Ice Mountain ordered to stop pumping water

In an unexpected and possibly precedent-setting victory for grassroots environmentalists, a judge has slammed the brakes on groundwater withdrawals for Ice Mountain bottled water. The $150-million Nestle plant began pumping last year, after the state’s Department of Environmental Quality issued a permit for it to draw up to 400 gallons per minute from a shallow, underground spring.

The ruling Tuesday gives Nestle Waters North America Inc. three weeks to stop taking groundwater from a shallow aquifer near Big Rapids, MI. Judge Lawrence Root of 49th Circuit Court in Big Rapids said continued withdrawals of up to 400 gallons per minute will exacerbate existing problems with lower lake levels, sluggish streams and drier wetlands in the area.

A community group and several waterfront property owners sued the international company in 2001 after state regulators said they had no legal grounds to stop Nestle.

Unlike surface water — where withdrawals are regulated — the state has virtually no laws restricting groundwater pumping.

Opponents of the plant challenged the pumping by relying on broad environmental statutes and riparian common law.

If the ruling is upheld on appeal, it would set an important precedent for groundwater withdrawal law in Michigan, said Robert Glennon, a University of Arizona law professor. “This ruling has the potential to affect large-scale pumpers located close to lakes and streams.” (Detroit Free Press)

Southern Italy’s poor force nuclear dump u-turn

Silvio Berlusconi’s government was hounded into an embarrassing about-face last night by some of Italy’s poorest and least influential citizens. Faced with protests in southern Italy, ministers withdrew a decree to dump the country’s nuclear waste on the town of Scanzano Jonico in the region of Basilicata.

Berlusconi was quoted as telling his ministers: “We’ve provoked a popular uprising.”

By yesterday, the whole of Matera, the province in which Scanzano Jonico is located, was on strike.

Protesters blocked a main rail link and eight roads, including three motorways. The government had intended to store the waste in an underground vault, considered by some geologists to be the safest place in Italy.

But locals said the dump would contaminate their water supplies and risked destroying the area’s fledgling tourist industry. At the root of the anger was a perception that the country’s waste was being unloaded in the south because its leaders did not dare find a site in the more prosperous and influential north .(Guardian (UK))

Survey finds mercury in four species at markets in Bay Area

Recent reports have raised new concerns about the mercury content of such big, ocean-caught fish as swordfish and tuna, including a study last year of local San Francisco Bay Area residents who ate fish several times a week.

Swordfish, tuna, Chilean sea bass and Alaskan halibut — all popular among health-conscious consumers while also likely to accumulate mercury — were purchased at eight different stores in San Francisco, San Anselmo, San Rafael, Berkeley, Oakland and San Mateo.

The fish was then sent to an independent laboratory and tested for methylmercury, a potent form toxic to the human nervous system.

The results: three types of fish — swordfish, tuna and Chilean sea bass — contained enough mercury in one 6-ounce serving to easily exceed the amount a 120-pound person can safely ingest over a one-week period. And the fourth, halibut, exceeded that level in two 6-ounce servings. Mercury in the environment accumulates as it moves up the food chain, reaching the highest concentrations in large, predator fish. Fish in the diet is the greatest source of methylmercury.

Among the most vulnerable are fetuses, infants and children up to age 12. In those populations, mercury can damage intelligence, learning ability, language and motor skills, and in high levels, cause permanent brain damage.

In adults, it can damage the nervous, cardiovascular, immune and reproductive systems. Symptoms include tremors, memory loss and fatigue. (San Francisco Chronicle)

Study reveals chemical cocktail in every person

A cocktail of potentially harmful man-made chemicals has been found in the blood of every person tested in a new UK study.

The 155 volunteers, including EU environment commissioner Margot Wallström, were tested for 77 chemicals known to be “very persistent”, including gender-bending PCBs, flame retardants and organophosphates in the environment and to accumulate in people’s bodies.

Animal tests have shown that the chemicals can be harmful at high levels, but the long-term effects of the lower levels found in people are not known.

Researchers at the University of Lancaster tested the volunteers from 13 areas of the UK. The highest number of the 77 chemicals found in any one person was 49, and the lowest was 9. The average number was about 30.

The persistence of some chemicals was demonstrated by the fact that 99 percent of the people tested had breakdown products of the pesticide DDT -- banned decades ago in the UK -- in their blood.

WWF wants persistent chemicals to be treated in the same way as chemicals known to be harmful under proposed European legislation, known as REACH. This framework would require the registering, safety evaluation and authorization of thousands of everyday chemicals for the first time and will become law if approved by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. (New Scientist)