Groundwater uranium (red) and nitrate (blue) contamination levels in two major aquifers and other sites in the United States. Source: Noland & Weber (2015).
In a recent geochemical study, Noland & Weber (2015) have found that two U.S. major aquifers - the High Plains (also called the Ogallala) and Central Valley - are contaminated with naturally occurring groundwater uranium.
The University of Nebraska at Lincoln scientists took about 275.000 samples from the aquifers. The data from their chemical analysis showed that uranium (U) in the groundwater exceeded the EPA maximum contaminant level (MCL = 30 μg/L) across an area of 22375 km2 where 1.9 million live.
According to these University of Nebraska at Lincoln scientists, "approximately 78% of areas where U concentrations were interpolated
above the MCL were correlated to the presence of nitrate".
The study suggests that this groundwater contamination is linked to intensive animal exploitations and agriculture activitities in the region.
China is in a race to catch up with the United States´ level of "development", which means to be able to tear up and contaminate the environment to extract the resources to make things that eventually end up in the garbage dump. There already is a growing middle class which is behaving like a monster with an endless appetite for all kinds of products, including exotic animals which are on the endangered list (Video 1).
Video 1. Chinese animal welfare groups protest against company that extract bear bile.
Where is the famous Chinese wisdom?Why was China´s government not able to plot and follow another course, one friendly to the environment? Unfortunately China fell prey to the Western banksters. Some sources estimate that China´s debt to these banksters is around 235 billion USD.
The price to pay for all of this craziness and insanity to "develop" and live in a toxic bubble can already be seen throughout China: polluted rivers, air contamination, medical problems, tonnes of garbage, toxic waste(Video 2), etc., the typical problems that come along when humankind works against Nature instead of going along with her.
Video 2. Toxic waste water scandal in China.
What is really amazing on thisstupid race to destroy the Earth´s Biosphere on what man (Homo insapiens) has come to call "development", which is an euphemism for exploitation and violation of the Earth´s Rights, China not only owes money to foreign banks but also is the holder of $1.1643trillion in U.S. government debt!
It is obvious that someone else has the economic leash around China´s neck but at the same time China also has the leash around the neck of the most powerful nation on Earth, the United States, and others on the block.
It is a game of "if you squeeze my neck I will squeeze your neck back as well".
Nationsbehave like children playing to be matured and sapiensbut end up being ridiculously inmature and dangerous, for man has taken by brute force the command on a planet that does not belong to him with disastrous results. Furthermore he has just popped up on the grand scene of life on this planet. He must heed Nature´s laws otherwise he will be destroyed. Nature has no favourite children.
The following Datelinereport (Video 3) talks about the increase in cancer cases in rural China, which
is being blamed on toxic industrial waste poisoning the water supply.
It has been correctly said that man does not invent but only imitates nature. With an abysmal difference, nature´s inventions work for the mutual benefit of all of her creation whereas man´s work against the grain of creation. Wherever exceptions there might be they are there not to benefit everybody but only the pockets of a few crooked people.
The process of polymerisation was already millions of years old before man invented plastics, nonetheless Alexander Parkes started his idea with cellulose to begin with. His "invention" has been one of the worst sources of pollution for Mother Earth.
We have filled the entire planet with mountains of plastics. So much so that we are already eating plastic. We now live in a plastic planet. What´s really unfortunate is that we have put to tango the rest of the species without their consent, and in the process we have poisoned them. This is totally unfair and quite stupid.
We are still very far from being trully sapiens. More so than ever despite the grandeur of man´s latest "inventions". We have already taken the lid off Pandora´s Box regarding nanomolecules which are already pouring into the environment. Some experts believe these molecules will turn out to be more dangerous than DDT.
Thus, for the time being it would be best to call this arrogant biped primate Hocus insapiens. Because quite stupid is he.
Aral a once-large saltwater lake straddling the boundary between Kazakstan to the north and Uzbekistan to the south. The shallow Aral Sea (Video 1-2) was formerly the world's fourth largest body of inland water. It nestles in the climatically inhospitable heart of Central Asia, to the east of the Caspian Sea. The Aral Sea is of great interest and increasing concern to scientists because of the remarkable shrinkage of its area and volume in the second half of the 20th century. This change is due primarily to the diversion (for purposes of irrigation) of the riverine waters of the Syr Darya and Amu Darya, which discharge into the Aral Sea and are its main sources of inflowing water.
Video 1. Death of the Aral Sea. Uploaded by:debashir, 14/12/2007
Video 2. Death of the Aral Sea. (In Spanish). Uploaded by Roderik391, 11/03/2011
The sea's northern shore—high in some places, low in others—was indented by several large bays. The low-lying and irregular eastern shores were interrupted in the north by the huge delta of the Syr Darya and in the south were bordered by a wide tract of shallow water. The equally vast Amu Darya delta lay on the lake's southern shore, and along the lake's western periphery extended the almost unbroken eastern edge of the 820-foot- (250-metre-) high Ustyurt Plateau.
Shrinkage of the Aral Sea, 1960--99. From about 1960 the Aral Sea's water level was systematically and drastically reduced because of the diversion of water from the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers for purposes of agricultural irrigation. As the Soviet government converted large acreages of pastures or untilled lands in Uzbekistan, Kazakstan, Turkmenistan, and elsewhere into irrigated farmlands by using the waters of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, the amount of water from these rivers that reached the Aral Sea dropped accordingly. By the 1980s, during the summer months, the two great rivers virtually dried up before they reached the lake. The Aral Sea began to quickly shrink because of the evaporation of its now-unreplenished waters.
By the late 1980s, the lake had lost more than half the volume of its water. The salt and mineral content of the lake rose drastically because of this, making the water unfit for drinking purposes and killing off the once-abundant supplies of sturgeon, carp, barbel, roach, and other fishes in the lake. The fishing industry along the Aral Sea was thus virtually destroyed. The ports of Aral in the northeast and Mŭynoq in the south were now many miles from the lake's shore. A partial depopulation of the areas along the lake's former shoreline ensued. The contraction of the Aral Sea also made the local climate noticeably harsher, with more extreme winter and summer temperatures.
By 1989 the Aral Sea had receded to form two separate parts, the "Greater Sea" in the south and the "Lesser Sea" in the north, each of which had a salinity almost triple that of the sea in the 1950s.
In the late 1990s an island in the Aral Sea, Vozrozhdenya, became the centre of environmental concern. This was of special concern because Vozrozhdenya had been a testing ground for Soviet biological weapons during the Cold War. In addition to testing done there on such agents as tularemia and the bubonic plague, hundreds of tons of live anthrax bacteria were buried on the island in the 1980s. In 1999 still-living anthrax spores were discovered on the site, and scientists feared that when the island was no longer surrounded by water, land vertebrates could carry anthrax to populated areas.
Other environmental problems plagued the region as well. By the end of the century the Aral had receded into three separate lakes. The level of the sea had dropped to 125 feet (36 metres) above sea level, and the water volume was reduced by 75 percent of what it had been in 1960. Almost no water from the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya reached the sea, and, unless drastic action were taken, it seemed likely that the Aral Sea could disappear within 20 to 30 years, leaving a large desert in its place. The health costs to people living in the area were beginning to emerge. Hardest hit were the Karakalpaks, who live in the southern portion of the region. Exposed seabeds led to dust storms that blew across the region, carrying a toxic dust contaminated with salt, fertilizer, and pesticides. Health problems occurred at unusually high rates—from throat cancers to anemia and kidney diseases. Infant mortality in the region was among the highest in the world.
