Environmental Sciences Commons^™

Oil Contamination In Ogoniland, Niger Delta, Olof Lindén, Jonas Pålsson

Jonas Pålsson

The study shows extensive oil contamination of rivers, creeks, and ground waters in Ogoniland, Nigeria. The levels found in the more contaminated sites are high enough to cause severe impacts on the ecosystem and human health: extractable petroleum hydrocarbons (EPHs) (>10-C40) in surface waters up to 7420 μg L−1, drinking water wells show up to 42 200 μg L−1, and benzene up to 9000 μg L−1, more than 900 times the WHO guidelines. EPH concentrations in sediments were up to 17 900 mg kg−1. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons concentrations reached 8.0 mg kg−1, in the most contaminated sites. The contamination …

Oil Contamination In The Niger Delta, Jonas Pålsson, Olof Lindén

Jonas Pålsson

Oil spills in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria has occurred frequently since oil extraction started in the 1950's. The oil spills originates from facilities and pipelines, leaks from ageing and abandoned infrastructure and from spills during transport and artisanal refining of stolen oil under primitive conditions. It is estimated that spills in Nigeria amount to 100 000 to 200 000 tons per year and have been doing so for almost 60 years. While a number of reports have been written about the Niger Delta and the civil unrest in this area during the last decades, very few scientific reports …

A Better Direction For California's Climate Change Policy, David Gamage, Mark Gergen

Mark P. Gergen

No abstract provided.

Economics Of Nuclear Power And Climate Change Mitigation Policies, Nico Bauer, Robert Brecha, Gunnar Luderer

Robert J. Brecha

The events of March 2011 at the nuclear power complex in Fukushima, Japan, raised questions about the safe operation of nuclear power plants, with early retirement of existing nuclear power plants being debated in the policy arena and considered by regulators. Also, the future of building new nuclear power plants is highly uncertain. Should nuclear power policies become more restrictive, one potential option for climate change mitigation will be less available. However, a systematic analysis of nuclear power policies, including early retirement, has been missing in the climate change mitigation literature. We apply an energy economy model framework to derive …

Attitudes And Perspectives Of Front-Line Workers In Environmental Policy: A Case Study Of Ohio Epa And Wisconsin Dnr, Sara Rinfret, Michelle Pautz

Michelle Pautz

This research is an effort to focus on frontline regulators with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. An online survey was conducted of frontline regulators in these agencies to explore their knowledge, attitudes, and perspectives on policy implementation. More specifically, we endeavor to answer how frontline workers implement environmental policy. To analyze these data, we use two categorizations of factors (knowledge and attitudes, and contextual factors) offered by May and Winter (2009) to examine what influences the decision making of frontline regulators in their regulatory interactions. We find that despite common presumptions of adversarialism in …

Maine's Climate Future: An Initial Assessment, George Jacobson, Ivan Fernandez, Paul Mayewski, Catherine Schmitt

Ivan J. Fernandez

Earth’s atmosphere is experiencing unprecedented changes that are modifying global climate. Discussions continue around the world, the nation, and in Maine on how to reduce and eventually eliminate emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), other greenhouse gases, and other pollutants to the atmosphere, land, and oceans. These efforts are vitally important and urgent. However, even if a coordinated response succeeds in eliminating excess greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the century, something that appears highly unlikely today, climate change will continue, because the elevated levels of CO2 can persist in the atmosphere for thousands of years to come.

In late …

A Better Direction For California's Climate Change Policy, David Gamage, Mark Gergen

David Gamage

No abstract provided.

Sharing A Vision For Biodiversity Conservation And Agriculture, John Quinn

John E Quinn

No abstract provided.

A High-Resolution, Multi-Channel, Over-Sea-Ice Seismic Reflection Survey Over The Mackay Sea Valley, Granite Harbor, Antarctica, B. Williams, Marvin Speece, Ross Powell

M. A Speece

In the austral summer of 2007, 20.5 km of high-resolution over-sea-ice seismic reflection data were collected in the Granite Harbor region of southern McMurdo Sound over the Mackay Sea Valley. The goal of the survey was to image thin pelagic sediment deposited in the Mackay Sea Valley after the Last Glacial Maximum. A generator–injector air gun was lowered beneath the sea ice through holes drilled by an auger drill system. The recording system was a 60 channel snow streamer with vertically oriented gimbaled geophones spaced 25 m apart. Unique problems in the over-sea-ice seismic reflection survey—noise from the ice column …

C60 Oxide As A Key Component Of Aqueous C60 Colloidal Suspensions, Befrika Murdianti, Joshua Damron, Martha Hilburn, Randall Maples, Rangika Hikkaduwa Koralege, Sathish Kuriyavar, Kevin Ausman

Kevin D. Ausman

Stable aqueous fullerene colloidal suspensions (nC60) are demonstrated to rely on the [6,6]-closed epoxide derivative of the fullerene (C60O) for stability. This derivative is present, though often unrecognized, in small quantities in nearly all C60 starting materials due to a reaction with air. The low-yield formation of nC60 from organic solvent solutions results from a preferential partitioning and thus enrichment of C60O in the colloidal particles. This partitioning is significantly retarded in the nC60 synthesis method that does not involve organic solvent solutions: long-term stirring in water. Instead, this method relies on trace levels of ozone in the ambient atmosphere …