#wastewater dumping

[indizombie]

Every year, we toss away 10 million tons of fish — that could fill more than 4,500 swimming pools — because of bad fishing practices and processing. This could be prevented, and in turn directly decrease pressure on our oceans. Around 80% of global wastewater is currently being diverted into oceans, unfiltered. In the poorest countries of the world it's even up to 95%. This wastewater pollutes, contaminates and destroys oceans and coastal regions. Building sustainable sewage systems, especially in developing countries, would protect ocean ecosystems and contribute to better drinking water supplies in many places.

Tim Schauenberg, ‘How to save our high seas from overfishing, pollution’, BBC

[xtruss]

Experts Call For Long-Term, Joint Seawater Monitoring To Collect Prosecution Evidence As Radioactive ☢️ Substance Detected For First Time Near Fukushima N-Plant

— Zhang Changyue | September 03, 2023

Japan's reckless dumping of Nuclear ☢️ Wastewater poses a grave danger to Earth. Cartoon: Carlos Latuff/Brazil 🇧🇷

As Japan 🇯🇵 has detected the radioactive substance tritium for the first time after it started dumping the Nuclear-Contaminated Wastewater, Chinese experts on Sunday called for a long-term and joint monitoring program by international community on the radioactive substances in the seawater to collect and accumulate evidence for future prosecution against Japan.

Ten becquerels per liter of tritium was detected in a seawater sample taken on Thursday about 200 meters north of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant's underwater discharge tunnel, which is the first time that the radioactive material was detected in a seawater sample since Japan started the dumping of the nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the Pacific Ocean on August 24, the Japan News reported.

According to Kyodo News, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said the detection of tritium can be considered as affected by the dumping but without any security problem.

As TEPCO and Japan's Environment Ministry claimed that Tritium levels in seawater sampled at sites near the plant were below the detectable limit, Chang Yen-chiang, director of the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea Research Institute of Dalian Maritime University, told the Global Times on Sunday that "time" is the key factor in monitoring radioactive substances.

"It is not long since Japan began dumping the nuclear-contaminated wastewater into sea, so it is normal that we would see the current low levels of the detected radioactive substances," Chang noted, saying that countries in the Pacific regions can engage in a joint and long-term research and testing of radioactive substances through international cooperation.

Gao Zhikai, Vice President of the Center for China 🇨🇳 and Globalization, a Beijing-based nongovernmental think tank, echoed Chang. Gao said China could consider collaborating with other countries and some nongovernmental environmental organizations to set up a permanent monitoring station on behalf of the international community to collect relevant radiation data, for example, by sending a ship to the exclusive economic zone around Fukushima.

A Citizen Group in Fukushima is preparing to sue the Japanese government and TEPCO on September 8 with more than 100 plaintiffs to demand the cessation of the dumping, Jiji News reported. The legal team said the extent to which radioactive substances other than tritium are present in the wastewater has not been clarified, and the Japanese government violated the promise made with the Fukushima Prefectural Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations not to take any action without the understanding of the stakeholders, thereby infringing upon the fishermen's fishing rights and threatening the consumers' right to live in peace.

Gao said Japan's dumping of the nuclear-contaminated wastewater can be regarded as an act of infringement since the behavior will definitely result in infringement upon the legitimate rights and interests of individuals and organizations. He suggested China work with other countries to establish a specialized legal committee as soon as possible to deal with acts of infringement and to collect evidence of the types of damage caused by Japan's dumping of the nuclear-contaminated water worldwide.

According to Kyodo News, the Japanese Civic Group "National Liaison Committee Against the Release of Contaminated Water from Nuclear Power Plants" filed a complaint to the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office on Friday against Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and TEPCO President Tomoaki Kobayakawa for causing potential damage to non-residential buildings and deaths due to professional negligence over the dumping of nuclear-contaminated water.

On Saturday, thousands of South Koreans 🇰🇷 including Fishermen, Activists and Politicians continued a weekend rally in central Seoul to protest against Japan's dumping of the nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the ocean.

The participants shouted slogans like "Immediately stop the marine dumping of radioactive wastewater" and "Prohibit import of all Japanese aquatic products," urging the South Korean government to file a lawsuit with the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea against the Japanese government.

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #15

April 19-26 2024

President Biden appeared along side Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senators Ed Markey and Bernie Sanders to announce major climate action. Biden announced a program, Solar For All, 7 billion dollars aimed at supporting low income house holds install solar power in their homes. The program will support 900,000 households across the country getting solar. Lower the average energy bill for a family by $400 a month and avoid more than 30 million metric tons of carbon pollution over the next 25 years. The boost in solar installation will help create 200,000 new jobs across the country. The President also announced the launch of the Climate Conservation Crops. modeled on FDR's Civilian Civilian Conservation Corps and JFK's Peace Corps, Biden's Climate Conservation Crops will be a program where young people can connect with climate projects across the country and be paid to help protect the planet. The Corps will be 20,000 strong, with 2,000 openings listed right now on their webpage across 36 states DC and Puerto Rico.

The Department of Labor finalized a new rule on overtime. Currently employers are only required to pay overtime to workers making under $35,568. Under the new ruling that will be raised to workers making $43,888, and in January 2025 raised again to workers making $58,656 and under. This will bring overtime pay to 4 million more workers and transfer $1.5 billion from the pockets of companies to workers. It also fixes to raise the level with inflation every 3 years starting in 2027.

The EPA announced a $1 billion dollar program to help replace heavily duty vehicles with clean energy versions. There are currently 3 million class 6 and 7 vehicles, school buses, box trucks dump trucks, street sweepers, delivery trucks, bucket trucks, and utility trucks, in use. 70% of the funds will go to replacing School Buses with Clean energy buses and the remaining 30% will go to replacing Vocational Vehicles like dump trucks and street sweepers. Heavy Duty vehicles on top of green house cases release harmful nitrogen oxide and fine particulate matter and replacing them will not only combat climate change but improve public health.

The Department of Interior took actions to protect 13 million acres of Alaska wild land is protected and to secure the livelihood of Alaska Native peoples who rely on this land. The Administration refused oil and mining rights on the vast areas of Alaska land as well as a 210 miles road through the northern wildernesses. This area represents valuable habitat for caribou and endangered polar bears, as well as millions of migrating birds.

The Department of Transportation announced finalized rules requiring airlines to give automatic cash refunds for canceled flights and other inconvenience. The refunds will be automatic meaning passengers will not have apply for them, prompt the airlines are required to refund a credit card purchase in 7 days, and require repayment in full and in kind, airlines can not substitute travel vouchers for cash. The DOT also announced new rules to protect airline travelers from junk fees, airlines and ticket agents must now clearly tell travelers upfront about all fees so no one is surprised by a hidden fee.

The EPA announced finalized rules on emissions standards for fuel burning power plants. The new rules include a tightening of Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, requiring a 70% reduction in mercury. It also had rules protecting ground water, new rules will require coal powered plants to remove 660 million pounds per year of pollutants discharged through wastewater, and for the first time federally regulates the dumping of coal ash, requiring safe dump sites that will not leak into ground water. Finalized rules require coal fired and new natural gas-fired power plants to capture up to 90% of their carbon pollution

Security of Transportation Pete Buttigieg attended the ground breaking of a new high speed rail project to connect Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The Biden Administration announced 3 billion to support the project 5 months ago. At 218 of all electric green rail the project promises to be the fastest way to get from LA to Las Vegas. Planned to open in 2028 just in time for the LA Olympics it is the first of many planned high speed rail projects. The Biden Administration has promised $66 billion for high speed rail and the largest single investment in Amtrak ever.

The FCC announced a new rule restoring Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality requires internet service pervaders to treat all websites equally and not slow certain ones now or speed others. In 2015 under Obama the FCC passed a rule requiring Net Neutrality. However in 2017, the FCC spread headed by Trump appointed Chair Ajit Pai repealed the rules. A patchwork of Democratic controlled states, lead by California passed state level laws requiring Net Neutrality forcing ISPs to de facto keep it in place. Late last year President Biden got the opportunity to replace Pai on the FCC, giving the FCC a 3 to 2 Democratic majority which voted this week to return to the Obama era rules and protect Net Neutrality nationwide.

The FTC passed finalized regulations to ban noncompete agreements in nearly all cases. These agreements, which cover 18% of American workers, about 30 million people, prohibit workers from joining or creating competing companies for a certain period of time. The FTC estimates that workers will earn an average of $524 dollars a year more and up to 8,500 new businesses will be created each year. The new rule will still allow noncompete for senior executives who make up less than 1% of the work force. Like with the FCC, two out of the 3 FTC commissioners who voted for the new rules are Biden appointees.

The Departments of Health and Human Services and Interior have announced a joint, $1 billion project to connect tribal communities to safe drinking water. Roughly half of Tribal households lack access to clean drinking water or adequate sanitation.

At the White House The Biden Administration announced plans to protect, restore and reconnect 8 million acres of wetlands and 100,000 miles of rivers and streams. This effort will include state, local and tribal government as well as private efforts along with the federal government to protect and restore the nations freshwater environments.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced a new rule boosting privacy protection for abortions. Republicans in states like Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma and Idaho have tried to make it a crime to leave the state to seek an abortion in a state where it is legal. The new federal rule would make it illegal for health information to be shared in these cases

Vice-President Harris announced a new rule requiring staffing standards at Nursing Homes across the country. The new rules will require registered nurses on duty 24 hours, seven days a week. This represents the first time the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have required specific numbers of nurses and aides in Nursing Homes that get Medicare and Medicaid funding.

The Biden Administration Announced a $6 billion deal with tech giant Micron to bring high tech manufacturing to New York. The deal is expected to see Micron invest $100 billion in Syracuse New York area as well as build a factory in Boise, Idaho. The deal will create 70,000 new jobs. It is part of the Biden Administration's effort to bring high tech chip manufacturing to America.

The Department of Education finalized the most comprehensive federal protections for Trans and other Queer students in the nation's history. The rules also overturn Trump era rules on how colleges should handle sexual assault and harassment.

[anarchotahdigism]

This H5N1 situation in the US is starting to concern me. H5N1 has been found active and infectious in raw milk & a study of dairy farms showed that half of a colony of cats which consumed infected raw milk died. https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/30/7/24-0508_article It's showing up in Texas wastewater which could be from infected individuals, the dumping of contaminated milk, or both. It's not clear yet & dairy farms are blocking CDC access to test animals and workers. Workers anecdotally have been getting sick but because they're agricultural workers and likely largely undocumented, they have little legal recourse, no real work protections, and so it's not known if they are indeed officially sick from working with infected animals or if it's spread via human to human contact. H5N1 has a mortality rate of at least 50% in a healthy, immunocompetent population. COVID makes you immunocompromised for at least a year with the first infection. 2-3 infections render you permanently immunocompromised. The CDC is claiming that H5N1 mortality rate is 25% leaving them free to say that it's not as dangerous as people think (it's moreso) and that if (when) it becomes clearly deadly, it's only killing off the "vulnerable". That means you, if you've had COVID recently or multiple times. Whether this explodes into a fullblown pandemic or is beaten back in time is up in the air, as is COVID, incidentally. Y'all should never have stopped masking and if you did, you need to resume masking in public. It's a matter of life and death for yourself and for others around you. It's a matter of principle & it's a commitment to radical resistance to fascism. Masking is our first and best defense against airborne pathogens. COVID and H5N1 are both killed by cooking foods well, making pasteurization and proper food handling even more important, but freezing seems to preserve H5N1. H5N1 is potentially infectious for days as a fomite, depending on environment and surface it's on. UV takes about an hour to kill it, which is too slow for UVC installations (from what I understand). There are vaccines in development and the CDC has ordered 20 million doses of H5N1 vaccine but it will take months for them to be produced and it will take longer to produce enough doses for the entire population. Because so many people are now immunocompromised and do not know it & doctors don't bother to look for it, I have no idea just how effective vaccines would be, but it'll be vital for everyone able to get them and, most important, to keep masking. Had we actually rioted for COVID mitigations to continue-- instead of embracing eugenics wholesale as a society--for Biden to make good on his promises to support victims of COVID and to end the pandemic with meaningful measures, including HVAC upgrades to all inhabited & public buildings and spaces, we would be at substantially less risk now. Instead we have thousands dying every week of COVID in the US because the rich demanded it and I cannot begin to imagine how huge that number would become if H5N1 did become an epidemic. We also have politicians outright banning masks at protests, in businesses, and possibly wholesale public bans of masks. That has only become possible due to widespread acquiescence to fascism and the abandonment to isolation and death of the working poor and disabled. COVID was the "easy" mode to prepare for the pandemicene caused by the climate collapsing due to ecocidal capitalism.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Eight Manitoba First Nations have filed a lawsuit against the City of Winnipeg, as well as the provincial and federal governments, seeking billions of dollars in compensation for a massive sewage spill earlier this year.

A pipe in south Winnipeg burst on Feb. 7, spilling more than 200 million litres of untreated sewage into the Red River before the leak was stopped weeks later. It was the second-largest spill in Winnipeg's history. 

The eight First Nations — Brokenhead, Black River, Poplar River, Kinonjeoshtegon, Berens River, Hollow Water, Misipawistik and Sagkeeng — filed a statement of claim in Manitoba Court of King's Bench Tuesday, accusing the city of dumping raw sewage into the waterways for decades.

They're seeking $500 million each for breaches of their Charter rights, as well as $100 million each in punitive damages, for a total $4.8 billion.

The lawsuit accuses the city, province and feds of failing to maintain the wastewater management system, "implement or enforce adequate regulatory mechanisms," warn the First Nations about the spill, or remedy the discharges. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

[rjzimmerman]

Here's the link to the report from the Union of Concerned Scientists described in this story from EcoWatch:

A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has found that Tyson Foods dumped hundreds of millions of pounds of pollutants into U.S. waterways from 2018 to 2022. The pollutants came from company facilities including slaughterhouses and processing plants.

UCS analyzed publicly available data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and found that Tyson Foods processing plants released 371.72 million pounds of pollutants into waterways from 2018 to 2022. Half of the pollutants were dumped in waterways of Nebraska, Illinois and Missouri. The group published the findings in a report titled Waste Deep: How Tyson Foods Pollutes US Waterways and Which States Bear the Brunt.

“As the nation’s largest meat and poultry producer, Tyson Foods plays a huge role in our food and agriculture system and has for decades exploited policies that allow big agribusiness corporations to pollute with impunity,” Omanjana Goswami, co-author of the report and an interdisciplinary scientist with the Food and Environment Program at UCS, said in a press release. “In 2022, the latest year for which we have data, Tyson plants processed millions of cattle and pigs and billions of chickens, and discharged over 18.5 billion gallons of wastewater, enough to fill more than 37,000 Olympic swimming pools.”

Waterways in Nebraska had the most wastewater pollutants dumped by Tyson Foods plants, about 30% of the total or 111 million pounds, UCS reported. The pollutants dumped in Nebraska included 4.06 million pounds of nitrate, which a 2021 study linked to increased risks of central nervous system cancers in children.

According to the National Provisioner, Tyson Foods is one of the top meat and poultry processing companies in the U.S. From 2018 to 2022, it generated 87 billion gallons of wastewater, based on EPA data. This wastewater can include pathogens and microorganisms (such as E. coli) and slaughterhouse byproducts, such as body parts of animals, feces and blood.

As noted in the report, the dumped pollutants contained high amounts of nitrogen (34.25 million pounds) and phosphorus (5.06 million pounds), which can contribute to algal blooms in waterways. As UCS pointed out in its analysis, many Tyson Foods facilities are located near waterways that are home to threatened and endangered species. 

The facilities are also positioned near historically underserved communities, leading to additional pollution near and burden on vulnerable populations.

“Pollution from these plants also raises environmental justice concerns,” Stacy Woods, co-author of the report and research director for the Food and Environment Program at UCS, said in a press release. “We know from previous research that almost 75% of water-polluting meat and poultry processing facilities are located within one mile of communities that already shoulder heavy economic, health or environmental burdens. In mapping these plants, we found Tyson largely fit that pattern, with many plants located near communities where people live with more pollution, less socioeconomic and political power, and worse health compared to other areas of the United States.”

The report provides insight into a larger problem. As The Guardian reported, meat processing pollution in the U.S. is much higher and goes beyond Tyson Foods.

“There are over 5,000 meat and poultry processing plants in the United States, but only a fraction are required to report pollution and abide by limits,” Goswami told The Guardian. “As one of the largest processors in the game, with a near-monopoly in some states, Tyson is in a unique position to treat even hefty fines and penalties for polluting as simply the cost of doing business. This has to change.”

[bunniesloveanimals]

The Cape Fear Shiner, a golden boi

The Cape Fear Shiner, Notropis mekistocholas, is a small endangered species of minnow only found in the Cape Fear River Basin in North Carolina. It's protected under the Endangered Species Act and is extremely hard to find, currently only being found in two rivers and a few tributaries.

Cape Fear River, North Carolina. Their range fell with the construction of dams across the Cape Fear river basin, preventing the fish from reaching their critical habitat and other populations of their species, decreasing genetic diversity. Dams also change the movement of water, and still water is not ideal for this fish, nor is the abundance of its invasive predator, the flathead catfish.

Flathead Catfish, Pylodictis olivaris. The shiner is very susceptible to changes in water quality, which have also decreased their populations. Things like increased sedimentation, the dumping of wastewater into local waterways, and runoff from cities and agriculture all hurt this fish and prevent them from thriving. The overflow of manure lagoons from hog farming are especially a problem that affect the waterways. The disappearance of this fish shows how the water quality of North Carolina is declining.

Manure lagoon, North Carolina. However, there are efforts to keep this fish from disappearing. There have been dam removals to allow fish to reunite, captive breeding to increase their numbers without relying on the small wild populations, fishers targetting invasive fish like the flathead catfish, and general efforts to improve water quality across North Carolina with improved regulations. There is hope for this fish to recover and return to its previous abundance.

Many Cape Fear Shiners, Notropis mekistocholas.

[viiioca]

day 17 - sea

from the journal of Estelle de Laussienne, 20th of the 4th Astral Moon, 4 7U.E. There's something very romanticized about the sea breeze, isn't there? Those stories we loved so well as children certainly seemed to think so. It's calming, refreshing, cleansing, so on, so forth; whatever a grim, quiet man might need to brood over some tragedy in the solitude of nature before the next act of the narrative begins. They always describe it as clean or crisp. Brisk. Bracing. How enticing! I certainly believed them all until I docked in Limsa Lominsa. I am no professional wordsmith, but perhaps I can paint a picture. It is late afternoon, when the temperature is highest and tides are lowest. I am in the markets, along with hundreds upon hundreds of other gentle citizens who have been marinating in their own sweat since morning tea, as we are gripped with a heat wave and humidity so hellish it has me questioning my faith. It is the zenith of summer, when the sluggish tide movements struggle mightily to properly exchange water out of the bay, and the wastewater grows ripe. The markets are situated in limestone tunnels, which make for a cooler midday, supposedly, save that the only method of exchanging air is through a hot, wet breeze that meanders casually from one end to the other, depositing not only the very specific scent of rotting ocean matter, but all the various excretions of the hundreds of bodies I am unfortunate enough to be downwind from. These are the nice markets, full of legal goods and respectable importers for Limsa's more moneyed professionals. Like Ishgard, wealth can be measured by altitude here; I have opened a clinic in the lower levels, closer to the water's edge. There are spaces where the water overflows at high tide and leaves behind a sort of -- grime. The markets there have fish that rot on the rack by end-of-day. There is a tannery operating up the canal that dumps an utterly eye-watering amount of piss and pigeon shit into the water (a smell so foul I can only describe it with equal terms). If that wasn't bad enough, the wind carries all the wonderful perfumes of everyday beamhouse operations to all of us who are simply trying to mind our own business. On my first day of work, I asked a patient what the godsawful smell was, and he promptly introduced to a colorful local expression involving Llymlaen and bowel movements. That is not to say the city is without charm. When the air cools, and the breeze comes to us northerly, from colder waters; when the sun sets behind the limestone spires; when I sit with strangers and a bottle of wine and a table full of these little delights -- thin ribbons of cured ham and toasted bread, olives and olive oil, bits of octopus and fried squid and potatoes spiced with sweet and hot peppers. The people here are friendly and brimming with conversation, happy to sweep foreigners up into their lives once they've passed muster and all the purse-cutting has been successfully thwarted. I don't regret it -- I only wish I had been, perhaps, a little more forewarned.

[roevember 2023 prompt by wintertitania]

[lambsouvlaki]

For the Hell of it - Yearning

Character: Jason Todd x civilian! Fem!oc

Rating and Warnings: G, no warnings

Word Count: 1,752

Summary: Jason brings her to his home for the first time when her water goes out. He realises how much he likes having her here.

Masterlist

--------

Jason rode through slick wet streets, dodging potholes and squinting through the heavy rain streaking across a black motorbike helmet. The downpour made the afternoon look darker than it was, night had fallen over Gotham prematurely. The yellow gleam of sodium lights caught on the falling rain drops and made everything shiny. 

He turned into the college campus and pulled up at the bus stop. It was empty of all but one person. 

Andy stood under a black umbrella, the strong current of rainwater on the sidewalk making little eddies around her kneehigh boots. Her eyes widened at him for a moment. There was no point trying to say anything in the downpour, but neither did they need to. She reached into her backpack for her own helmet and pulled it on. She dumped the umbrella in a nearby bin and darted back to him through the rain.

He felt the bike’s suspension bounce with the added weight as she swung up behind him. Her legs bracketed his, then his back was sheltered from the freezing rain. 

He tilted his head in an unspoken question. She squeezed his waist in answer. 

He took off into the gloom. 

The roads were emptier than they would have been at this hour on any other day. That was why he was here, picking her up. 

Killer Croc broke out of Arkham three weeks ago. The hunt through the sewers had been long and frustrating, and only this morning did it finally come to a head. They got him, in the end, but the fight put both Bruce and Dick out of commission as well as a significant portion of the east’s plumbing. Literal explosions of wastewater had been flowing back out of pipes all day. All things considered, the heavy rain was a mercy. 

Andy’s part of the alley wouldn’t have running water for at least twenty four hours. It was a good thing Jason’s main apartment was across the river in the business district. 

They crossed the bridge, and he felt her looking around at their route.

He had never actually shown her his apartment before. He didn’t really bring anyone there. Roy and Lian were cleared to visit but usually he went to them. Bruce and assorted bats knew where it was, but didn’t visit unless they were actively dying. He was very protective over his space and made it perfectly clear how he felt about gate crashers. 

He pulled off a side street into the parking garage beneath his building. It was one of the taller buildings on this block and right on the edge of the river. 

Andy peeled herself off of his back and he missed the warmth, wet though they were. The damp front of her leather jacket made a horrible ‘shlorp’ sound unsticking from his. 

She pulled off her helmet and looked around. Damp strands of her hair stuck to her face and he resisted the urge to brush them away. 

“So, where are we and why?” she asked. 

He gestured towards the elevator and explained the situation as he followed her. 

 “This is your place then?” Her eyebrow rose. “You didn’t go out and rent a decoy one for the occasion?”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m not that much of a paranoid bastard.”

“Debatable.” 

“I wasn’t going to let you come home only to find you have nowhere safe to stay for the night,” he said quietly. He stopped, then started again quickly. “Not that you have to stay here, if you don’t want to. Just… the offer’s there. If you need it.”

“Jason, I’m not complaining. Thank you. Marlow’s staying with a friend for the week, thank goodness, I probably would have tried to grin and bear it.” 

“That’s how you get cholera outbreaks.”

The elevator pinged as it reached his level and the doors slid open. He had the entire floor to himself, all the other apartments were empty. He held open the door to his place. 

It had tall ceilings, an exposed brick wall, and a slightly industrial air to it that he liked. It could feel kind of austere sometimes though and he would find himself walking quieter than he needed to through the empty space. 

They both unzipped wet jackets and boots, and left them to dry on the hooks by the door, then walked barefoot into the main apartment. Andy looked around with wide eyes. He found himself unusually nervous. She would probably be cold, she usually was, so he turned the heating on. 

She passed the wall of weapons to admire a forged painting he and Artemis had picked up in Vienna while pretending to be black market art dealers. 

“I can’t believe you’re out here hogging my ratty couch when you have a place like this.”

“Your couch has been properly broken in. Much better for hogging.”

She scoffed, and brushed her damp hair back from her face. Her wet blouse pulled against her chest. 

He cleared his throat. “I’ll get you some dry clothes. Guest bathroom’s through there.”

All he had to offer were his own clothes. She would be swimming in them, but he hadn’t thought to stop and grab any of her clothes in advance. Maybe she should keep some things here? He kept a hoodie at her place, and had a mug in her cupboard which he had claimed as his. She sent him photos of her drinking coffee from it when he was annoying her. 

She took the clothes he offered and disappeared into the bathroom. He heard the shower turn on soon after. He towelled himself off in the ensuite then got busy with making dinner. 

Sometime later, he heard soft footfalls padding around behind him. 

“You’re sure you’re alright with me staying?” she asked.

“Of course,” he called while plating a beef stir fry. “How many times have I passed out on your couch? Besides, with Bruce and Dick both injured I’ll be out most of the night anyway.” 

He turned around with two bowls of food and caught sight of her. Her hair was frizzy with a recent blowdry and piled on top of her head. She was wearing his much too large hoodie and sweatpants, with the pant legs rolled up many times to avoid dragging on the floor. He smirked.  

“Don’t you laugh at me,” she said, and flapped a too-long sleeve at him. 

He chuckled and put the food down on the dining table. Normally he only sat here to work on his weapons and ate on the couch. The spirit of Alfred that lived in the back of his head would never let him do that with a guest here. 

Andy perched on a chair adjacent to him and they tucked in. 

Sheets of rain ran down the floor to ceiling windows next to them. The scattered lights of the Alley, the Narrows, and the Bowery glowed across the river, occasionally lit up with flashes of lightning. The apartment didn’t feel so empty and austere with her there. They talked casually about the day's escapades, rehearsals for a production of Lysistrata for her, and punching a crocodile man for him.

“Gotham’s yours tonight then?” she asked after they had finished eating and both pushed their bowls away. 

“Yup, I get to clean up the mess this week,” he said. “Probably be on the quieter side from the worst of the dress ups, nobody likes to be an underwhelming second act, but that’s when organised crime spikes.”

“Oh yeah? Everybody getting bright ideas?”

“The same bright ideas they always have. Me and the kids will keep them on their toes.”

“How does Tim feel about you calling him a kid?”

“Fucking hates it. Almost as much as Damian.”

She laughed.

He smiled and leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. The patter of the rain and the unusual warmth in the house was extremely relaxing. He couldn’t think why he’d waited so long to invite her over, it was… it was so nice. He let his eyes close for a moment. 

When he opened them again she was retreating with the dishes. 

“Hey!”

“You snooze, you lose,” she called, disappearing into the kitchen. “You want a cup of tea?”

“Na, I’ve got to head out on patrol soon anyway.” They had established patterns for this from all his visits to her place. Whoever cooked didn’t wash up. The sounds of the sink running drifted out from the kitchen. He hauled himself up to his feet and off to the bedroom. 

When he re-emerged, fully kitted-out in armour except for his helmet and shoes, Andy was sitting on his couch making notes in a textbook. She had a pencil shoved into her hair and her feet tucked in beneath her. A steaming cup of chamomile sat steeping on the coffee table. The rain hadn’t slowed down and through the windows there was nothing but glowing smudges in the dark. 

He chose his weapons for the night from the cabinet and tucked them away on his person. He expected leaving to be harder with her here and the apartment bright and warm for once. Instead he felt emboldened to venture out into the cold and wet. She was somewhere safe and he could worry about everything else. She would be here when he got back. He sat next to the door to put on his boots. 

She got up and padded over to him, cradling her steaming mug.

“Be careful,” she said. “Don’t catch a cold.” 

He looked up at her as he did up his laces. “I’m gonna go frustrate as many rifle-toting mobsters as I can, and you’re worried about colds?”

She took a sip of her tea. “Bullets aren’t contagious.” 

He scoffed. She smirked. He wanted to kiss it off her annoying face. 

He stood and grabbed his helmet. She looked smaller than usual, dwarfed in his clothes, here to see him off. Her expression softened into a smile. “Be safe though.”

The warm pleasantness he had been feeling all night finally revealed its true face as bone-deep yearning. It grasped him by the throat. Yearning for her, for this, for it all to be real. 

What were they playing at with this domesticity? Pretending she was his to come home to? 

He put his helmet on and choked down the sudden acid in his throat. 

“Don’t wait up,” he said. The voice modulator disguised the turmoil in his voice, and he disappeared out the door.

Part 2>>

[strawlessandbraless]

Elon Musk's Boring Company wants to dump 142,500 gallons of wastewater A DAY directly into the Colorado River and onto 63 acres of grassland via irrigation

Space Karen’s company, Gapped Bass LLC, applied for this controversial permit and it went to public meeting this week

My vote is Elon for the upcoming Ides of March sacrifice

[indizombie]

Tareq, who is also a professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Jahangirnagar University in Dhaka, says ETPs are a costly method to treat the water used in textile factories. “Therefore, factory owners remain reluctant to install ETPs or mechanisms to recycle factory wastewater, and those factories that have ETPs have been found inefficient,” he says, adding that more local companies would adopt ETPs if the technology was more advanced and cost-effective, instead of dumping sludge waste, a common practice. Sludge is a semi-solid byproduct of wastewater treatment. Tareq and Hossain allege it is often illegally dumped in landfills, agricultural fields and used in some other factories like cement and brick kilns. Worryingly, during the monsoon this sludge waste spreads from where it is dumped and ends up in rivers. Tareq says that heavy metals remain in the sludge waste, which can be absorbed by crops and enter the human body. If consumed, it carries the risk of causing diseases, including cancer.

SM Najmus Sakib, ‘Garment industry in Bangladesh struggles to contain pollution’, Third Pole

[xtruss]

The Criminality of Japan's Dumping of Nuclear-Contaminated Wastewater!

[godesssiri]

I wanted to give some advice to people who are near enough to help areas affected by the recent hurricanes and haven't been affected themselves. I live in New Zealand and last year my home town was devastated by Cyclone Gabrielle, I live 4 hours away and was organizing to get things in to people who needed them.

Look on Facebook. Groups will be organizing and sharing information about what donations are needed and where to bring them to. A determined middle-aged woman will be helping hundreds of people out of her garage or whatever empty space she's been able to sweet-talk or brow-beat some business man into loaning her.

Donate material goods that are actually needed right now. It's tempting to go 'I've got no money but I can clean out my wardrobe and give stuff'. Please don't. I saw several charities turning stuff away because SO MUCH had been dumped on them.

Right now things that you can actually give from your own homes if you have them to give or if you can appeal to your community:

Big and tall men's clothing, they'll get loads of women's and kids stuff but there will be a shortage of larger men's clothes so if you are a larger man or know one you can hit up, they'll be grateful.

Sturdy footwear, particularly rubber boots - they've got a lot of mud to slog through and they need to protect their feet.

Protective clothing, work gloves, hard hats, high vis gear.

Camping lights, head-lights, solar-lights. If they're without power these are all much safer than candles.

Monitor local Facebook groups and see if they're appealing for anything in particular.

In a few months to a year or so they're going to need everything else so if you want to help but all you've got to give is your old fridge or a pile of blankets then just hold off until people are asking for those things. Once they have a safe place to live they'll need help filling it. Keep following any Facebook groups that form and be prepared to help later.

If you can buy things to take in or get local businesses to donate or however you go about providing new things, stuff that's gonna be really helpful right now:

Prepacked food that's easy to heat up on a barbeque or camp stove. Pouches, meals in a can, just add boiling water, anything you'd take camping. Ingredients aren't really helpful right now for people who are using all their energy to survive and don't have extra to make a meal.

Milk powder. You can make up just as much as you need and don't need to worry about refrigerating it.

Bottled water.

Baby formula.

Diapers

Toilet-paper

Baby wipes. The wastewater systems will be a mess so they're probably being advised to avoid showering even if they have running water. Baby wipes are a good way to keep reasonably clean.

Clorox wipes or similar products. Just as they're having trouble keeping themselves clean it's also a challenge to keep their environment clean.

Heavy duty garbage bags. There's a lot of spoiled food, soaked/rotting paper/fabric/building materials, that need to be contained until they can be gotten rid of. Landfill is likely affected so the best they'll be able to do is seal it up in heavy duty plastic until there's somewhere they can dump it.

Camp stove gas canisters

Batteries

Pet food

Tortillas. They keep longer than leavened bread, there's a million things you can do with them, and they're way more compact for transport. (When we had the car full to the roof with stuff we were taking in to our family, I was so proud when I realized we could transport 300 tortillas in the spaces under the driver's and passenger's seats.)

Over the counter meds - there'll be lots of people doing work that's making them very sore. Also basic first aid stuff, it'd be a bitch if you survived the hurricane uninjured only to end up with an infection that you got from a splinter while cleaning up.

If you're delivering things yourself then avoid staying in the area for too long unless you're actually taking part in the clean up. Take everything that you'll need while you're there. When you leave offer to take trash out with you.

People who've been through a disaster like this will need help long term so if you can't help right now don't feel bad, keep an eye on the situation and eventually something will come up that you can help with.

[darkmaga-returns]

The Clean Water Act requires the EPA to review wastewater discharge limits every five years to keep up with advances in water treatment technologies. Still, the agency hasn’t updated its guidelines for the plastics sector since 1993.

by The New Lede

November 19, 2024

[jacksprostate]

i've been really into infrastructure lately . what should i do as a theme 4 my next little snippet i write

[mariacallous]

The April 10 legislative elections in South Korea loom especially large for President Yoon Suk-yeol. After winning his election in March 2022 by the narrowest margin in the country’s history, the conservative Yoon inherited the National Assembly elected in 2020, in which South Korea’s liberals won a historic landslide thanks to the Moon Jae-in administration’s strong response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Out of the legislature’s 300 seats, the liberal coalition won a 180-seat majority, the largest margin of victory in South Korea’s democratic history.

Two years into his five-year presidential term, Yoon has left a mark in areas that are down to the president alone. Yoon made profligate use of presidential decrees, executive orders that don’t require legislative approval. In his first year, Yoon issued 809 presidential decrees, while his two immediate predecessors, Moon and Park Geun-hye, issued 660 and 653 decrees, respectively, in their first years. Yoon also exerted influence through his appointments—most notably Park Min, the new head of the state-owned broadcaster KBS who sacked popular liberal journalists as soon as he took office. In foreign policy, Yoon capitulated to Japan’s demands to sideline World War II-era Korean forced laborers and release wastewater from the failed Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, paving the way for U.S.-Japan-South Korea trilateral cooperation.

But in areas that require legislative assent, Yoon has been stymied. The South Korean Constitution allows the executive branch to directly propose a bill to the legislature. For the first six months of Yoon’s presidency, the National Assembly refused to pass a single bill proposed by the government. Yoon’s campaign pledge of abolishing the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, pandering to the toxic misogyny rampant among young Korean men and fueling their conservative turn, has not come to pass because a reorganization of cabinet ministries requires passing a law. (Yoon has responded by simply refusing to appoint a gender equality minister.)

Meanwhile, the opposition Democratic Party has leveraged its commanding majority to pass laws that could have been highly damaging to Yoon, such as providing for special prosecutor investigations of the Itaewon Halloween disaster, in which 159 partygoers died in crushing crowds in Seoul’s popular nightlife district, and the alleged stock pump-and-dump scheme on the part of first lady Kim Keon-hee. Each time, Yoon responded by exercising a presidential veto, quickly racking up nine vetoes in the first two years of his presidency—equal to the total number of vetoes exercised by six of his predecessors combined.

Naturally, the Yoon administration and the ruling People Power Party (PPP) are heavily focused on recapturing the legislative majority in elections this month. Yoon was able to win the presidency by flipping a significant part of Seoul from liberal to conservative between 2020 and 2022, by pandering heavily to grievances over rising property tax. The real estate slump since Yoon’s election—Seoul’s condominium prices dipped by more than 7 percent in the past year—threatened to erode that support, as the lower condo price damaged upper-middle-class Seoul residents’ primary investment while the decreased profits and higher interest rate pushed large construction companies to the brink.

In response, South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service audited banks for charging what the regulators claimed were overly high interest rates, in a move seen as a tactic to pressure banks to extend loans to companies that posed a credit risk. The government also delayed the publication of major economic indicators such as the previous year’s budget deficit and the rising price of consumer goods until after election day on April 10.

For its interim leader in the run-up to the election, the PPP tapped Han Dong-hoon, Yoon’s justice minister and heir apparent. Because of his patrician air and relative youth at 51 years old, Han has been hailed as representing the next generation of conservatives. In the words of conservative columnist Kim Soon-deok of Dong-A Ilbo, Han stands in contrast to Yoon in three ways: “First, he does not drink. Second, he is not a stinky old man. Third, he dresses well and speaks with refined language.” With Han at the center, the conservative party has been able to distance itself from the deeply unpopular president.

The Yoon administration also enjoyed a bump in popularity with its proposal to increase the number of medical students by 2,000—a significant jump from the current level of around 3,000. South Korea has a very low number of doctors, which has resulted in a lack of access to medical care especially outside the Seoul metropolitan area. At just 2.6 doctors per 1,000 people, it’s as low as in the United States, which also has a significant and artificially created shortage, and less than half of the number of most developed countries. Doctors reacted strongly, with more than 90 percent of interns and residents going on strike. Nevertheless, the Yoon administration effectively painted doctors as money-grubbers who wished to artificially restrict the size of their ranks to protect their bottom line. With all these moves, by late February it appeared that Yoon and the conservatives had put themselves in the pole position.

Meanwhile, South Korean liberals have been mired in a civil war. Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the Democratic Party and a former presidential candidate who opposed Yoon, began as a member of the minority faction within his party. As the Democratic Party finalized its slate of candidates in February, the legislators not aligned with Lee found themselves sidelined from running for their seats again. Many of them—including high-ranking members such as Assembly Deputy Speaker Kim Young-joo—quit the party, casting their lot with the PPP or seeking a third-party bid with former Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon, who lost a bitter presidential primary against Lee in 2021.

But the campaign landscape changed dramatically in March as a new third party, the Rebuilding Korea Party (RKP), took the scene by storm. The RKP was founded by Cho Kuk, who was widely considered to be the heir apparent to Moon as the liberal president’s justice minister. Instead, Cho’s short time in office fueled the rise of Yoon.

As South Korea’s prosecutor general at the time, Yoon conducted a massive investigation campaign against Cho and his family, eventually putting his wife in prison for forging a service certificate that was included in their daughter’s college applications. Yoon’s prosecution of Cho galvanized the conservatives, who saw Cho as a symbol of liberal hypocrisy. Liberals, on the other hand, saw Cho as a martyr whose family was destroyed for the sake of Yoon’s quest for power.

With Yoon’s unpopularity, the latter narrative began to win out. The RKP’s slogan is not subtle: “Three years is too long,” referring to the remaining term of Yoon’s presidency. The new party quickly became the rallying flag for South Korean liberals critical of Yoon but disappointed with the Democratic Party’s internal squabbling. Even moderates began joining the RKP ranks, attracted by the clear message of punishing the Yoon administration. Within weeks of its launch, the RKP became South Korea’s most popular party with approximately 25 percent support.

A major turning point came on March 18, when Yoon made a highly publicized visit to a supermarket—a photo op to show that the president was tending to the wild increase in food prices. In January and February, the cost of food in South Korea increased by 6.7 percent year over year, with popular items like apples rising by as much as 121.9 percent in the same period, resulting in some supermarkets selling a single apple for 19,800 won (about $15).

At the supermarket, Yoon held up a bundle of scallions and said: “I do a lot of grocery shopping, and 875 won for a bundle seems reasonable.” But in most grocery stores around South Korea, a bundle of scallions typically sells for between 4,000 and 7,000 won; the supermarket that Yoon visited just happened to be running a suspiciously well-timed promotion on scallions.

Yoon’s attempt at Potemkin produce, over a household item whose price is common knowledge, instantly became fodder for viral mockery. Especially in the Seoul metropolitan area, where partisanship is relatively weak and election results tend to alternate, support for the conservatives began crashing. Yoon’s gaffe, and the rise of his nemesis Cho, is threatening to reverse the gain that South Korea’s conservatives have made in Seoul in the past two years.

Seeking to recapture the momentum, Yoon took to the bully pulpit on April 1 to exhort the striking doctors to return to work. But the government’s standoff against doctors is now losing popularity, as the public is facing the consequences of a lack of medical care, such as emergency rooms rejecting ambulances and cancer surgeries being delayed indefinitely. The newly elected head of the Korea Medical Association vowed that the doctors would not negotiate unless Yoon apologized and sacked the health minister.

In his April 1 statement, Yoon offered no compromise—a stance that has done little for conservatives as election day approaches. After the president’s address, one unnamed conservative legislator despaired: “I feel like a dinosaur looking up at the oncoming comet, sensing our extinction.”