Eau Claire sacked with 14.3 inches of snow

Early Sunday morning it started snowing in Eau Claire and it didn't stop for a full 24 hours. All told Eau Claire got a full 14.3 inches of snow. According to the the Leader-Telegram "A full residential plowing operation is in currently in progress. Because of the amount of snow and need to re-plow the arterial streets following additional snowfall in the early morning hours, the full residential plowing is expected to take longer than normal to complete. The residential plowing is anticipated to be completed between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Monday afternoon."

The bad weather grounded flights out of Minneapolis, and there were numerous weather related traffic accidents "including a jackknifed semi that closed a westbound lane of Interstate 94 near Menomonie about 2 a.m. Monday." 

The sustained snowfall is indicative of a cold front and an extra tropical cyclone. 

Chemical Spill in New Jersey

The train cars in the Mantua River. Photo from the South Jersey Times. 

New Jersey can't seem to catch a break. According to the South Jersey Times a bridge collapse has caused a train derailment and chemical spill into Mantua Creek in Paulsboro, New Jersey early this morning. Three tanker cars spilled their contents in to the creek. One car spilled the chemical vinyl chloride and the chemicals spilled by the other cars are still unknown. Vinyl chloride is poisonous. Certain areas like a nearby school have been locked down and people experiencing respiratory prob;lems re being told to go the emergency room. The South Jersey Times provided a list of facts about vinyl chloride.

• It's used to make PVC which is used in a variety of common plastic products such as pipes, cable coatings, packing materials etc.
• Heavier than air and can travel along the ground
• Burns easily is not stable at high temperatures
• Exposure may cause eye or throat irritation, headache, shortness of breath.
• Breathing high levels of Vinyl Chloride can cause dizziness and/or sleepiness
• Breathing very high levels can cause loss of consciousness
• Breathing extremely high levels can cause death

This accident is an example of a technological hazard. What is also surprising to me is that according to the South Jersey Times this bridge has collapsed before. It collapsed in 2009 and a coal train spilled 16 rail cars into the same creek. There is always risk associated with using and transporting hazardous materials, but it is outrageous that the root cause of this technological hazard is shoddy bridge construction. There is a reasonable expectation for a bridge that was built to carry trains to last more than four years. The fault here lies with whoever built or repaired this bridge after the 2009 accident.

This reminds me of The Airborne Toxic Event from the book White Noise, by Don DeLillo. 

Also According to the EPA,"vinyl chloride emissions ... may reasonably be anticipated to result in an increase in mortality or an increase in serious irreversible, or incapacitating reversible illness. Vinyl chloride is a known human carcinogen that causes a rare cancer of the liver." So yeah, awesome news for New Jersey. 

Staten Island feeling neglected as NYC and other areas regain power

Staten Island. Image from the NY Times. 

The people of Staten Island are feeling angry and forgotten as NYC and New Jersey recover form Sandy. IT seems that the media attention and Red Cross presence has been lacking in Staten Island, one of the hardest hit areas by the storm.
This seems to me to be an example of media and public attention being captured by the big important areas while other lesser known areas suffer because of a lack of attention. Although now it seems that Staten island is getting some recognition. Like this article in the NY Times and this video form Rock Center with Brian Williams.

New York Times Posts Infographics of Sandy Flooding

This is not what Sandy actually looked like.

Floodwaters from Hurricane Sandy rushing into the PATH station in Hoboken, New Jersey through an elevator shaft. Source NYTimes.

As hurricane Sandy crashed into the North East yesterday many people found themselves without power. Because of this power outage many websites that are headquartered on the east coast were and still are down. For a while The Huffington Post's website was down, and Gawker Media's blog sites are all still down as of noon central time Tuesday 10/30. To understand the impact that Sandy has had on the East Coast The New York Times posted several info graphics and accompanying images, here. The Huffington Post reported that 33 people are dead in New York City, and there is standing water in the subways under the East River. According to the Huffington Post, Joseph Lhota, chairman of the regional Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said the damage was the worst in the 108-year history of the New York subway. Sandy even caused blizzards in Maryland and West Virginia.

Frankenstorm!

A monster of a storm is headed for the east coast just in time for Halloween. Hurricane Sandy swept through the Caribbean and if now headed up the east coast. At the same time a nor'easter is headed across the country towards the same area. This article from CBS says that the two storms could meet on tuesday over New York or New Jersey and form a "Frankenstorm" that could inundate most of the east coast with rain.

This image from CBS shows the expected path and arrival time of Sandy.

News coverage of Sandy has been focused on its arrival in New York and New Jersey around Halloween and news sources have had a field day with halloween puns like this one from CBS "Meteorologists expect a natural horror show of high wind, heavy rain, extreme tides and maybe snow to the west beginning early Sunday, peaking with the arrival of Hurricane Sandy on Tuesday and lingering past Halloween on Wednesday." The media has not focused on the at least 40 deaths in Haiti and Cuba which is more horrific or gruesome but much less appropriate for the media to make puns about so these stories have been relegated to the back burner of the media's consciousness.

Canadian Government Allegedly Knew About Iron Sulfate Dumped in Pacific

The name of the company that is is working with the American businessman Russ George has come to light and they are claiming that they had the knowledge and consent of the Canadian government to go ahead with their massive geoengineering project. The company is called the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation (HSRC) and they seeded the pacific ocean with 100 tons of iron sulfate back in July.
HSRC claims that multiple departments within the Canadian Government have known about the project for years. According to The Toronto Star, " 'If this (experiment) happened, it would be in violation of Canada’s Environment Protection Act,” Peter Kent, the Minister of Environment, told the Star. He declined to comment on allegations that Environment Canada was aware if it but did not stop it." HSRC also claims to have been in contact with the U.N. and that they approved a small scale iron seeding project.
Science blog io9.com points out that the are effected by the project is 3,861 square miles, which hardly seems small. Io9.com also points out that the likely motivation for George and HSRC is carbon credits. Quebec has a cap and trade carbon emissions management system. IO9.com surmises that if the experiment goes the way the George and HSRC want it to they will try to get carbon credits from Quebec when their program begins in January, they would then sell these carbon credits to carbon producing industries for a profit. 

100 tons of Iron Sulfate Dumped into Pacific Ocean

According to this article from science blog io9.com, U.S. businessman Russ George, in concentration with a private company and with the (probably coerced) cooperation of a Canadian First Nations Tribe dumped 100 tons of iron sulfate into the pacific ocean.

Io9.com is calling it "the world’s most significant geoengineering project to date." And, as a bonus, the project was super illegal. According to British newspaper The Guardian "International legal experts say George's project has contravened the UN's convention on biological diversity (CBD) and London convention on the dumping of wastes at sea, which both prohibit for-profit ocean fertilization activities."

George and his team of private scientists dumped the iron sulfate into the ocean because they believe that the iron sulfate will cause an algal bloom that will trap carbon and sink it to the bottom of the ocean. According to The Guardian “Scientists (independent of the dumping experiment) are debating whether iron fertilization can lock carbon into the deep ocean over the long term, and have raised concerns that it can irreparably harm ocean ecosystems, produce toxic tides and lifeless waters, and worsen ocean acidification and global warming.”  Algal blooms in the Gulf of Mexico have led to massive dead zones that are depleted of oxygen and cannot sustain life.

In addition to defying UN rules, George also coerced cooperation and funding out of a First Nations village on the island of Haida Gwaii. The village let the scientists dump the iron sulfate off the coast of the island and even donated 1 million dollars to the project. They were told that the project would help the ocean’s ecosystem and the salmon population. A representative for the village said they were not informed of any violations of UN rules or of possible negative effects and if they had known they would have not supported the project.

For me this project is a huge violation of public trust and of the general rules of how you conduct a scientific experiment. They are putting the ocean and the people that base their livelihoods on it at stake. To me this has all the markers of a technological hazard. It could have been avoided if Russ George was not suffering from some sort of eco-warrior world saving hubris.

Image from The Guardian. Red and oreange areas indicate algal blooms.

Most states do not factor global warming into their hazard preparedness plans

The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is petitioning the federal government and FEMA to make states take into account the impact of global warming when planning for future natural hazards. According to this post from the NRDC staff blog, currently the vast majority of state plans either underestimate or completely ignore the effect that climate change will have on their flooding and drought risks. Few states have voluntarily taken this into account, but the NRDC wants to make it mandatory for all states in order to be eligible to receive hazard mitigation funding from FEMA. 

This map from the NRDC shows projecte water supply sustainability for the year 2050. The southwest isn't looking so good.

This is especially important given that this July the U.S. Department of Agriculture declared that more than 1,000 counties in 26 states were drought disaster areas – the largest such declaration in history, as published by Bloomberg news. In the future droughts caused by global warming are predicted to affect 1/3 of all counties in the lower 48 states, according to an NRDC study. 

One reason that immediately came to my mind as to why states are not factoring global warming into their hazard plans is because global warming is controversial. I think certain states are so opposed to acknowledging climate change that they would rather have insufficient hazard plans. They are putting a political ideology ahead of people's lives. Or maybe they are just lazy because they know they will get money from FEMA regardless of how accurate their hazard plans are. 

Rising sea levels are washing away UNESCO heritage sites in Ghana

These UNESCO heritage sites happen to be old salve trading forts, but they are part of Ghana's national heritage all the same. They also provide a valuable source of tourism revenue for the country. One fort Ada Foah’s Fort Kongenstein, an 18th  century Danish trading fort, has already sunk into the ocean. According an article from The Christian Science Monitor, climate change is the cause. Sea levels in parts of Accra, Ghana’s capital, could rise by up to 80 centimeters by 2100, according to a study he authored. The coast in the capital is receding at just over one meter a year, he says, while Ada Foah loses about 3.5 meters a year, according to a recent University of Ghana study.

In addition the homes of many people who rely on fishing to make a living are at risk of falling into the sea. The article says that although many people's lives and homes are in danger people refuse to move because living off of the sea is all that they know. Often when a storm hits people flee their homes and hope that they are still standing when they return.

According to this map from the site Prevention Web, a site focused on "the disaster reduction community" many major cities in Africa are at risk of being inundated by rising sea levels.

Here is the the UNESCO heritage site listing for Ghana.

Are there too many people trying to summit The Himalayas these days?

An avalanche on Mount Manaslu in Nepal this past weekend killed 8 climbers and and injured scores of others. Many had to be airlifted to safety after the avalanche buried 25 tents and washed climbers hundreds of feet down the mountain.
While this CNN article says that avalanches are just an objective risk of climbing large peaks, it also says that this avalanche has brought to light the idea that the sheer numbers of people trying to climb these Himalayan peaks are putting people in danger.
The article cites that "A total of 10 climbers died on Everest in April and May, making it the third deadliest spring season on record after 12 people perished in 1996 and 11 in 2006." Part of this danger was the weather but it was also partially the amount of people trying to summit at the same time was forcing people to wait in line, where while waiting people were much more likely to suffer from frost bite or run out of oxygen.
This inordinate amount of climbers is thought to be caused by inexperienced climbers getting cheap deals on peak climbing season packages and irresponsible tour companies who will take people to the peaks regardless of their experience level. This crush of people coupled with their inexperience creates an environment much more susceptible to hazards and death.
The case of climbers dying from hazards while trying to summit Mount Everest or other peaks is very different from casualties from other types of hazards. This is because the exposure to these hazards is voluntary, where as most other hazard deaths come from involuntary exposure. The avalanche on Mount Manaslu was an instance of voluntary exposure to an  what CNN calls an "objective hazard -- a risk that you cannot control and one all climbers must accept."

Here is an article about how deaths can happen on Mount Everest and other Himalayan Peaks.
Here is a video from CNN about the rescue effort on Mount Manaslu.

Ninth Hantavirus Case from Yosemite

A ninth case of the deadly hantavirus that originated in Yosemite has been identified. Hantavirus is a disease that of transmitted to humans through the feces and urine of rodents. According to the LA Times, this ninth case of hantavirus was less severe then the previous cases. This person was diagnosed with hantavirus infection, and the disease did not progress to the more deadly hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. Three people who were infected with hantavirus pulmonary syndrome have already died.

The infection have been traced to a tent cabin campsite in Yosemite National Park. Yosemite has warned 3100 people of potential hantavirus exposure by mail and recently warned an additional 230,000 people by email. According to the Yosemite website there is a park safety alert in effect.

According to the CDC, hantavirus begins with flu like symptoms and muscle spasms. In fatal cases of hantavirus the patients die from fluid buildup in the lungs. The CDC also has a guide for safely dealing with rodents to prevent the transmission of hantavirus.

Diseases definitely constitute an environmental hazard because they pose a potential threat to humans and their welfare. Since hantavirus is not communicable between humans and is not a widespread disease it can't be classified as a disaster, but these outbreaks do raise questions about our ability to deal with deadly diseases.

These are the tent cabins in Yosemite where 9 people were infected with hantavirus. Photo from the LA Tims.

New England's not-so-rare Tornadoes

This past weekend two, that's right two, tornadoes struck the United States, but they didn't uproot any trailer homes in the lower Midwest. Instead they terrorized Brooklyn, and the Breezy Point neighborhood of Queens, both in New York City. Few injuries and no casualties were reported. Above is a picture from the Associated Press that shows the funnel cloud in Breezy Point. The tornadoes were part of a line of storms that swept across all of New York state this week.
According to the NBC article tornadoes were "once exceedingly rare in New York, but they have occurred with regularity in recent years." It is unclear if this increase in storms is attributed to global warming but there does seem to be a correlation between warmer temperatures and increased NY tornadoes.
CNN has an video of the formation of one of the tornadoes.
While the NYC tornadoes were the strangest of this weeks weather events, another tornado struck Oklahoma and killed 4 people.

Baby Krakatau has a Baby Eruption

The Anak Krakatau volcano in Indonesia had a minor eruption over the weekend. The volcano shot out a 400 foot cloud of ash. Indonesian scientists are warning people to stay away from the volcano which sits by itself in the Sunda Strait, but that nearby island villages are safe.
The Anak Krakatau volcano was "born" in 1930. It rose out of the ocean on the site of the infamous Krakatau volcano which violently erupted in 1883 and killed 36,000 people. Anak Krakatau literally means "Child of Krakatau."
Volcanic eruptions are an environmental hazard that has no correlation with human activity. Krakatau's 1883 eruption was an early modern tragedy that will not be paralleled in this century. Hopefully this little outburst from Baby Krakatau is all that happens to Indonesia.
For more information check out the source article from Newsday.com.

To learn more about Krakatau (or Krakatoa as it is sometimes called) and volcanoes in general the Discovery Channel has a great interactive resource and volcano creator.