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Water

water conservation keeps rivers and lakes cleanThe average American uses approximately 126 gallons of water per day, making us the largest water consumers per capita in the world. Canadians are a close second, while many European countries use half as much water we do, and most developing countries use less than 15 gallons each day.

When you are living out of a canoe or kayak, you haul your own water from the rivers and lakes you travel on and quickly realize how little water you really need. Amy and I can easily get by on 3 gallons of water per day for washing, cooking, and drinking.

Now I am not suggesting that you tell the utility company to turn off your water, because you are going to start hauling it from the nearest stream.  But there are plenty of ways to conserve water, which in the end is good for the environment and your wallet.

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Oil spill pollutes tributary of China's Yellow River

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Agence France-Presse: A tributary of China's Yellow River has been polluted by an oil spill, state-run media reported Saturday, in the latest environmental accident to threaten the nation's drinking water. About 1,000 tonnes of oil sludge has contaminated farmland and the Luohe River in northern Shaanxi province after a recycling pool at a sewage treatment plant collapsed last Sunday, the China Daily said. More than 2,000 people have been scrambling to clean up the mess and eight containment belts ...

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How to plan better for New England floods

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Christian Science Monitor: As flood waters recede in rain-soaked New England, March's record-smashing storms highlight the need for planners in the region to place an increased emphasis on reducing flood risks and boosting their communities' resilience to floods. Focus not only should be placed on nuts-and-bolts, concrete-and-rebar projects such as upgrades to roads, bridges, culverts, and municipal drainage systems. Planners need to update the basic information on rainfall intensity they use to determine the ...

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Obama Stops In Massachusetts For Briefing On Floods

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Associated Press: Detouring from his schedule, President Barack Obama visited with emergency workers struggling against disastrous flooding in the Northeast on Thursday. Obama's helicopter landed at a county airport and the president's motorcade headed to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Framingham, about 20 miles west of Boston. White House officials said Obama was scheduled to meet with Gov. Deval Patrick and other officials between an afternoon rally for health overhaul ...

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Environmentalists blast Obama mining rule reversal

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Associated Press: The same week President Barack Obama riled environmentalists with plans for offshore oil drilling, he faces criticism for signaling he will support a Bush-era policy criticized as giving mining companies unlimited access to public lands to dump toxic waste. The administration asked a federal judge Tuesday to dismiss a challenge by environmental and community groups to a rule that lifted a restriction on how much public land companies can use. The groups are also challenging a 2008 ...

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Russia: Ecologists fear for Baikal as Putin saves factory

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Reuters: On the shores of Lake Baikal, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is held up as a savior and cursed as a scourge after allowing a Soviet-era paper mill to reopen beside the world's largest freshwater lake. Ecologists have branded Russia's most powerful man as the killer of Baikal, a 25-million-year-old lake believed by local tribes to be sacred, and have mustered thousands of people at protests calling for his resignation. Putin's opponents say he has misjudged the public ...

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China: Cyber attacks against mine opponents in Vietnam, says Google

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Mongabay: Malicious software is being used to spy on critics of a controversial bauxite mine in Vietnam, reports Google. The software, which enables users to type in Vietnamese characters, carries spyware that allows outsiders to remotely access computers upon which it is installed. "These infected machines have been used both to spy on their owners as well as participate in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against blogs containing messages of political dissent," Neel Mehta, ...

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E.P.A. Rules to Limit Water Pollution From Mining

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New York Times: The Environmental Protection Agency issued tough new water quality guidelines on Thursday that could curtail some of the most contentious coal mining techniques used across Appalachia. In announcing the guidelines, Lisa P. Jackson, the agency's administrator, cited evolving science on the effects of mountaintop removal mining, an aggressive form of coal extraction that uses explosives and vast machinery to tear off hilltops to expose coal seams, dumping the resulting rubble into ...

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