Wednesday, April 25, 2012

A recent study by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) shows that the oil and gas industry are creating earthquakes. New information from the Midwest region of the United States points out that these man-made earthquakes are happening more frequently than expected. While more frequent earthquakes are less of a problem for regions like the Midwest, a geology professor from the University of Southern Indiana, Dr. Paul K. Doss, believes the disposal of wastewater from the hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) process used in extracting oil and gas has the possibility to pose potential problems for groundwater.

“We are taking this fluid that has a whole host of chemicals in it that are useful for fracking and putting it back into the Earth,” Doss said. “From a purely seismic perspective these are not big earthquakes that are going to cause damage or initiate, as far as we know, any larger kinds of earthquakes activity for Midwest. [The issue] is a water quality issue in terms of the ground water resources that we use.”

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a technique used by the oil and gas industries which inject highly pressurized water down into the Earth’s crust to break rock and extract natural gas. Most of the fluids used for fracking are proprietary, so information about what chemicals are used in the various fluids are unknown to the public and to create a competitive edge.

Last Monday four researchers from the University of New Brunswick released an editorial that sheds light on the potential risks that the current wastewater disposal system could have on the province’s water resources. The researchers share the concern that Dr. Doss has and have come out to say that they believe fracking should be stopped in the province until there is an environ­mentally safe way to dispose the waste wastewater.

“If groundwater becomes contamin­ated, it takes years to decades to try to clean up an aquifer system,” University of New Brunswick professor Tom Al said.

While the USGS group which conducted the study says it is unclear how the earthquake rates may be related to oil and gas production, they’ve made the correlation between the disposal of wastewater used in fracking and the recent upsurge in earthquakes. Because of the recent information surfacing that shows this connection between the disposal process and earthquakes, individual states in the United States are now passing laws regarding disposal wells.

“The problem is that we have never, as a human society, engineered a hole to go four miles down in the Earth’s crust that we have complete confidence that it won’t leak,” Doss said. “A perfect case-in-point is the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010, that oil was being drilled at 18,000 feet but leaked at the surface. And that’s the concern because there’s no assurance that some of these unknown chemical cocktails won’t escape before it gets down to where they are trying to get rid of them.”

It was said in the study released by the New Brunswick University professors that if fracking wastewater would contaminate groundwater, that current conventional water treatment would not be sufficient enough to remove the high concentration of chemicals used in fracking. The researchers did find that the wastewater could be recycled, can also be disposed of at proper sites or even pumped further underground into saline aquifers.

The New Brunswick professors have come to the conclusion that current fracking methods used by companies, which use the water, should be replaced with carbon diox­ide or liquefied propane gas.

“You eliminate all the water-related issues that we’re raising, and that peo­ple have raised in general across North America,” Al said.

In New Brunswick liquefied propane gas has been used successfully in fracking some wells, but according to water specialist with the province’s Natural Resources De­partment Annie Daigle, it may not be the go-to solution for New Brunswick due its geological makeup.

“It has been used successfully by Corridor Resources here in New Bruns­wick for lower volume hydraulic frac­turing operations, but it is still a fairly new technology,” Daigle said.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is working with U.S. states to come up with guidelines to manage seismic risks due to wastewater. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the EPA is the organization that also deals with the policies for wells.

Oil wells, which are under regulation, pump out salt water known as brine, and after brine is pumped out of the ground it’s disposed of by being pumped back into the ground. The difference between pumping brine and the high pressurized fracking fluid back in the ground is the volume that it is disposed of.

“Brine has never caused this kind of earthquake activity,” Doss said. “[The whole oil and gas industry] has developed around the removal of natural gas by fracking techniques and has outpaced regulatory development. The regulation is tied to the ‘the run-of-the-mill’ disposal of waste, in other words the rush to produce this gas has occurred before regulatory agencies have had the opportunity to respond.”

According to the USGS study, the increase in injecting wastewater into the ground may explain the sixfold increase of earthquakes in the central part of the United States from 2000 – 2011. USGS researchers also found that in decades prior to 2000 seismic events that happened in the midsection of the U.S. averaged 21 annually, in 2009 it spiked to 50 and in 2011 seismic events hit 134.

“The incredible volumes and intense disposal of fracking fluids in concentrated areas is what’s new,” Doss said. “There is not a body of regulation in place to manage the how these fluids are disposed of.”

The study by the USGS was presented at the annual meeting of the Seismological Society of America on April 18, 2012.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

The Obama administration announced on March 18, 2009 that the United States, in a reversal of position, would support the UN declaration on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The United States will become the 67th signatory to the non-binding document, which was proposed by France and the Netherlands and “condemn[s] the human rights violations based on sexual orientation or gender identity wherever they occur, in particular the use of the death penalty on this ground, extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the practice of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, arbitrary arrest or detention and deprivation of economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to health”.

Accepting the proposal, which according to US State Department spokesman Robert Wood “commits us to no legal obligations”, would nonetheless be a reversal from the Bush administration’s refusal to sign. According to Mark Bromley of the Council for Global Equality, “the administration’s leadership on this issue will be a powerful rebuke of an earlier Bush administration position that sought to deny the universal application of human rights protections to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals”.

57 UN member nations, however, including many but not all members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, have signed a counter-declaration introduced by Syria saying that normalization of LGBT rights would lead to “the social normalization, and possibly the legitimization, of many deplorable acts including pedophilia.” Vatican City also opposes the resolution but on its introduction made a statement condemning legal discrimination against LGBT persons.

Homosexuality or homosexual behavior is illegal in some 70 UN member nations and punishable by death in seven.

The United States’ adoption of the document comes as the Obama administration faces continued criticism from gay rights advocates on the subject of homosexual individuals serving in the United States military. While Obama has stated he would repeal Bill Clinton’s 1993 “don’t ask, don’t tell” compromise and end restrictions on gays, bisexuals and lesbians serving in the military, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates says that he has had “one brief conversation with the president” on the subject; meanwhile, a US House bill to end the ban is losing its primary sponsor, Ellen Tauscher, to the State Department and no complementary piece of legislation has been introduced to the Senate.

France’s proposal of the document is one of several instances in the course of the Sarkozy administration where France and the Vatican have been at odds on issues of sexuality. France’s foreign ministry, in response to comments by Pope Benedict rejecting the distribution of condoms in Africa to prevent AIDS, led EU member nations in rejecting the Pope’s position. In September 2008, France openly affronted the Vatican by appointing an openly gay man, Denis Tillinac, as its ambassador to the Holy See; the Vatican rejected the appointment.

Monday, March 25, 2019

From March 15 to 17, the Canadian city of Toronto played host to the tenth Furnal Equinox, an annual event dedicated to the “furry fandom.” Wikinews attended. Programming ranged from music to gender, science to art, covering dozens of aspects of the varied subculture. The event’s featured guests were visual artists Moth Monarch and Cat-Monk Shiro, as well as the co-owners of US fursuit costume builders Don’t Hug Cacti.

The event raised nearly CDN$11,000 for Pet Patrol, a non-profit rescue organization in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, run by volunteers. This exceeded their goal of $10,000, the funds needed to finish a rural sanctuary. The furry community is well-known for their charitable efforts. Along with direct donations, the funds were raised through a charity auction offering original artwork, and a fursuit design by guests of honour “Don’t Hug Cacti.” Last year, Furnal Equinox raised funds for a farm animal sanctuary.

While only 10–15% of people within the fandom own a fursuit according to a 2011 study, event organizers reported this year 908 of the 2240 attendees at Furnal Equinox brought at least one elaborate outfit to the event. The outfits are usually based on original characters, known as “fursonas”.

Guests of Honour Cherie and Sean O’Donnell, known within the community as “Lucky and Skuff Coyote”, held a session on fursuit construction on Saturday afternoon. The married couple are among the most prominent builders in the fandom, under the name Don’t Hug Cacti. The scale of their business was evident, as Sean had made over a thousand pairs of “handpaws”, costume gloves.

The couple encouraged attendees to continue developing their technique, sharing that all professional fursuit makers had developed different techniques. They felt that they learned more from failed projects than successful ones, citing the Chuck Jones quote that “every artist has thousands of bad drawings,” and that you have to work through them to achieve. Cherie, known as Lucky, recalled receiving a Sylvester the Cat plush toy from a Six Flags theme park at age 10. She promptly hollowed the toy out, turning it into a costume. Creating a costume isn’t without its hazards: the company uses 450°F (232°C) glue guns. They’re “like sticking your hand in an oven.”

Other programming included improv comedy, dances, life drawing of fursuiters, a review of scientific research by a research group at four universities called FurScience, a pin collector’s social, and workshops in writing.

The “Dealer’s Den” hall was expanded this year, with even more retailers and artists. While many offered “furry” versions of traditional products, at least one business focused on “pushing the boundaries of fursuit technology.” Along with 3D printing a bone-shaped name tag when Wikinews visited, Grivik was demonstrating miniature computer screens that could be used as “eyes” for a fursuit. The electronic displays projected an animation of eyes looking around, blinking occasionally. The maker has also developed “a way to install a camera inside suit heads, to improve fursuiter visibility.” He hopes the tech would reduce suiting risks and accidents. Without the need for eyeholes, fursuit makers would have “more options for building different eyestyles.”

• Image: Nicholas Moreau.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Zaragoza, Spain — On Thursday, Wikinews traveled to Zaragoza, Spain to interview the nation’s most decorated Paralympian and IPC Athlete Council representative Teresa Perales. A wide range of topics about the Paralympics and sport in Spain were discussed including the evolution of Paralympic sport, disability sport classification, funding support across all levels of elite sport including the Paralympics and Olympics, the role of sportspeople in politics, sponsorship issues, and issues of gender in Spanish sport.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Six-year-old Thomas David Horne from the United Kingdom has died and eleven other British tourists were injured Friday when their plane crashed in Canaima National Park in Venezuela. They were on a sight seeing tour of the world’s tallest waterfalls, the Angel Falls.

The single engine, nine-seater Cessna 208 Caravan, lifted off shortly before the end of the runway, lost power, and then surged briefly before plummeting into the Venezuelan jungle in front of the 3,200 ft falls.

“It started to take off and we sensed it was losing power. Then it seemed to get it back and lifted off just 200 metres before the end of the runway. Then it dived into the trees,” reported Makeli Freire, a park tour guide.

Three of the injured sustained serious injuries, while the others suffered mainly broken bones. Thomas Horne, who sustained serious head injuries, died on the way to a local hospital. The pilot, co-pilot and tour guide were among the injured. Everyone on board was flown to Ciudad Bolívar, the capital city of Venezuela’s Bolívar state, where they were treated for their injuries. Among the injured were Thomas’s mother and father Jane and David who were among those who had broken bones. They were British tourists finishing up a two week holiday to Venezuela.

“The young boy died as he was being flown to hospital. His parents are both physically OK but are completely distraught over the loss of their son,” said Maiker Puga, of the Ciudad Bolivar clinic.

Liz and her husband Keith Grainger and S. Phillips, also British tourists, were also injured in the crash. The names of the three other British tourists and the three person crew who were injured have not been released at this time.

The plane tour was offered by First Choice, a division of TUI Travel PLC who extended their “heartfelt sympathy to family and friends during this deeply sad time.” LTA airline has suspended further flights until the investigation is concluded.

June Holman, Thomas’s aunt who was not on holidays said, that “there is nothing worse than losing a loved one, especially not a young child with their whole life ahead of them. The thoughts of us all are with his parents Jane and Dave at this very sad time.”

Saturday, June 25, 2005

Seven months after suspicions were first raised, United States Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns confirmed that a second American cow has tested positive for BSE (also known as ‘mad cow disease’), as determined by a lab in Weybridge, England. The department believes that this cow was born in the United States.

The delay in confirmation followed two conflicting test results from last November. The “Western blot” test, which is a more sophisticated test, could have helped reach a final determination, but the U.S. refused to perform it in November. The department’s inspector general, Phyllis Fong, ordered the Western blot test in June without advising Johanns and by the time Johanns found out about it, the testing was under way.

Johanns was annoyed that the round of testing which confirmed “Mad Cow” had been ordered without him being consulted first.”I was asked by the Senate and the president to operate the department,” Johanns said. “I believe, in this area, very clearly, the secretary should be consulted, whoever the secretary is, before testing is undertaken. From my standpoint, I believe I was put there to operate the department and was very disappointed.”

A senior research associate with Consumers Union, Michael Hansen, said USDA officials “almost sound like some Keystone Kops.”

Johanns reassured Americans that they should not be afraid of eating beef, saying: “This animal was blocked from entering the food supply because of the firewalls we have in place. Americans have every reason to continue to be confident in the safety of our beef.”

On June 17, the Associated Press reported: “American cattle are eating chicken litter, cattle blood and restaurant leftovers that could help transmit mad cow disease — a gap in the U.S. defense that the Bush administration promised to close nearly 18 months ago.”

John Stauber, co-author of “Mad Cow USA: Could the Nightmare Happen Here?” said: “Once the cameras were turned off and the media coverage dissipated, then it’s been business as usual, no real reform, just keep feeding slaughterhouse waste. The entire U.S. policy is designed to protect the livestock industry’s access to slaughterhouse waste as cheap feed.”

Critics of the U.S. testing regimen said the fumbles this time increase their concerns about America’s screening process.

“How can we be sure they were really negative?” Craig Culp, a spokesman for the Center for Food Safety asked; “After all, (here is a cow that was) negative in November that is positive in June.”

The companies which render slaughter waste say new restrictions are not warranted. “We process about 50 billion pounds of product annually — in visual terms, that is a convoy of semi trucks, four lanes wide, running from New York to L.A. every year,” said Jim Hodges, president of the American Meat Institute Foundation.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

A Muslim woman has been killed by her religious apparel during a freak go-cart accident in Port Stephens, Australia. Mariam Dadoun, a 26-year-old mother, was out with her two children and husband enjoying their vacation time. While visiting Port Stephens Go-Karts, the vehicle had twisted her flowing hijab in the wheel’s axle.

Peter Fox of Port Stephens Local Area Command said, “the scarf was pulled across her throat […] from one side of the body to the other side”.

Medical professionals on the scene succeeded in reviving Dadoun. However, she shortly died of severe neck and throat injuries after being airlifted in a Westpac rescue helicopter to the nearby John Hunter Hospital.

The track has since been closed pending further investigation and a lack of proper licensing. The go-cart used in the accident has similarly been taken away for forensic examination by police authorities.

The spokesman of the New South Wales division of WorkCover, an organization tasked with ensuring the safety of amusement devices, commented that, “[Go-carts are] classified as amusement devices that have to be registered for safety purposes”. One go-cart on the property was found to lack proper guarding while the other had not been certified for use.

Sharon and Scott Taylor were waiting in line with their children at the time. Scott said that the injuries were clearly severe as the paramedics began helping her. He added, “Her clothing had wrapped around her neck”. “The cart hit the wall and stopped and she was just slumped over,” remarked Sharon.

Dadoun was the mother of two children, aged six and four. According to her aunt, she was a devoted caregiver and had been always willing to help others. More specifically, she remarked, “If anyone needed help, she wouldn’t say no. She did a lot for everybody – for her friends, her family, her relatives.” Strongly said, “You can’t describe Mariam. She was the best.”