Pacific Standard May-June 2013 Cover

Oil Spill Outlines the Limits of Government

June 2, 2010 • By • 13 Comments
Click here for more stories on the Gulf oil spill

Since oil started gushing into the Gulf of Mexico six weeks ago, government officials have cycled through a series of crisis-management messages. First they were monitoring BP's response, then working with BP, then keeping "a boot on the neck" of BP. Then they were distancing themselves from BP, refusing to share a podium with BP, and finally, this week, investigating BP. Amid the evolving debate about government's role in the disaster cleanup — a debate that has drawn fine distinctions between who's "responsible," who's "accountable" and who's "in charge" — one thing officials haven't ... Read More

More like this: Politics, The Idea Lobby
Tags: , , ,

Mopping Up: From Hairballs to Penguin Transit

May 14, 2010 • By • 2 Comments
mmw_crowdsourcing

As the crude continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico from the deadly Deepwater Horizon oil well disaster, observers are barraged with snapshots of past cleanup tactics tried, tested or hopeful. So far, response to this disaster has tended more toward hope over help, as BP and U.S. Coast Guard efforts to date — using fire, dispersants, booms, absorbents and a massive dome designed to siphon the oil into a tanker sitting more than 5,000 feet above the wellhead — have not worked to any extent. Meanwhile, 40 percent of the nation’s wetlands lay in the oil slick’s path, to say nothing ... Read More

More like this: Environment, Science & Environment
Tags: ,

What About Spilled Oil That Doesn’t Reach Shore?

May 11, 2010 • By • 1 Comment

As the oily goo from the massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico begins to come ashore, the immediate concern is for the devastating effects it will have on the shore birds and sea life in the coastal regions. But what of the long-term effects on the ocean itself? David Valentine, a biologist with the University of California, Santa Barbara, worries as much about the effects of the hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude settling on the sea floor, where much of the gushing oil is likely to settle. While the obvious immediate danger is to the coastal areas — and oil has already started to ... Read More

More like this: Environment, Science, Science & Environment
Tags: , , ,

Oil Cleanup Cure May Be Worse Than Disease

May 7, 2010 • By • 7 Comments

Irving Mendelssohn, a Louisiana wetland ecologist, knows what won’t work if and when the oil slick in the Gulf reaches his marshy coastline. Unfortunately, he’s not sure what will. “The most important thing is that you don’t send hundreds of people walking into the wetlands, pushing that oil into the soil,” he said. “You can’t have people stomping around in their boots. And you don’t want machines like tractors pushing the oil into the soil. That would definitely kill the vegetation.” All other “remediations” are problematic, too, Mendelssohn said. As a professor ... Read More

More like this: Environment, Science & Environment
Tags: , , , ,

The Science of Green Microbes

April 19, 2010 • By • 3 Comments
Hanford Site

A ribbon of blacktop lined with telephone poles is the only human signature for 10 miles beyond the security checkpoint at the Hanford Site in the high plains desert of southeastern Washington. The gently rolling hills are stark, an uninterrupted sprawl of sagebrush and brown cheatgrass, until the harsh geometric silhouettes of entombed nuclear reactors begin to punctuate the landscape. The once prolific nuclear production site has the aura of an Old West ghost town, except for the incongruous presence of bulldozers, trucks and workers in hazmat suits. Today, Hanford is the site of the ... Read More

More like this: Environment, Magazine Feature Story, May-June 2010, Science, Science & Environment
Tags: , , , , ,

50 Years After America’s Worst Nuclear Meltdown

August 24, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment

For Release Saturday A.M., August 29, 1959 CANOGA PARK, CA "During an inspection of fuel elements on July 26 at the Sodium Reactor Experiment, operated for the Atomic Energy Commission at Santa Susana, California by Atomics International, a division of North American Aviation, Inc., a parted fuel element was observed. The fuel element damage is not an indication of unsafe reactor conditions. No release of radioactive materials to the plant or its environs occurred and operating personnel were not exposed to harmful conditions... In each case, all seven tubes of the fuel element ... Read More

More like this: Environment, Science & Environment
Tags: , , , ,

The Salt Mine Solution

April 16, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment

The "nice" elevator is right out of a luxury hotel with a smooth ride and room for 75 people. It has six degrees of safety redundancy, which means that if one cable were to snap, several others, plus an emergency brake or two, would prevent the six of us from hurtling to our deaths. But just as I'm adjusting the self-rescuer respirator on my utility belt, we get the news: There's a problem with the "nice" elevator. We have to take the salt shaft. The "other" elevator is really a glorified cage pulled along a single cable through a vertical salt shaft; it has one level of redundancy and ... Read More

More like this: Environment, May-June 2009, Science & Environment
Tags: , , , , ,

The Three Pillars of Nuclear Waste Cleanup

February 3, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment

This is Part Three of a three-part series on nuclear waste. Part One covered what it will take to clean up the mess left by the nuclear arms race. Part Two outlined key issues that need to be addressed by all sides in cleaning up defense nuclear sites. In attempting to clean up the radioactive remnants of America's nuclear weapons programs, the most salient obstacle doesn't revolve around half lives and salt beds but on the miasma of mistrust that pits two sides — each ultimately sharing the other's goal — at each other's throat. Cold War secrecy and the self-regulatory status of the ... Read More

More like this: Environment, Science & Environment
Tags: , , , ,

Tradeoffs Abound in Nuclear Waste Cleanup

January 29, 2009 • By • 3 Comments

This is Part Two of a three-part series on nuclear waste. Part One covered what it will take to clean up the mess left by the nuclear arms race. Part Three will illustrate how openness, accountability and trust can lead to effective actions to reduce present and future risks. What does "cleanup" mean when applied to nuclear materials production sites? How will we know when cleanup is successfully achieved? One might say "when the sites meet risk-based standards to protect human health." Assuming for the moment that everyone agrees on these standards, their views, nonetheless, differ ... Read More

More like this: Environment, Science & Environment
Tags: , ,