DK GreenRoots

One week after the publication of a report in Science documenting the negative environmental impacts of mountaintop removal mining, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report in response to inquiries from two Senate committees. The GAO report examined oversight for Appalachian mountaintop removal sites, including 2343 sites permitted for valley fills from 2000 to 2008.

Promoted by the editors.

The horror is unimaginable. A community suffering severe health effects, with more than a thousand residents blaming coal ash contamination for causing their sickness, including grisly birth defects in their children. This, according to a recent investigative story in the Miami Herald. Go to the article to see a photo of Maximiliano Calcaño, a two-year old boy born with no arms. His mother is quoted: "When I was pregnant, I was dizzy, vomiting and could barely walk. Then my baby was born like that, with no arms."

As reported, a Virginia-based power company, AES Corporation, is blamed for causing these health problems after illegally dumping 160 million pounds of coal ash in the Dominican Republic. The company is accused of hiring a contractor to ship the coal ash -- a byproduct of burning the fossil fuel at power plants -- to Samaná, on the Dominican Republic's Atlantic coast, where it sat for two years. Later, villagers began to complain of children being born with horrible disorders, such as missing limbs or having organs on the outside of their bodies. Last week, a class action lawsuit was filed in a Delaware court alleging AES is responsible for the health problems in Samaná and should be held liable for correcting the situation.

The EPA has completed a comprehensive analysis of toxicity in U.S. lakes and reservoirs. Fish tissue samples were collected from 500 lakes and reservoirs in 47 mainland states, and every sample contained levels of mercury and PCBs. Of those samples, nearly half contained mercury levels in excess of the EPA's "safe" limit.

In the EPA's press release, there are a couple of areas which present interesting language.

In Sayerville, NJ, the doors of the Center for Lifelong Learning recently opened. It's a school that can serve up to 175 students with autism and related disorders, providing education and training for many life skills which are taken for granted by neurotypicals.

Here's the kicker.

The facility, designed by USA Architects, is one of the first public school buildings in the state to be built according to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards, and could become the first to be certified LEED Platinum. This is due largely to its all-natural building materials and its use of green power.

About 94 percent of the materials used to build the facility are recyclable, and all the materials were purchased within a 500-mile radius, many of which were harvested specifically for the project, according to MRESC Superintendent Mark Finkelstein. There are also geothermal wells under the building that catch nearly 75 percent of the rainfall to be recycled and reused.

After Hurricane Katrina, tens of thousands of families from Louisiana and Mississippi, displaced by the storm that destroyed their homes, were placed in trailers provided by the federal government. Almost immediately calls began to come in to FEMA complaining about breathing problems and other maladies as a result of staying in the trailers.

It turns out the building materials in the trailers, primarily the carpeting and, even more so, the wood paneling, were emitting formaldehyde at up to 400 times the legal limits. As usual, there was a government cover-up to downplay the negative health impacts of formaldehyde, a known cancer suspect agent and highly toxic gas.

But that's not what this diary is about.

It's about efforts by the Obama administration (through the EPA) and a Democratic Senator, Amy Klobuchar, to make sure this NEVER happens again and to ensure the safety of ALL Americans when it comes to formaldehyde in their homes.

A major reason DK Greenroots exists.

Well lookie there, Sheldon Whitehouse and James Inhofe agree on an environmental issue, albeit for different reasons.

This is disappointing.

Toyota's Prius was a step in the right direction, but

So far over 700 Toyota car owners have submitted photos to MoveOn.org's campaign calling for Toyota to withdraw its membership from the US Chamber of Commerce.

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If you take a look at the whole photo set you'll notice this isn't the bunch of "extreme environmentalists" that I am sure Toyota and the US Chamber would like to think they are. These are just normal, everyday people who are ticked off that on the one hand Toyota sells an environmentally friendly image while at the same time they continue to be a part of the US Chamber of Commerce, an industry lobby group that is fighting very hard to convince politicians in Washington, DC to oppose President Obama's clean energy and climate change plans.

This actually isn't the first such two-faced act by Toyota. For years they were involved in a lawsuit in California to fight stricter tailpipe standards for greenhouse gas emissions. All the while marketing their brand as eco-friendly. My personal favorite is still the Kermit the Frog"it's not easy being green" campaign Toyota ran a few years back.

Discuss amongst yerselves.