Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

US: Michigan Oil Spill Among Largest In Midwest History: Kalamazoo Spill SOAKS Wildlife (VIDEO)

Michigan oil spill

As the Gulf Coast deals with the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, the Midwest is now facing an oil spill of its own.

A state of emergency has been declared in southwest Michigan's Kalamazoo County as more than 800,000 gallons of oil released into a creek began making its way downstream in the Kalamazoo River, the Kalamazoo Gazette reports.

The trouble began Monday at 9:45 a.m., when an oil pipeline owned by Enbridge Liquids Pipelines sprung a leak in Marshall Township. Enbridge Energy is a subsidiary of Calgary, Canada based Enbridge Inc., the Detroit Free Press reports. According to the company, it is the largest transporter of oil from western Canada.

Bizarro Earth

Haiti's homeless on the move again as hurricanes loom

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© Unknown
Julie, her face a grimace of anguish, waits with her five children for a ride to their next shelter, to where more than 1,000 homeless Haitians have been ordered to go as hurricane season ramps up.

They are packed and anxious and bound for Corail, a camp 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the capital on oven-hot scrubland that the United Nations has deemed safer than areas around Port-au-Prince, where hundreds of thousands of destitute refugees live in squalor six months after an earthquake ravaged the city.

The 58-year-old mother and her family have lived in wretched conditions in an impromptu shantytown on the side of a road since shortly after the earthquake rocked western Haiti, killing more than 250,000 people and injuring 300,000, leaving 1.5 million homeless and unleashing a trail of destruction.

Like thousands of others, Julie clings to the hope of soon finding more permanent housing. Today she has little idea of what awaits her at the end of her ride out of town.

Attention

Oil spewing from well near Louisiana marsh

Louisiana marsh area
© UnknownOil and natural gas from the ruptured well is seen Tuesday near a Louisiana marsh area.
20-foot-high plume seen; tug boat hit well before dawn, officials say

Adding insult to the Gulf's injury, a wellhead hit by a tug boat is now spewing oil near a Louisiana marsh area, officials said Tuesday.

The oil is shooting up 20 feet into the air, the office of Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser said.

"We cannot catch a break," Deano Bonano, Jefferson Parish emergency management director, said in a note to parish officials.

The well is in inland waterways on the border of Plaquemines and Jefferson parishes, about 65 miles south of New Orleans; it's marsh area not accessible by road.

Butterfly

How Monarchs Fly Away Home

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© UnknownBiologists had suspected that monarchs fly back from Mexico west-to-east over the Appalachians but no evidence existed to support the theory.
Monarch butterflies - renowned for their lengthy annual migration to and from Mexico - complete an even more spectacular journey home than previously thought.

New research from the University of Guelph reveals that some North American monarchs born in the Midwest and Great Lakes fly directly east over the Appalachians and settle along the eastern seaboard. Previously, scientists believed that the majority of monarchs migrated north directly from the Gulf coast.

The study appears in the recent issue of the scientific journal Biology Letters.

"It's a groundbreaking finding," said Ryan Norris, a Guelph professor in the Department of Integrative Biology who worked on the study with his graduate student Nathan Miller and two researchers from Environment Canada.

Cloud Lightning

China landslide leaves 21 missing amid floods

china landslide
© ReutersResidents examine the site of a rain-triggered landslide in Shuanghe, China, on Tuesday.
Worst rainy season in a decade has already killed hundreds

A landslide caused by rains in southern China left 21 people missing Tuesday, adding to a growing death toll from China's worst flood season in a decade, which is expected to worsen with heavy rains forecast across the country.

Rescuers searched for 21 people missing after a landslide in Hanyuan County in China's southern province of Sichuan on Tuesday morning, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Rocks and mud buried 58 homes and about 4,000 villagers were evacuated from their homes.

Bizarro Earth

Strange Neon Green Slime Hits Ocean

Neon Green Slime
© The Orange County RegisterA reader sent in this photo of the green stuff.
If you've been to the beach the past few days, you might have noticed weird, neon green slimy stuff floating around in the water next to you.

At 36th Street in Newport Beach Monday morning breaking waves would cause the green stuff to light up the whitewash, creating a strange color.

The neon stuff - which some are saying is algae -- floated around near shore along the coast the past few days. The green stuff was forming bubbles on the water's surface. When a wave broke around a surfer riding the wave, the wave would turn green around him - not a pretty "I'm in the Caribbean" green, but an "I hope I don't wake up with a third eye" kind of green.

The Orange County Health Care Agency has been unable to identify the substance, but so far has found no evidence of bacterial contamination, and no illnesses have been reported, said program manager Larry Honeybourne."

US Open champ Brett Simpson Monday morning said he's been surfing in it, but has no idea what it is.

"It's kind of freaking me out," he said.

Bizarro Earth

US: Heat Wave, Storms Continue Amid Flood Cleanup

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© Jonathan Ernst/ReutersA tourist mops the sweat from his brow as he stands in the heat outside the White House in Washington, July 24, 2010.
Large parts of the United States faced another day of extreme weather on Sunday, with temperatures in the capital and on the Southeast coast forecast to be near or above 100 degrees F (38 degrees C) and more storms likely in the mid-Atlantic and Ohio Valley regions.

"It's going to be another steamy day in the Southeast with thunderstorms to the north," AccuWeather said on its website.

Powerful thunderstorms will stretch from the Delaware, Maryland and Virginia region on the Atlantic Coast into Kentucky, Accuweather said.

In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where heavy rains shut the city's main airport on Thursday, local media reported the body of a 19-year-old man who disappeared as floodwaters peaked had been recovered from a creek.

Bizarro Earth

China floods put pressure on Three Gorges Dam

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© Cheng Min / AP
Record-high water levels at China's massive Three Gorges Dam have called into question Beijing's claims that the world's largest hydroelectric project could withstand a 10,000-year flood.

On Friday, the water level reached 158.86 meters (522 feet), only 16 meters (52 feet) away from the reservoir's maximum capacity of 175 meters (574 feet), the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing reservoir engineers. Given the continued flooding, the levels could easily rise higher.

Minister of Water Resources Chen Lei urged those responsible to continue to inspect and protect dams and reservoirs as well as prepare for heavy rainfalls. Work teams have been dispatched to areas including Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu to coordinate flood-fighting efforts, Xinhua said.

Arrow Down

Miraculous escape for driver as car falls 20ft into sinkhole at traffic lights during storm

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© APGaping hole: A Cadillac Escalade sits at the bottom of a sinkhole in Milwaukee after a section of road collapsed during torrential rain yesterday
He's thanking his lucky stars that he was pulled out alive.

Yet, miraculously, the driver of this SUV only suffered minor cuts and bruises when his vehicle plummeted 20ft into a sinkhole as he approached traffic lights.

Lance Treankler was driving his black Cadillac Escalade during torrential rains in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, yesterday, when the road opened up beneath him.

'The road just went out from under me,' Mr Treankler said.

'When I landed, my head snapped back. I went unconscious for a few seconds.

'When I looked up, I saw water run over me.'

Mr Treankler was rescued by a passer-by, 46-year-old Mark Pawlik, who was walking along when he saw the vehicle disappear and a traffic light land on its roof.

Mr Pawlik said: 'The Escalade just went "wham". Everything went down.

Comment: Tropical storm leaves more than 115 dead and a huge sinkhole in Central America

July: Florida Sinkhole Swallows Car, Endangers Condominium


Cloud Lightning

Heavy Wisconsin Rains Close Milwaukee Airport

sinkhole
© Mike ThielA SUV sits in a sink hole Friday, July 23, 2010, in Milwaukee. Powerful thunderstorms caused widespread flooding in southern Wisconsin, closing down Milwaukee's airport and opening up a giant sink hole, and two people were hospitalized after being struck by lightning, authorities said.
Stranded travelers weary from an overnight stay in a Milwaukee airport were hoping to be allowed to fly out Friday after powerful overnight storms pounded southeastern Wisconsin, halting flights and causing widespread flooding.

Storm water flooded the runways at Mitchell International Airport during the Thursday night storm. Airport officials said they hoped to clear away leftover debris and reopen the runways on Friday, but further disruptions were possible because of a new round of showers and thunderstorms that was expected to pass though the region.

Brian Kulpin, a spokesman for Reno-Tahoe International Airport, said he doesn't expect that the Milwaukee closure will affect air traffic in Reno.