Articles tagged with: environment
From The Associated Press:
Read the full story »It’s hard to picture the crystal-clear Illinois River that Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson remembers from his youth, how he could look to the bottom and spot a dime, no matter how deep the water.
That was almost 45 years ago, and time has not been a friend. Pristine water has turned to green soup in some places. Algae coats the rocks and pebbles that once seemed to sparkle when the light was just so.
The river’s watershed — where Edmondson saw his first daddy longlegs, floated away endless summer days and still comes to recharge — is the centerpiece of his federal lawsuit against the Arkansas poultry industry, which he says polluted the area with tons of bird waste from hundreds of poultry farms.
From The Journal Record:
Read the full story »Much has been discussed and written recently regarding the rising specter of wind power in general and how its emergence as a truly sustainable energy source will impact Oklahoma specifically. While this growing expansion of understanding of the wind industry has produced proponents and some detractors, it has raised some interesting and unresolved questions. Can the rights to utilize and profit from wind be severed from the land itself? The answer is “yes,” technically speaking. What ramifications might this have on the broader land and mineral rights relationships that have developed in the state over the last century?
From The Daily Oklahoman:
Read the full story »Darla Hugaboom’s home on five acres north of Arcadia is spacious, clean, quiet and safe. But it came with a dirty past.
Police raided the house in 2004 and arrested the then-owner on drug complaints. They found more than 440 pounds of chemicals used to make methamphetamine and a once beautiful home in a filthy state of neglect.
It’s not uncommon. The state Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control estimates there are about 200,000 properties in the state where meth was once made.
Dozens of states have laws requiring meth lab contamination cleanup. Oklahoma doesn’t.
From The Journal Record:
The Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. The toxic waste incident at Love Canal in 1978. The Kingston Fossil Plant fly ash slurry spill in Roane, Tenn., in 2008. What? There was a massive environmental disaster in 2008? Yes, and if you’ve never heard of the Kingston spill, chances are you’re not alone.
At the tail end of last year, one of the worst environmental disasters in the U.S. occurred with relatively little exposure or media coverage. This spill was seemingly swept under the rug in the midst of the holidays and an unraveling economic crisis.
Related: Bokoshe, OK and the true cost of electricity
Read the full story »From The Associated Press:
Read the full story »Two years ago, Orval “Hoppy” Ray vowed it would take someone meaner than him to make him leave the town where he was born.But now the crusty, 84-year-old former miner is moving out, leaving behind a blighted, ghostly landscape, its soil, water and air poisoned by generations of lead-ore extraction that produced bullets for both world wars.
After two heart attacks and a tornado that badly damaged his house, Ray lost whatever fight he had left and decided to accept a government buyout, as nearly all his neighbors in Picher have already done.
From The Associated Press:
Read the full story »A new report shows polluted stormwater, sewer overflows and a manure composting operation likely contributed to bacteria in the Oklahoma River blamed for sickening dozens of triathletes.
The Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality released a draft report released Wednesday that studied 12 bodies of water in the North Canadian River watershed [...] The study shows 11 of the 12 water bodies are in violation of state water standards, including the portion of the river where triathletes swam in the event May 16-17.
