Sources Energy

AP - The U.S. Coast Guard has routinely approved BP requests to use thousands of gallons of toxic chemical a day to break up oil slicks in the Gulf of Mexico despite a federal directive that the chemicals be used only rarely on surface waters, congressional investigators said Saturday after examining BP and government documents.

The acid rain scourge of the 1970s and 1980s that killed trees and fish and even dissolved statues on Washington, D.C.’s National Mall has returned with a twist. Rather than being sulfuric acid derived from industrial sulfur emissions, the corrosive liquid is nitric acid, which has resulted not just from smokestacks but also from farming.

Besides dissolving cement and limestone and lowering the pH of lakes and streams, acid rain leaches critical soil nutrients, injuring plants, and liberates toxic minerals that can enter aquatic habitats. To combat the problem the first time around, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency passed the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, which cut sulfur emissions from power plants by 59 percent from 1990 to 2008. Emissions of nitrogen compounds, however, have not fallen as steeply.

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United States Environmental Protection Agency - National Mall - Sulfur - Acid rain - Sulfuric acid

AP - Spike Lee screened some of his new HBO documentary that includes a look at the massive BP Gulf oil spill and says no one from the oil giant is speaking to him.

U.S. regulators earlier this year demanded improvements to the pipeline network that includes a segment that ruptured in southern Michigan, spilling hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River, according to a document released Saturday.

Oil spill - Michigan - Pipeline transport - Environment - Energy

AP - A federal agency says it repeatedly warned the Canadian company at the center of an oil spill in southern Michigan about problems with a pipeline network that includes the segment that ruptured.

AP - On shore, BP, Halliburton and Transocean are engaging in a billion-dollar blame game over the blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. At sea, they’re depending on each other to finally plug up the environmental disaster.

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Sri Lanka’s central highlands and a protected marine area in Hawaii, the only habitats of several endangered plant and animal species, have been added to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage sites, the U.N. body said on Saturday.

It’s not made of gold, but a yellow lobster pulled from Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay is very rare.

Rhode Island - Narragansett Bay - United States - American lobster - Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay

AFP - Engineers Saturday readied a plan to permanently seal a damaged Gulf of Mexico well, despite delays to the process caused by debris left behind by a recent tropical storm.

Five years ago on this very day, I penned an editorial for Sustainable Industries called “Whose economy?” It was a reflection on summer’s Independence Day celebration, and the overwhelming lack of freedom we actually possess when it comes to energy policy.