Marine Pollution Control8631 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
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Great Lakes Filled With Plastic Bits
November 29, 2012
The world’s largest freshwater ecosystem is added to the list of natural places filled with massive swirls of plastic pollution.
The Great Lakes are swimming with tiny specks of floating plastic, posing threats to both wildlife and human health.
Adding to years of research that have already documented gyres of plastic pieces swirling in the oceans, the new study is the first to officially add the world's largest freshwater ecosystem to the list of natural places affected by plastic pollution.
As scientists continue to investigate how much plastic is out there, where it's coming from and how it's moving between lakes and from lakes to sea, the findings may eventually offer strategies for mitigating the problem.
Gold Nanoparticles Quickly Detect Hazardous Chemicals
ScienceDaily (Nov. 20, 2012) — Scientists at Imperial College London have developed a system to quickly detect trace amounts of chemicals like pollutants, explosives or illegal drugs.
The new system can pick out a single target molecule from 10,000 trillion water molecules within milliseconds, by trapping it on a self-assembling single layer of gold nanoparticles.
EPA to speed up collection of pollution fines
November 8, 2012
The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) plans to take more efficient measures to force corporations and industrial parks to pay fines based on illegal financial gains after they are determined to have violated environmental protection regulations.
The EPA expanded last year the penalties on illegal gains to cover all major sectors concerning pollution of air, water, soil, underground water systems, toxic substances, waste disposal and breaking of environmental impact evaluation rules.
Mixing Processes Could Increase Impact of Biofuel Spills On Aquatic Environments
Nov. 16, 2012
Ethanol, a component of biofuel made from plants such as corn, is blended with gas in many parts of the country, but has significantly different fluid properties than pure gasoline. A group of researchers from the University of Michigan wondered how ethanol-based fuels would spread in the event of a large aquatic spill. They found that ethanol-based liquids mix actively with water, very different from how pure gasoline interacts with water and potentially more dangerous to aquatic life.
The scientists will present their results, which could impact the response guidelines for ethanol fuel-based spills, at the American Physical Society's (APS) Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD) meeting, held Nov. 18 -- 20, in San Diego, Calif.
Floodwater pumped from New York's Ground Zero
November 5, 2012
(Reuters) - The memorial and underground museum at the site of the September 11 attacks were being pumped free of floodwater on Saturday, five days after the huge storm Sandy caused the Hudson River to pour into the area known as Ground Zero, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said.
The construction site sits near the waterfront in lower Manhattan where Sandy produced a record storm surge of nearly 14 feet when it slammed ashore last Monday.
"At the cresting of the tide on Monday night, the Hudson River was basically pouring into the World Trade Center site. ... The World Trade Center site had 28 feet of water in the bottom," Cuomo said.
Four-inch-wide (10-cm-wide) hoses siphoned water from underground and into the street on Saturday, sucking out what one worker estimated to be 200 million gallons (757,000 cubic meters) of water.