The Buenos Aires metropolitan area’s difficulties in finding a new place to dump its daily output of 12,000 tons of garbage have gone from annoying to worrisome. In January of last year, authorities closed Villa Domínico, which had served for 26 years as the main landfill for the vast metropolitan area’s population of 13 million. The landfill, located 10 minutes south of the federal capital, had drawn increasing opposition from surrounding communities concerned about pollution. Since then, Ceamse, the Argentine government agency that oversees solid-waste issues, has made do by having Buenos Aires’ trash sent to a trio of alternative sites. But these cannot accommodate the city’s trash on a long-term basis. And a recent effort by Ceamse to line up and develop...
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Brazil has become the second nation to sign the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments, citing the environmental and economic costs caused by the invasion of harmful aquatic organisms. Joining Spain as a signatory on Jan. 21, Brazil made clear it hopes the treaty will stem the spread of invasive species such as the golden mussel, a fast-reproducing Asian mollusk that can displace native mussels and clog industrial water intakes. “Foreign ballast water has already allowed a number of harmful mussels into Brazil, the most invasive of which is the golden mussel,” said Robson Calixto, a technical assistant with the Environment Ministry’s coastal and marine environment department. The golden mussel (Limnoperna fortunei), a freshwater mollusk, arrived in...
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Local communities in January boycotted three environmental impact hearings on the second phase of Peru’s Camisea gas system, a month after a pipeline break in the new system sent natural-gas liquids into a stream that feeds the Urubamba River. The boycott forced officials to suspend the hearings on the planned expansion of Camisea, a major natural-gas extraction, processing and transport network that went on line in July. Though some local leaders showed up, representatives of most Urubamba Valley communities said that before attending hearings, they want a full report on the cause of the rupture, an inspection of the entire pipeline, payment of damages to the affected communities, sanctions for the pipeline operator and an independent environmental audit of Camisea. “...[T]he government...
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Hoping to fight indoor air pollution in developing nations by improving cooking practices, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded a $132,000 grant to a U.S. environmental group to introduce clean cooking stoves in Honduras. The grant to Trees, Water & People, a nonprofit organization based in Fort Collins, Colorado, addresses an often-overlooked problem that takes a serious toll on human health and the environment in Latin America and other developing regions. “Not only do traditional open-fire cook stoves pose serious health threats to the women and children that breathe the smoke and gases they emit, but they also contribute to deforestation because they are so inefficient,” says Stuart Conway, international-programs director for Trees, Water & People. Trees, Water & People has focused on...
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