In The News / Feb 8

• Modified crops tap a wellspring of protest.

  Farmers from Saskatchewan and South Dakota, Mississippi and Massachusetts lined the walls of a packed federal courtroom in Manhattan last week, as their lawyers told a judge that they were no longer able to keep genetically modified crops from their fields. New York Times

• Sierra Club faces gas-cash fallout.

  Is $26 million worth the reputation of a venerable, 1.4 million member environmental group? Last week's revelations about the 120-year-old Sierra Club's hushed financial marriage to the natural gas industry — and its just-as-secretive divorce — have left some long-time supporters feeling angry, betrayed or misled. Politico

• Air sampling reveals high emissions from gas field.

  When U.S. government scientists sampled the air from a tower north of Denver, Colorado, they expected urban smog — but not strong whiffs of what looked like natural gas. They eventually linked the mysterious pollution to a nearby natural-gas field. Their latest evidence suggests that natural gas might not be much better than coal for the climate. Nature

• Get the frack out of here!

  Around the same time the water started going weird in Pavillion, Wyoming, EnCana started increasing oil and gas production, and residents began noticing things like intense headaches, loss of smell and taste, memory problems and respiratory issues. Indian Country Today

• Welders question PG&E's gas pipeline work.

  Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s old gas lines are riddled with potentially lethal weld flaws, and new welding that the company's crews did during pipeline testing last year is suspect, two veteran welders told state regulators this week. San Francisco Chronicle, California

• Two years after spill, BP profits and plans.

  Less than two years ago, the British oil company BP was worried about its very survival as an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico threatened its finances and reputation. But on Tuesday, BP expressed renewed confidence in its future, reporting $7.7 billion in profit for the fourth quarter of 2011, a 38 percent increase from a year earlier. New York Times

• $4M needed to clean up lead, secure Nigeria mines.

  An international watchdog said Tuesday it will cost about $4 million to clean up toxic lead and secure mines in northern Nigeria, where activists say "the worst outbreak of lead poisoning in modern history" has taken place. Associated Press

• PPG Industries refuses to recall leaded paint in Cameroon.

  PPG Industries has been selling house paint high in lead content in the African nation of Cameroon for years, and although it says it stopped production of that paint late last year, it has rejected a request that it recall or accurately label its lead paints now selling in stores there. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pennsylvania

• A tale of two pollution programs.

  Big polluters can get big state and EU support to improve their performance; small ones can get peanuts or nothing at all. Prague Czech Position, Czech Republic

• Pennsylvania set to allow local taxes on shale gas.

  The Pennsylvania Senate on Tuesday passed legislation that would authorize a tax on the shale gas industry and set uniform standards for development, changes that critics said would leave many municipalities with little control over the use of their land. New York Times

• California cement plant has one of nation's highest mercury emission levels.

  At the end of an empty road just north of Highway 58 and past the outfield wall of an abandoned high school looms the towering Lehigh Southwest Cement plant – a behemoth kiln that belches mercury and other toxics into the air, as it has for decades. California Watch

• In California foothills, a mining dispute harkens back to area's wild Gold Rush era.

  The Wild West spirit lives on in a dispute between government agencies and a landowner in the Sierra Nevada foothills that some officials describe as one of the most egregious cases of illegal mining they have ever encountered. Associated Press

• Earmark investigation: Rep. Norm Dicks and the Puget Sound cleanup.

  In 2008, Dicks secured a $1.82 million earmark for a Washington state agency that worked to clean up Puget Sound and where his son worked as executive director; spawning charges of nepotism, waste and no-bid contracts, according to state audits and political opponents. Washington Post

• Low-lying Louisiana prepares for sea level to rise.

  A scientific report issued by Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration predicts that the Louisiana coast could see about 3 feet of sea level rise along the already low and vulnerable Louisiana coast by 2100 — a prediction that leaves this Cajun coast drowning and under siege from storm surge for decades to come. Associated Press

• Politics may be real climate hazard – experts.

  Climate change impacts may turn out to be a catalyst for worsening conflict. If so, keeping an eye on local politics and the quality of governance could be as important in heading off climate crises as breeding drought-resistant crops or protecting forests, climate security experts said at a recent meeting in London. Reuters