In a study this last April by Pacella et al., the authors projected the rise of carbon dioxide (CO2) in seagrass environments is about twice the projected rate of change in the open ocean. This indicates that these habitats and estuaries in general may be especially sensitive to ocean acidification. But what is ocean acidification?
While our city, county, and state governments are trying to curb the abuse of prescription drugs and the illicit drug markets, environmentalists are waging a different war.
Painkillers, antidepressants, high-blood pressure, and countless of other types of medications are continually being prescribed and used throughout the country. While many of these medications are legally prescribed, they are also often disposed in an improper manner by the general public.
On August 17, Washington Attorney General’s Office filed a petition seeking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a fish culvert decision by the lower Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. This stems from a 2013 decision by the District Court for the Western District of Washington that ruled in favor of the federal government and Washington tribes, in that Washington State was ordered to replace hundreds of culverts under state highways, at an estimated cost of billions of dollars, by 2030.
The Northwest public recently saw the second publication of quarterly oil train data for Washington. Although much about the industry is still not widely known, the Department of Ecology reports add considerably to our understanding of oil-by-rail in the region.
In 2001, the lower part of the Duwamish River, also known as the Lower Duwamish Waterway (LDW) in Seattle, WA, was put on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) National Priorities List. This list puts priority to cleanup toxic contaminated sites throughout the nation. These are known as Superfund sites and the agencies responsible for overseeing the LDW cleanup are the EPA and the Washington State Department of Ecology.
King County’s West Point wastewater treatment plant is finally seeing a reprieve after several weeks of heavy rainfall. As of Friday, King County’s Wastewater Treatment Division reported that due to light expected precipitation, they are not anticipating any need for emergency wastewater bypasses of the diluted stormwater in the near term.
After enormous amounts of rain today in the Western Washington area, the King County Wastewater Treatment Division reported that they had experienced flooding at their West Point Treatment Plant in Seattle, WA.
As a result, they've had to shut down some of their operations and divert 150-200 million gallons of combined stormwater and wastewater to an emergency bypass outfall into Puget Sound since about 2:30 a.m. Thursday morning.
Though not completely relevant to Environmental Issues, if you happened to miss Obama's farewell speech, you can catch it here!
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