Give US a *^%$# Break!

MARINE POLLUTION
OIL SPILL
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Oil leaks into Lake Michigan from BP refinery

BP says “an unknown amount” of oil has leaked from its Indiana Whiting refinery into Lake Michigan.

BP said the leak, which resulted in the discharge of crude oil from the refinery’s cooling system, was discovered Monday afternoon.

More than a half of the lake is covered in ice, said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Save the Dunes environmental group has expressed great concern about the impact of the spill on the environment, drinking water, recreational, fishing and shipping industries, said Nicole Barker, the group’s executive director.

“This BP spill, while seemingly contained and currently under control exemplifies some of the concerns Save the Dunes has with transporting and refining oil near Lake Michigan,”said Barker.

“We are glad to see that the crews effectively responded to the spill and it is fortunate that winds were blowing in a way that pushed the oil toward the shoreline,” she said. “However, irreversible damage can be caused by spills into our waterways and it is our greatest hope that the oil was contained before causing great harm to the Lake Michigan ecosystem.”

Massive ecosystem collapses occurring in Great Lakes

‘Feast and Famine in the Great Lakes’

Lake Erie experiencing the worst toxic algal bloom in recorded history

Algae in Maumee Bay (Photo: S. Bihn, Lake Erie Waterkeeper)

“Nutrient-rich runoff from farms is growing a huge crop of algae along the lakes’ coasts, but those nutrients aren’t making it out to the water in the middle of the lakes. Quagga mussels are consuming almost all of it, leaving nothing left in the water for fish to eat.” NWF

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Continued hacking and content censorship

In view of the continued hacking and censorship of this blog by the Internet Mafia, the Moderators have decided to maintain only a minimum presence at this site, until further notice.

FIRE-EARTH will continue to update the 2011 Disaster Calendar for the benefit of its readers.

WordPress is HACKING this blog!

WordPress Continues to Hack Fire-Earth, Affiliated Blogs

The Blog Moderators Condemn in the Strongest Possible Terms the Continued Removal of Content and Hacking of FIRE-EARTH and Affiliated Blogs by WordPress!

United States of Censorship

Even Twitter Counters are disabled when Blog posts criticize Obama, or contain “forbidden phrases.”  See also: Google’s Top 10 List of ‘Holy Cows’

Disaster Calendar 2011 – October 5

[October 5, 2011]  Mass die-offs resulting from human impact and the planetary response to the anthropogenic assault could occur by early 2016.  SYMBOLIC COUNTDOWN: 1,624 Days Left to the ‘Worst Day’ in Human History

• North America. The Great Lakes comprise of 5 freshwater lakes located on the United States border with Canada.  Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario form the largest collection of freshwater lakes on Earth by surface area, and the second by volume. The lakes hold more than a fifth of the world’s surface fresh water [~22,600 km³.]
• Tens of millions of people in the region including all of Chicago’s three million residents, and many others in the neighboring towns and suburbs, rely on Great Lakes water for life.
• Great Lakes coasts are being clogged by massive carpets of algal blooms, some as large as 1 meter thick and 20 km wide, fed by rich nutrients from farm run-off, while invasive mussels are consuming the food chain inside the lake, starving the fish.
• “Too much food is causing massive algal blooms in Lake Erie and other coastal systems, while too little food is making fish starve in Lake Huron’s offshore waters,” according to a report by the National Wildlife Federation.
• “Nutrient-rich runoff from farms is growing a huge crop of algae along the lakes’ coasts, but those nutrients aren’t making it out to the water in the middle of the lakes. Quagga mussels are consuming almost all of it, leaving nothing left in the water for fish to eat.”
• The feast-and-famine crises are plaguing the Lakes,  the report said, causing collapse of the food chain, declines in fish populations including lake whitefish and salmon, “and resurgence of toxic algae blooms and the Lake Erie ‘Dead Zone.’”
• Feast and Famine in the Great Lakes: How Nutrients and Invasive Species Interact to Overwhelm the Coasts and Starve Offshore Waters (pdf), details the links between massive algal blooms in Lake Erie which poses  serious  health threat to people and wildlife and a 95 percent decline in fish biomass in Lake Huron. Some of the report findings on how excessive nutrients are overwhelming coastal areas are listed below:
• This summer Lake Erie experienced the worst toxic algal bloom in recorded history
• The bloom, involving the toxic alga Microcystis, at one point extended across almost the entire western basin and into the central basin, and in some places was up to 2 feet thick.
• The toxic algae can sicken or even kill people. A toxin from the algae was measured in this summer’s bloom at 1,000 times the World Health Organization guidelines for drinking water.
• Algal blooms are significant, although so far less severe, in Saginaw Bay (Michigan), Green Bay (Wisconsin), and along the Lake Michigan coastline, among other areas, and federal agencies rate nearshore areas in all lakes but Lake Superior as “poor” for nutrient phosphorus concentrations.
• The report also documents how invasive zebra and quagga mussels have consumed much of the food in the offshore waters of the lakes, causing fish to starve:
• The biomass of prey fish (which are fed upon by predators such as salmon) in the open waters of Lake Huron has declined by 95 percent in just 15 years.
• The populations of the tiny freshwater shrimp at the base of the Great Lakes food web, Diporeia, have declined in Lake Michigan by 94 percent in 10 years.

Related Links

• 2011 Disaster Calendar – September
• 2011 Much More Disastrous: FIRE-EARTH Forecast
• Global Disasters in 2011 Could Impact 1/3 to 1/2 of the Human Population  (FIRE-EARTH Forecast)
• Back to the Primordial Future
• Mass Die-offs  (FIRE-EARTH Forecast)

• The First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities  (EDRO Forecast)
• 2011 Disaster Calendar – August
• 2010 Disaster Calendar 
• 2011 Disaster Calendar

US Tornado Brief

A Shrinking World Series

Updates:

• First lock on Mississippi River closes amid flood June 12, 2008

• Tornado kills four and injures up to 40 at Iowa boy scout camp June 12, 2008
• Midwest hit with floods June 11, 2008
• Midwest floods drowning crops; corn prices soar 11 Jun 2008
• Tornado kills four at Iowa boy scout camp 11 Jun 2008
• Midwest battles flood waters 11 Jun 2008
• Flooded Midwest braces for more rain 10 Jun 2008

• Video: Severe weather pounds U.S.
• Video:Holding a river at bay

What Tornado Headlines Say:

Copyright Editors or the News Agencies [Some editing by FEWW]

Deadly storms flood Midwest

At least five people were reported killed as heavy rains continued to pound the American Midwest on Sunday, flooding towns from Iowa to Michigan and threatening levees as lakes and rivers swelled.

Early Death Toll:

• Two delivery workers for The Grand Rapids Press in Michigan were killed Sunday when their car fell into a deep ravine created when a rain-swollen creek washed out a road.

• A woman died in Lansing Michigan, when a small trailer blew over on top of her.

• At least one person died as the result of rising waters, police spokesman in Columbus, Indiana said.

Meanwhile, storms in Nebraska spun out an early-morning Omaha tornado about a quarter-mile wide that moved northeast. As much as 11 inches of rain flooded central Indiana over the weekend.

Most towns south of Indianapolis and further west in Terre Haute received 6-10 inches of rainfall, said a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. He said some affected areas hadn’t seen a such flooding for 100 years.

Flood waters continued to rise throughout Iowa on Sunday, with the northern part of the state receiving up to 5 inches of rain from a single afternoon storm.

Two delivery workers in Michigan were killed when their car fell into a ravine. (Photo: AP/ The Grand Rapids Press) Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

Tornadoes maul homes, flip vehicles

A series of tornadoes destroyed homes, toppled power lines and flipped vehicles Saturday as a small but powerful storm system moved through the region, cutting just south of Chicago before weakening and moving over Lake Michigan.

Some of the damage in Monee. (Photo: Scott Stewart/Sun-Times) Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

“It was kind of like a train coming through the living room,” An eye witness said. “The building was shaking. There was a lot of commotion.” He said his neighborhood looked like a war zone, with siding, branches and debris strewn everywhere.

Lightning strikes pavilion as storms blow through Connecticut state park; 1 killed, 4 hurt

Lightning struck a pavilion at a Connecticut state park killing one person and injuring four others. Strong thunderstorms moved through the state Sunday leaving thousands of homes without power.

Powerful storms swamp U.S. Midwest, spawn tornadoes

Heavy rains caused flooding that forced hundreds of evacuations in Indiana, and a tornado raked Chicago’s suburbs on Saturday as violent thunderstorms pummeled the already soggy U.S. heartland, authorities said.

The U.S. Coast Guard was called out to help rescue stranded homeowners and motorists, and near-record flooding was forecast for rivers and creeks in western and central Indiana where Gov. Mitch Daniels declared an emergency in 10 more counties, added to the 41 counties declared earlier. At least one person was injured and some 29,000 households were without power.

“We’ve had some reports of houses destroyed,” said Andrew Krein of the National Weather Service.

Tornadoes also struck in Iowa and Wisconsin, capping a season that has seen a parade of storms spawning tornadoes, hail and destructive winds. According to the weather service, 112 people have died in tornadoes since the beginning of the year, the most in the United States in a decade.

Weather service warns of ‘violent’ tornadoes in Plains

Large hail, strong winds and heavy rain are reported in northwest Kansas in a powerful storm system that could produce large tornadoes in the state before nightfall.

In a strongly-worded statement Thursday, the National Weather Service warned that parts of Kansas could see hail bigger than baseballs, 80-mph-plus winds and “a few strong to violent long-lived tornadoes.”

Forecasters say severe thunderstorms will form by late afternoon in central and south-central Kansas and move toward eastern Kansas, Nebraska, northwestern Missouri and Iowa.

68 Tornadoes Have Hit Mississippi In 2008

The Storm Prediction Center – the National Weather Service office responsible for severe weather forecasts and tallies – says that 1,330 tornadoes have been reported this year. Not all of those tornadoes have been confirmed yet, but even still the numbers of confirmed tornadoes are already nearly three times that of the most active periods of previous years.

The National Weather Service Forecast Office in Jackson says 68 tornadoes have been confirmed to have touched down in Mississippi so far this year. In 2007, a total of 33 tornadoes touched down. In less than half the time the number of tornadoes has more than doubled.

Tornadoes and heavy rain struck Northern Minnesota

At least two tornadoes broke loose Friday morning in the far northeastern corner of Minnesota, where heavy overnight rains led to flash flooding throughout Cook County and the city of Grand Marais. About 5 inches of rain fell at Grand Marais.

Water coming down the hill next to Highway 61, west of Grand Marais. (Photo: Stephan Hoglund/ Star Tribune). Image may be subject to copyright. See FEWW Fair Use Notice!

Related Links:

• Deadly Storms Hit US Midsection
• Will 2008 be year of the tornadoes, too?
• 2008: Year of the Fire