pollution Archives

15 December 2010

Chemicals unleashed: Air quality during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill

For me, the term volatile organic compounds sounds like a group of renegade chemicals on a bender. Sadly, there were no pictures of “chemicals gone wild” in this morning’s poster session A31B Gulf of Mexico Air Quality and Climate Impacts: Urban and Regional Pollution Including the 2010 Oil Spill I Posters. Bottom line? The oil released when the rig exploded and sank not only pumped pollution into the ocean. It affected the air too.

Pumping oxygen into lakes may reduce mercury contamination

Doctors sing the praises of the fatty acids found in fish, but lament the toxic affects of eating fish contaminated with mercury. Fisherman are warned against taking fish from nearly one-third of lakes in the U.S. because of high concentrations of mercury. In some freshwater lakes, the most harmful form of mercury, methylmercury, tends to build up in oxygen-free layers that occur at the bottom of the body of water. But injecting oxygen just above the lake’s bottom affects the levels of methylmercury in the water, a new study finds.

Too much fertilizer is bad for biofuels

Like fast food junkies who pile on extra fries because it’ll only cost a couple cents more, growers in the U.S. dump tons of fertilizer on their fields because it’s cheap and the extra food can’t hurt their crops, right? Well, for farmers raising corn for the food and biofuel business that might not be such a good idea.