In its second year, SXSW Eco is a three-day conference in Austin, TX addressing the need for a concerted, cross sector approach to solving the recognized challenges facing the economy, the environment and civil society.
Oil and gas drilling can usually protect groundwater when enough effort is taken to install well casings and cement them properly. But even those safeguards may fail in karst formations, as the Bureau of Land Management's experience in New Mexico shows.
Land contamination may be as important as the direct radiation dose to humans in setting safety standards for nuclear plants, the disaster at Japan's Fukushima site suggests.
"Two Pacific Northwest conservation organizations are seeking permission from a federal court in Washington to fight a lawsuit that aims to limit the use of science to help manage U.S. national forests."
"AUBURN, Ala. -- Scientific testing has confirmed a link between oil from the massive BP spill and tar found on Alabama beaches after Hurricane Isaac."
"Canadian mining giant Teck Resources Ltd. has admitted in a U.S. court that effluent from its smelter in southeast British Columbia has polluted the Columbia River in Washington for more than a century."
"A U.S. farmer group on Tuesday dropped its opposition to efforts by Dow AgroSciences to roll out a new biotech crop system in exchange for some concessions by Dow, including help investigating any accidental crop damage."
"Nearly two years before peace activists broke into a U.S. nuclear weapons facility in late July, government investigators warned in classified reports of lax security at the complex where the nation's largest concentration of weapons-grade uranium is stored."
"CHICAGO -- For two decades, one of the most commonly used type of rail tanker has been allowed to haul hazardous liquids from coast to coast even though transportation officials were aware of a dangerous design flaw that almost guarantees the car will tear open in an accident, potentially spilling cargo that could catch fire, explode or contaminate the environment."
Eleven years after the 9/11 terrorism attack, Department of Homeland Security officials explained to a House Energy subcommittee why their program to harden security at U.S. chemical plants still hasn't been implemented.
