Marine Pollution ControlMarine Pollution Control
8631 West Jefferson Avenue
Detroit, MI 48209 USA
313.849.2333 - 24/hour

11320 E Lakewood Blvd., #11
Holland, MI 49424
800-521-8232 – 24/Hour

GSA Contract #: GS-10F-0268R
Need help using GSA?  Click here.

Plastic Ocean: Study Names Worst Polluters

Friday, 13 February 2015
Anna Salleh

While China is listed as the top polluter, Australian litterbugs are responsible for 13,888 tonnes of plastic getting into the ocean a year. (Reuters: China Daily China Daily Information Corp)

A new study has ranked the top 20 plastic polluters and found that most of the plastic entering into the ocean comes from China.

Up to 12.7 million tonnes of plastic waste is washed into the ocean each year, according to the research published today in the journal Science.

Read More:

​Killer shrimp could invade the Great Lakes


February 9, 2015

Killer shrimp, creatures that indiscriminately slay other animals without eating them, may soon join the list of invasive species living in the Great Lakes, a new study finds.
 
But government regulations for the exotic pet trade and commercial shipping may impede the shrimp's arrival, the researchers said.
 
More than 180 invasive species have made the Great Lakes basin their home in the past 200 years. Government regulations have curbed the introduction of new invasive threats, but the lakes are still vulnerable, the researchers said.
 

Ice Hampers Cleanup in Yellowstone's Rare Winter Oil Spill

By Christina Nunez
National Geographic
Published January 30, 2015

GLENDIVE, Montana—On a muddy bluff overlooking the Yellowstone River, Paul Peronard watched as workers tried to mop up oil through holes drilled into the frozen surface. Nearby, a whirring vacuum truck held crude from the first serious U.S. spill into icy water in a quarter-century.

The week had begun sunny and unseasonably mild. Peronard, the Environmental Protection Agency's on-scene coordinator, asked for an update. The response: Ice was melting upstream, adding to the cleanup's danger. "Oh," Peronard winced. "Don't tell me that."

The Poplar pipeline's 31,000-gallon spill on January 17, about nine miles south of here, is a rare test of the capacity to respond to oil accidents in frozen water.

Read More

Yet More BP Oil Found at Bottom of Gulf


February 5, 2015

200 million gallons of oil were spilled after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.
 
Scientists already have reported finding what they called a 1,235-square-mile “bathtub ring” of oil on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico left over from the huge 2010 BP oil spill. Now it appears this ring is part of a washroom set: A different team of scientists has found that up 10 million gallons of oil have created what can only be called a “bath mat” beneath the sediment of the gulf’s floor.
 
 

Nearly 3 Million Gallons of Saltwater Leak into North Dakota Creek

January 22, 2015
By Ernest Scheyder

Nearly 3 million gallons of saltwater and an unknown quantity of crude oil have leaked from a North Dakota pipeline into a creek that feeds the Missouri River, by far the largest spill of its kind in the state's history, officials said.

The leak, from a saltwater collection line owned by Summit Midstream Partners LP approximately 15 miles north of Williston, occurred sometime earlier this month and was reported to state officials on Jan. 7.

Saltwater is a byproduct of the hydraulic fracturing process. Typically it is filtered and re-injected back into the earth after oil is extracted.

Read More:

More Articles...

  1. Oil Spills Into Yellowstone River, Possibly Polluting Drinking Water
  2. Humans are Nearly Halfway to Wrecking the Planet
  3. Report: Tests of ballast water treatment systems are flawed
  4. Scientists: Great Lakes teeming with tiny plastic fibers