Federal environmental protections are struggling to keep up with the fast pace of development in the energy industry, leaving Canada exposed to the risks of oil spills, pollution, and damage to fragile habitat, a new audit says. Scott Vaughan, Canada’s commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, issued his parting words Tuesday after five years in the job, taking a close look at how well Ottawa is managing the significant environmental risks associated with its goal of aggressively promoting resource development.
Izembek National Wildlife Refuge: Road For Alaska Village Rejected By U.S. Fish And Wildlife Service
The federal government said it rejected a plan to build a road through a wildlife refuge that would have given a small Aleut village in Alaska better access to medical care. Villagers in remote King Cove had sought the one-lane gravel road for transporting emergency medical patients to an all-weather airport in Cold Pay, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it will choose the “no action” alternative to a proposed land swap for a road corridor bisecting Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.
Two Great Lakes hit lowest water level on record
Two of the Great Lakes have hit their lowest water levels ever recorded, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said, capping more than a decade of below-normal rain and snowfall and higher temperatures that boost evaporation. Measurements taken last month show Lake Huron and Lake Michigan have reached their lowest ebb since record keeping began in 1918, and the lakes could set additional records over the next few months, the corps said. The lakes were 29 inches below their long-term average and had declined 17 inches since January 2012.
Time for change: China flags peak in coal usage
China’s decade-long boom in coal-driven heavy industry is about to end as the leadership shifts priorities towards energy conservation, say officials and policy advisers. The advisers predict China’s coal consumption will peak at only a fraction above current levels after the State Council, or cabinet, last week set an ambitious new total energy use target for the five-year plan ending 2015.
