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Gold Mining In the ‘Hood: Morro do Ouro Gold Mine – Paracatu, Brazil
/1 Comment/in Mining /by John AmosHow’d you like to have a fast-growing open-pit gold mine in your neighborhood? That’s a serious question facing the folks in Paracatu, in the Minas Gerais state of eastern Brazil. Gold mining there has occurred since the early 1700’s, but really kicked into high gear with full-scale open-pit mining beginning in the 1980s, becoming the […]
Thanks are (over)due….
/in Mountaintop Mining /by John Amos…to our friends at ERDAS, makers of Imagine, the powerful image processing and mapping software that we use here at SkyTruth. They provide this at a steeply discounted rate to non-profits like us. Almost everything we do uses Imagine; a couple of examples are our time-series of urban growth in Las Vegas, and our […]
Swine Flu and CAFOs – Any Connection?
/in Incidents /by John AmosSwine flu is certainly getting people’s attention, and raising a lot of discussion about factory farming and its possible impacts on our health, as well as the environment. We’ve just published a few satellite views of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) near La Gloria, the town in the state of Veracruz, Mexico, where the first […]
Renewable Energy
/in Biodiversity, Climate, Freshwater, Oil & Gas /by John AmosEverything we do has an impact, and utility-scale renewable energy development is no exception. Wind farms, solar power facilities, and geothermal energy developments share some of the same characteristics that make up the visible “footprint” of oil and gas drilling: access roads, utility corridors, equipment staging/storage. Of course, these renewable energy projects are a lot […]
Cotter Uranium Mill Superfund Site, Colorado
/in Mining, Uranium /by John AmosWe’re finding some interesting things with the FEMA flood data. Yesterday it was coal-combustion waste storage in high-risk flood zones; today it’s uranium mill process wastes: The Cotter Corporation, a subsidiary of General Atomics, began operating a uranium mill on the outskirts of Canon City, Colorado, in 1958. Liquid wastes containing radionuclides and heavy metals […]
Coal Combustion Waste – Another Dirty Aspect of “Clean” Coal
/in Coal, Incidents /by John AmosCoal combustion waste (CCW) is the fly-ash and other residue left over from burning coal. It typically contains toxic components, such as heavy metals, that are known carcinogens. CCW is disposed of in landfills, dumped (legally!) in leaky old mines and quarries, and often stored onsite in large impoundments near the coal-fired power plants. In […]