Environment

According to an Associated Press survey of 28 major metropolitan areas, prescription and non-prescription drugs were found in the watersheds of more than a few cities. Data was obtained from 62 major water providers and independent researchers.

Test procedures at each location varied wildly. Some researchers tested for more drugs than others. In all, 35 said that they tested, four said tests were negative, and three were awaiting results. 27 locations said that they did not test watershed supplies.

At least one pharmaceutical or byproduct was detected in the treated drinking water supplies. Coffee and tobacco are widely used, and researchers said that their byproducts are often a good indicator for the presence of pharmaceuticals. Researchers therefore routinely test for, and quite often find, caffeine and the metabolite in nicotine, cotinine, more often than any other drugs.

The following metro ares tested positive for the presence of drugs:

Arlington, Texas: 1 (unspecified pharmaceutical)

Atlanta: 3 (acetaminophen, caffeine and cotinine)

Cincinnati: 1 (caffeine)

Columbus, Ohio: 5 (azithromycin, roxithromycin, tylosin, virginiamycin and caffeine)

Concord, Calif.: 2 (meprobamate and sulfamethoxazole)

Denver: (unspecified antibiotics)

In 2005, President George W. Bush signed into law a broad energy bill that will extend Daylight Savings Time by four weeks. The United States had previously observed DST from the first Sunday in April through the last Sunday in October, however under the new law DST begins in March and ends in November. The new period of DST went into effect in 2007, and continues again this year.

In 2008, Daylight Savings Time will begin on 2:00 a.m. March 9, which is this upcoming weekend. At this time, you will need to turn your clocks ahead one hour.

In other Daylight Savings Time related news, a new study out of Indiana shows that while conventional wisdom has claimed that DST saves on energy, that's simply not the case.

According to the Wall Street Journal, who first reported on the Indiana study, springing forward may actually waste energy rather than save it.

The study, which was conducted by the University of California-Santa Barbara economics professor Matthew Kotchen and Ph.D. student Laura Grant, looked at how extending daylight savings time across Indiana worked out. What they found was that it mostly had negative results:

• Residential electricity usage increased between 1 percent and 4 percent, amounting to $8.6 million a year.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday morning that they were awarding the Ohio Department of Health with a $97,204 grant to help educate health care providers and women of child-bearing age of environmental health risks. More than $500,000 worth of similar grants were also awarded to various states nationwide.

In the state of Ohio, the grant is to be used to develop an "easy-to-use profile to access a woman's potential exposure to environmental risks."

The grant will focus on environmental issues that could affect women and their unborn children. These issues would include such things as exposure to lead, mercury, environmental tobacco smoke, chemicals, pesticides, indoor and outdoor contaminants, and drinking water contaminants.

Nationwide these grants are expected to reach about 3,000 health care providers and 10,000 women of child-bearing age. Further information about the grants is available at the EPA website.

We've all heard about the elephant in the room, but how about a mountain? Yucca Mountain to be more specific. The mountain which you may have seen in your visit to Las Vegas, Nevada, is becoming a big part of the national debate.

Why? Yucca Mountain is most notable as the site of the proposed Yucca Mountain Repository, a U.S. Department of Energy terminal storage facility for spent nuclear reactor fuel and other radioactive waste. That has environmental groups worried and the site, which was suppose to open in 1998 to store nuclear waste, and has delayed opening the facility till more tests are done at the site. The site is considered the most studied piece of geology in the world.

So why does this matter? Congressman Dennis Kucinich is the only Presidential contender to have voted against using the proposed site and General Electric, which owns NBC and MSNBC who ran the debate yesterday, didn't want his take on the whole mess that the United States Government is brewing.

John Edwards, stealing a convenient tactic out of his former running mate turned foe John Kerry, has stated that although he voted for the plan he is now against. Thanks, John.

Hillary Clinton continues to vote in favor of Yucca Mountain's funding which has cost the taxpayers of this nation upwards $7 Billion dollars.

The country of Ecuador in South America is waiting patiently for the imminent eruption of the Tungurahua volcano, which has been spewing ash and smoke. Local authorities have already ordered the evacuation of more than 1,000 villagers who live near the foot of the volcano.

The evacuation of the roughly 300 families has been taken as a precautionary measure following the volcano's recent rumblings. The relocated families live in the ten hamlets located on the western slopes of the 5,000-meter volcano.

Representatives for the villagers are requesting that the government resettle the evacuated families in new locations so that they will not have to return to living in the danger zone.

The most recent reports from Ecuador's Geophysics Institute said that the volcano had been spewing ash, but that there was no sign of lava. However, it is expected to intensify over the next few days.

According to a report published by Oxfam on Sunday, the number of weather-related disasters throughout the world have quadrupled over the past twenty years. From an average of 120 disasters per year in the early 1980's, there are now as many as 500 per year. Oxfam attributes the rise in the number of natural disasters to unpredictable weather conditions caused by global warming.

Oxfam's directory, Barbara Stocking, said, "This year we have seen floods in South Asia, across the breadth of Africa and Mexico that have affected more than 250 million people. This is no freak year. It follows a pattern of more frequent, more erratic, more unpredictable and more extreme weather events that are affecting more people."

The number of people around the world affected by disasters has risen dramatically, by 68%, from an average of 174 million per year from 1985-1994 to 254 million per year from 1995 to 2004.

"Action is needed now to prepare for more disasters otherwise humanitarian assistance will be overwhelmed and recent advances in human development will go into reverse," Stocking continued.

A recent study of global emissions revealed Australians to be the world's worst polluters per capita, producing up to five times as much Carbon Dioxide (CO2) from generating power as China. Coming in second was the United States, with eight tonnes of greenhouse gas per head, which is 16 times more than that which is produced by India. The United States was also found to have produced the most CO2 in total, followed in second by China.

The data was compiled by the Center for Global Development, a U.S.-based organization, based on data presented on the Carbon Monitoring for Action (Carma) website. Carma's site is believed to be the first global inventory of emissions, which looks at 50,000 power stations worldwide.

One of the interesting things that Carma points out is that although U.S. power plants emit the most CO2 (2.5bn tonnes per year), Australian power stations are the least efficient on a per capita basis at 10 tonnes, compared with the U.S. per capita emissions of 8.2 tonnes.

China's emits the second highest total amount of CO2 in the world's power sector, putting 2.4bn tonnes of CO2 in the atmosphere annually. However, China's emmissions are far mroe efficient than Australia's, and are only one-fifth of Australia's on a per capita basis.

Last night, an oil tanker and two freighters carrying sulphur sank in the Black Sea during stormy weather conditions. The Black Sea region is now facing one of their worst environmental disasters in the years.

Waves up to eighteen feet high (8 meters) battered the ships in the Strait of Kerch, which links together the Black Sea and Sea of Azov. Eight sailors from one of the freighters remain missing, while crew aboard the other two ships were rescued.

The Russian oil tanker, the Volganeft-139, is believed to have spilled at least half of its 4,000 tonne cargo. The severity of the weather conditions prevented emergency workers from collecting the oil, which authorities now say is sinking to the seabed.

Oleg Mitvol, the head of Rosprirodnadzor, the state environmental safety watchdog organization, told Russian TV "There is serious concern that the spill will continue." He also said it would take "several years" to clean up.

The two freighters which also sank, were carrying around 6,500 tonnes of sulphur. According to Mitvol, the sulphur does not pose an environmental danger, however there is concern that the freighters could leak oil fuel from their tanks, which would only add to the pollution.

Sergie Baranovsky, President of the Green Cross environmental group, believes that the sulphur could pose a very serious environmental risk, one potentially even more hazardous to nature than the oil.

Several other ships also sank during last night's storm. In total, ten ships sank or ran aground in the storms. A Russian freighter carrying metal sank, with 2 of its 16-man crew drowning, and 1 still missing. Two barges with fuel oil ran aground in the area, but did not link.

A moderate earthquake of 5.6 magnitude struck a rural area about 10 miles northeast of San Jose, California around 8pm Wednesday evening. San Jose is Silicon Valley's biggest city, and the 10th most populous city in the United States. No major damage was reported resulting from the quake.

The earthquake was felt across the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond just before 8:05pm PT. Damage from the quake was reported to be minor, and the San Jose Mercury News reported phone service failure in a portion of Palo Alto