tour of the border with Christopher Harris, along with radio host Don Dix from AM590, to see first-hand the situation brewing at the border. This is the first in a series of articles on the toxic sludge invading the United States, and literally threatening national security.

Border agents gear melted, surfers and children infected, military training diverted, wildlife poisoned

A brewing environmental disaster that has been percolating for decades may now threaten our national security. The threat is so large, it is affecting endangered species, protected wetlands, and local beach communities in California.

Border Patrol agents fear government officials and legislatures are ignoring the issue because of the grand scale of the problem. The expense to fix could be astronomical and it is easier to ignore than address the situation.

Media reports describe the millions of gallons of contaminated water flowing into the United States from Tijuana over the years and in recent months to be “sewage”.

However, during a tour of the border with Director-Legislative and Political Affairs for Local 1613 National Border Patrol Council, Christopher Harris, the sight and stench of something other than human waste and household garbage was permeating the air.

Harris exposed a riverbed along the Tijuana River that flows through Goat Canyon, littered with plastic bottles, tires, couches and other garbage on the U.S. side. The water was a glowing green, the sand around the water separated like an old tar roof and this strange chemical stench hung in the air mixed with the smell of human waste.

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Posted in California Story, Politichicks, Pollution

January 10, 2017

Californians Comprise Largest Number of New Texas Transplants

Posted on January 10, 2017 by ifnm| Comments Off on Californians Comprise Largest Number of New Texas Transplants

A new report by the Texas Association of Realtors reveals that Californians continue to move to the Lone Star State en masse, accounting for the largest number of new residents that hail from other states.

The 2017 Texas Relocation Report shows, in 2015, Texas added 553,032 new people. The most transplants came from California (65,546), followed by Florida (33,670), Louisiana (31,044), New York (26,287), and Oklahoma (25,555).

“The diverse job opportunities and high quality of life in Texas continue to drive in-state and out-of-state migration to Texas cities and counties, both big and small,” said Vicki Fullerton, 2017 chairman of the Texas Association of Realtors, in a press release. “This is the third consecutive year that Texas has gained more than 500,000 new residents from out of state.”

In the report, Texas ranked second among states to add new residents via domestic migration in 2015 after factoring in outflow. Although over a half million people relocated to Texas, 445,343 left. This means the out-of-state net gain of residents was 107,689. In 2014, it was 103,465. Both years, more people entered than exited and the Texas realtors said the state bested its 2014 net gain by 4 percent.

By comparison, California lost more residents than it gained — 643,710 packed up and went elsewhere, while 514,477 moved to the Golden State.

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Posted in California Story, Pollution

March 9, 2015

Ozone from Asia contributes to US West Coast air pollution

Posted on March 9, 2015 by ifnm| Comments Off on Ozone from Asia contributes to US West Coast air pollution

Researchers attribute dirty air to factors other than local industry.

High above the Big Sur coast in California, Ian Faloona is finding pollution on the edge of the continent, a place that should have some of the country’s cleanest air. From an astronomical observatory on Chews Ridge in the Santa Lucia Mountains, the atmospheric scientist from the University of California, Davis, has for the last three years measured ozone, the lung-damaging gas in smog, as it arrives to California.

The monitoring site, more than 1,500m above sea level on a pine-studded overlook above the lowest layer of the atmosphere, gives Faloona access to undisturbed air from across the Pacific before it is fouled by United States pollution sources.

He and other scientists at rural, high-altitude sites across the western United States have been documenting rising levels of ozone, which can trigger asthma attacks, worsen heart and lung disease and lead to premature deaths, even as emissions have plummeted nationwide over the last few decades.

Soaring emissions from China and other fast-growing Asian countries are blowing across the Pacific Ocean, they say, increasing baseline levels of ozone in western United States. In about a week, winds carry ozone formed by emissions from cars, factories and power plants in Asia to the United States West Coast, where it can add to locally generated pollution, worsening smog in cities such as Bakersfield, Fresno and Los Angeles.

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Posted in Asia, Pollution

March 4, 2015

Too much human poo on Mount Everest, says Nepal

Posted on March 4, 2015 by ifnm| Comments Off on Too much human poo on Mount Everest, says Nepal

Waste from the 700 climbers and guides a year who attempt to scale the mountain is becoming a health hazard.

Human waste left by climbers on Mount Everest has become a problem that is causing pollution and threatening to spread disease on the world’s highest peak, the chief of Nepal’s mountaineering association said Tuesday.

The more than 700 climbers and guides who spend nearly two months on Everest’s slopes each climbing season leave large amounts of faeces and urine, and the issue has not been addressed, Ang Tshering told reporters.

He said Nepal’s government needs to get the climbers to dispose of the waste properly so the mountain remains pristine.

Hundreds of foreign climbers attempt to scale Everest during Nepal’s mountaineering season, which began this week and runs through May. Last year’s season was canceled after 16 local guides were killed in an avalanche in April.

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Posted in Asia, Hidden History, Pollution, Public Health/Safety

January 29, 2015

Beijing smog makes city unliveable, says mayor

Posted on January 29, 2015 by ifnm| Comments Off on Beijing smog makes city unliveable, says mayor

Polluting factories and skyrocketing vehicle ownership blamed as report finds tourism to Chinese city falls 10% on year before.

Beijing’s mayor, Wang Anshun, has called the city “unliveable” because of its noxious smog, according to state media.

“To establish a first-tier, international, liveable and harmonious city, it is very important to establish a system of standards, and Beijing is currently doing this,” he said last Friday, according to the China Youth Daily newspaper.

“At the present time, however, Beijing is not a liveable city.”

Anshun’s speech came days before the market research company Euromonitor International announced, in its findings on the global tourism market in 2013, that tourism to Beijing had declined by 10% from the year before due to pollution and a countrywide economic slowdown.

The company’s top 100 city destination rankings, released on Tuesday, ranked Hong Kong, Singapore and Bangkok in its top three spots, followed by London and Paris. Beijing ranked 34th, in between Johannesburg and Sofia, Bulgaria.

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Posted in Asia, Pollution, Public Health/Safety