May 23, 2007 by admin.

Presentation by the Friends of Lamont County

Information regarding the world sulphur glut and other related issues The view-graph presentation provided to concerned residents of Lamont County 2007 05 09 took place in the meeting room of the Lamont Arena. Many residents attended.  The mayor of Mundare was there.  No other elected officials from Lamont County or any of its municipalities were present.

The presentation will be given in Bruderheim early in June.  An exact date for the presentation in Bruderheim has not yet been set but will be announced soon.  Watch the Lamont Leader and look also for a flyer in your mail.

A copy of the PowerPoint presentation regarding the world sulphur glut and other concerns related to sulphur can be accessed through this link. (1.7MB PPT file)

Posted in Explosions & Fires, Community & Industry, Pollution: Health Issues, Emission Incidents & Issues, Sulphur Logistics, World Sulphur Glut, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

May 15, 2007 by admin.

YES! Weekly

Amy Kingsley
Staff writer

Belews Creek, a coal-fired steam station just northwest of Greensboro, spewed more of the gases that contribute to respiratory problems in 2006 than any other power plant in North Carolina, according to preliminary data released by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Duke Energy-owned power plant, which is the second largest in the state, emitted 95,296 tons of sulfur dioxide and 21,179 tons of nitrogen oxide last year. The gases contribute to ground-level ozone and soot, byproducts linked to asthma attacks and decreased lung capacity….(Full Story — off-site; note: it requires 47,648 tonnes of sulphur to be burned to produce 95,296 tonnes of sulphur dioxide)

Posted in Community & Industry, Nitrogen-Oxides, Emission Incidents & Issues, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

May 15, 2007 by admin.

The Daily Post [New Zealand]

By ABIGAIL CASPARI and KELLY MAKIHA

Research into the long term health effects of hydrogen sulphide in Rotorua was prompted by earlier evidence linking illness with exposure to low levels of the gas.

In five years Rotorua residents should know for sure if there are negative health effects from living in the “Sulphur City” or if it’s just a case of a bad smell. A team of nine experts from New Zealand and the United States have embarked on a five-year research project investigating the health effects of being exposed to low levels of hydrogen sulphide over a long period. The team includes academics, optometrists, statisticians, health and geothermal experts….(Full Story — off-site)

Posted in Pollution: Health Issues, Emission Incidents & Issues, Hydrogen-Sulphide | Print | No Comments »

May 12, 2007 by admin.

Billings Gazette

By MATTHEW BROWN
Associated Press

State and federal regulators say a proposed $700 million coal-fired power plant near Great Falls meets the environmental standards needed to qualify for a government loan….
Environmental groups and some Great Falls residents had fought the project based on its high cost and projected pollution emissions. Those include 437 tons annually of sulfur dioxide, 805 tons of nitrogen oxides, 40 pounds of mercury and 2.1 million tons of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming….(Full Story — off-site)

Posted in Nitrogen-Oxides, Heavy-Metal Poisoning & Pollution, Emission Incidents & Issues, Sulphur-Related Construction Costs, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

May 11, 2007 by admin.

folc.ca

Taxation and land-use restrictions for western portion of County of Lamont — without representation on County Council

(See Story)

Posted in Community & Industry | Print | No Comments »

May 11, 2007 by admin.

folc.ca

See Photos

A piece of cowboy logic goes: “Always drink upstream from the herd.”

Unfortunately, short of moving away or going to work elsewhere, for anyone living or working in or near the Industrial Heartland of Alberta there is no way to get upstream from the soiled environment and the dirty air that not all that many years ago were clean.

Another piece of cowboy logic goes: “If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing is to stop digging.”

It’s about time that we stop digging. Visible air pollution isn’t just something to gaze at.

• It is something you smell when you go outside, especially if there is no or little wind, and you wish you could go without breathing.
• It causes the paint on your car and on your house to fade and to become defective.
• It causes steel to rust and galvanized steel to lose its zinc-coating.
• It causes electric fences to lose their effectiveness. If you are a farmer and wonder why your electric fences don’t work as well as they did when you got them set up, you will get an explanation if you check the electrical conductivity of the zinc-oxide-coating your fence wires acquired in just a handful of years. You will find that your fence wires are now in effect insulated wires.
• It causes respiratory problems in children and the elderly.

The list goes on, and the problems will get worse until things get to be as bad as they are now in China, and people here too die each year in numbers that can no longer be ignored.

We should stop digging now while we still can, so that we don’t have to dig graves when it’s much too early, while wishing we didn’t have to dig.

Posted in Community & Industry, Pollution: Health Issues, Acid Rain, Emission Incidents & Issues, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

May 9, 2007 by admin.

Daily Mirror, e-edition

Of all the rapidly developing countries, China is the most fascinating. The country is vast, its history and culture right up to Maoist times exotic, it’s present rate of development dizzying, and it’s poised to be the next superpower. Goods made in China, cheaper than Japanese products, have found a place in most households across Asia and Africa.

Behind this happy picture, however, there is a less evident and highly disturbing tale of environmental disaster. Chinese leaders are finally showing signs that they know what’s happening. In the 11th five-year plan, the economic policy blueprint approved in 2005, they announced a change of emphasis that in some ways admitted knowledge of the degree of environmental degradation behind China’s great leap forward in industry during the past two decades….(Full Story — off-site)

Posted in Acid Rain, Pollution: Health Issues, Community & Industry, Nitrogen-Oxides, Heavy-Metal Poisoning & Pollution, Hydrogen-Sulphide, Emission Incidents & Issues, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

May 8, 2007 by admin.

GNN (Guerilla News Network)

Weapons of Mass Distraction

Death From Above: Acid Rain in Buenos Aires

Well guess what? Not only we’re back to the turbulent years of the 1970s, we also have reports of major levels of a very dangerous type of pollution, also from those crappy years.

Just last week many residents of the city of Buenos Aires (BA) (the capital of Argentina and biggest city of the country) reported massive cases of acid rain, a [type] of pollution known for being highly [corrosive - the term used in the original article is “abrasive”] to materials, extremely dangerous to living creatures and, yep, a big source of CANCER.

Now, why there’s acid rain in BA? after all there’s a source for everything, specially pollution…

The thing is, one of the main sources of acid rain is sulphur. When sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are emitted into the atmosphere, these undergo a chemical transformation and are absorbed by water droplets in clouds. The droplets then fall to earth as rain, snow, mist, dry dust, hail, or sleet.

The result? A rain of death….(Full Story — off-site)

Posted in Pollution: Health Issues, Acid Rain, Nitrogen-Oxides, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

May 8, 2007 by admin.

Shell’s Misleading Ad: Complaints Submitted, ‘Oil Refineries Emit Smoke Not Flowers’

BELGIUM, UK, THE NETHERLANDS - May 8 -Complaints are being filed today, May 8, in three European countries against a shameless advert that makes exaggerated and misleading green claims about oil giant Shell’s operations.

Friends of the Earth International is filing simultaneous complaints to the national advertising standards authorities of Belgium, the Netherlands, and the UK about Shell’s advert which depicts the outline of an oil refinery emitting flowers rather than smoke and claims that it uses its “waste CO2 to grow flowers and [its] waste sulphur to make concrete”….(Full Story — off-site)

Posted in Community & Industry, Emission Incidents & Issues, Sulphur Logistics | Print | No Comments »

May 7, 2007 by admin.

[US] Army Times

Sugar replaces sulfur to ease impact on soldiers, environment
Staff report (off-site)

Posted in Pollution: Health Issues, Emission Incidents & Issues | Print | No Comments »