Fateful Harvest
''Fateful Harvest: The True Story of a Small Town, a Global Industry, and a Toxic Secret'' is a nonfiction book written by Duff Wilson, who was a reporter for the '' Seattle Times''. The book began as a series of newspaper reports, which made the issue a "national focus". ''Fateful Harvest'' focuses on Quincy, Washington. It was awarded Book of the Year from the press group Investigative Reports and Editors. It details Wilson's investigation into the recycling of fly ash, tire ash, flue dust, tailings, phosphoric acid from car factories, baghouse dust from recycling plants, zinc skimmings from galvanizing industries, and assorted other industrial byproducts with heavy metals and other chemicals into plant fertilizer based on the agronomic benefits of their alkalinity (sold as lime) or their micronutrients—zinc and manganese. It was reasoned that plants growing in alkaline soils do not uptake the metals as easily. The problem was brought to Wilson's attention in 1996 by Patty Ma ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Seattle Times
''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington state and the Pacific Northwest region. The Seattle Times Company, which is owned by the Blethen family, holds 50.5% of the paper. McClatchy company owns 49.5% of the paper. ''The Seattle Times'' had a longstanding rivalry with the ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' newspaper until the latter ceased publication in 2009. Copies are sold at $2 daily in King & adjacent counties (except Island, Thurston & other WA counties, $2.5) or $3 Sundays/Thanksgiving Day (except Island, Thurston & other WA counties, $4). Prices are higher outside Washington state. History ''The Seattle Times'' originated as the ''Seattle Press-Times'', a four-page newspaper founded in 1891 with a daily circulation of 3,500, which Maine teacher and attorney Alden J. Blethen ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Trifluralin
Trifluralin is a commonly used pre-emergence herbicide. With about used in the United States in 2001, it is one of the most widely used herbicides. Trifluralin is generally applied to the soil to provide control of a variety of annual grass and broadleaf weed species. It inhibits root development by interrupting mitosis, and thus can control weeds as they germinate. Environmental Regulation Trifluralin has been banned in the European Union since 20 March 2008, primarily due to high toxicity to aquatic life. Trifluralin is on the United States Environmental Protection Agency list of Hazardous Air Pollutants as a regulated substance under the Clean Air Act. Environmental behavior Trifluralin undergoes an extremely complex fate in the environment and is transiently transformed into many different products as it degrades, ultimately being incorporated into soil-bound residues or converted to carbon dioxide (mineralized). Among the more unusual behaviors of trifluralin is inac ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Environmental Non-fiction Books
A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale from microscopic to global in extent. It can also be subdivided according to its attributes. Examples include the marine environment, the atmospheric environment and the terrestrial environment. The number of biophysical environments is countless, given that each living organism has its own environment. The term ''environment'' can refer to a singular global environment in relation to humanity, or a local biophysical environment, e.g. the UK's Environment Agency. Life-environment interaction All life that has survived must have adapted to the conditions of its environment. Temperature, light, humidity, soil nutrients, etc., all influence the species within an environment. However, life in turn modifies, in various forms, its conditions. S ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
IMC Global
IMC Global (also known as International Minerals and Chemical Corporation and Imcera) was a mining and production company, formerly listed on the S&P MidCap 400. It was founded in 1909 as International Agricultural Corporation. In 2004, IMC Global merged with Cargill, Inc.'s crop nutrition division to form The Mosaic Company, a crop nutrition company. History IMC Global was incorporated as International Agricultural Corporation on June 14, 1909 by Walderman Schmidten in the state of New York. A native German, Schmidten moved to secure entire capital in mines from his home country; he was successful in doing so with the Kaliwerke Sollstedt Gewerkschaft. Phosphate and potash production facilities were acquired in Tennessee and Florida. Capital stock of the International Agricultural Corporation was originally fixed at $15 million in July 1909, but increased to $36 million by April 1911. As World War I broke out, demand for fertilizer declined while that for sulfuric acid skyrocketed. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' (popularly known as the ''Seattle P-I'', the ''Post-Intelligencer'', or simply the ''P-I'') is an online newspaper and former print newspaper based in Seattle, Washington, United States. The newspaper was founded in 1863 as the weekly ''Seattle Gazette'', and was later published daily in broadsheet format. It was long one of the city's two daily newspapers, along with ''The Seattle Times'', until it became an online-only publication on March 18, 2009. History J.R. Watson founded the ''Seattle Gazette'', Seattle's first newspaper, on December 10, 1863. The paper failed after a few years and was renamed the ''Weekly Intelligencer'' in 1867 by new owner Sam Maxwell. In 1878, after publishing the ''Intelligencer'' as a morning daily, printer Thaddeus Hanford bought the ''Daily Intelligencer'' for $8,000. Hanford also acquired Beriah Brown's daily ''Puget Sound Dispatch'' and the weekly ''Pacific Tribune'' and folded both papers into the ''Inte ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Proposition 65
Proposition 65 (formally titled The Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, and also referred to as Prop 65) is a California law passed by direct voter initiative in 1986 by a 63%–37% vote. Its goals are to protect drinking water sources from toxic substances that cause cancer and birth defects and to reduce or eliminate exposures to those chemicals generally, such as consumer products, by requiring warnings in advance of those exposures. The proposition In 1986, political strategists including Tom Hayden and his then wife, environmental activist Jane Fonda, thought that an initiative addressing toxic pollutants would bring more left leaning voters to the polls to help Democrat Tom Bradley in his gubernatorial race against incumbent Republican George Deukmejian, who had vetoed several pollution cleanup bills. Hayden and others funded the initiative, and found three environmental attorneys to write it, including David Roe who did not expect it to pass. Voters ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), or (formerly) fibrosing alveolitis, is a rare, progressive illness of the respiratory system, characterized by the thickening and stiffening of lung tissue, associated with the formation of scar tissue. It is a type of chronic scarring lung disease characterized by a progressive and irreversible decline in lung function. The tissue in the lungs becomes thick and stiff, which affects the tissue that surrounds the air sacs in the lungs. Symptoms typically include gradual onset of shortness of breath and a dry cough. Other changes may include feeling tired, and abnormally large and dome shaped finger and toenails (nail clubbing). Complications may include pulmonary hypertension, heart failure, pneumonia or pulmonary embolism. The cause is unknown, hence the term idiopathic. Risk factors include cigarette smoking, acid reflux disease (GERD), certain viral infections, and genetic predisposition. The underlying mechanism involves scarring of th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Deicing
Deicing is the process of removing snow, ice or frost from a surface. Anti-icing is the application of chemicals that not only deice but also remain on a surface and continue to delay the reformation of ice for a certain period of time, or prevent adhesion of ice to make mechanical removal easier. Deicing can be accomplished by mechanical methods (scraping, pushing); through the application of heat; by use of dry or liquid chemicals designed to lower the freezing point of water (various salts or brines, alcohols, glycols); or by a combination of these different techniques. Application areas Roadways In 2013, an estimated 14 million tons of salt were used for deicing roads in North America. Deicing of roads has traditionally been done with salt, spread by snowplows or dump trucks designed to spread it, often mixed with sand and gravel, on slick roads. Sodium chloride (rock salt) is normally used, as it is inexpensive and readily available in large quantities. However, since ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Alcoa
Alcoa Corporation (an acronym for Aluminum Company of America) is a Pittsburgh-based industrial corporation. It is the world's eighth-largest producer of aluminum. Alcoa conducts operations in 10 countries. Alcoa is a major producer of primary aluminum, fabricated aluminum, and alumina combined, through its active and growing participation in all major aspects of the industry: technology, mining, refining, smelting, fabricating, and recycling. In May 2007, Alcoa Inc. made a US$27 billion hostile takeover bid for Alcan in an attempt to form the world's largest aluminum producer. The bid was withdrawn when Alcan announced a friendly takeover by Rio Tinto in July 2007. On November 1, 2016, Alcoa Inc. split into two entities: a new one called Alcoa Corporation, which is engaged in the mining and manufacture of raw aluminum, and the renaming of Alcoa Inc. to Arconic Inc., which processes aluminum and other metals. After relocating its corporate operations to New York City in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Iron
Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in front of oxygen (32.1% and 30.1%, respectively), forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust. In its metallic state, iron is rare in the Earth's crust, limited mainly to deposition by meteorites. Iron ores, by contrast, are among the most abundant in the Earth's crust, although extracting usable metal from them requires kilns or furnaces capable of reaching or higher, about higher than that required to smelt copper. Humans started to master that process in Eurasia during the 2nd millennium BCE and the use of iron tools and weapons began to displace copper alloys, in some regions, only around 1200 BCE. That event is considered the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron A ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Hair Analysis (alternative Medicine)
In mainstream scientific usage, hair analysis is the chemical analysis of a hair sample. The use of hair analysis in alternative medicine as a method of investigation to assist alternative diagnosis is controversial and its use in this manner has been opposed repeatedly by the AMA because of its unproven status and its potential for healthcare fraud. Background In hair analysis the levels of minerals and metals in the hair sample are analyzed.I.M. Kempson & E. Lombi, "Hair analysis as a biomonitor for toxicology, disease and health status" Chemical Society Reviews, 2011 . Alternative medicine advocates state that this allows them to diagnose mineral deficiencies, heavy metal poisoning, and that autistic people have anomalous hair test results, a eugenicist belief. As of 1998, of the nine commercial 'nutritional hair analysis' laboratories operating in the United States, three indicated that they primarily used ICP-MS, four primarily used ICP-AES, and one reported use of direc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Patty Murray
Patricia Lynn Murray (; born October 11, 1950) is an American politician and educator who is the senior United States senator from Washington since 1993. A member of the Democratic Party, Murray was in the Washington State Senate from 1988 to 1992. She was Washington's first female U.S. senator and is due to assume the role of president pro tempore of the Senate in the 118th Congress, which would make her the first woman in American history to hold the position. Born and raised in Bothell, Washington, Murray graduated from Washington State University with a degree in physical education. She worked as a pre-school teacher and, later, as a parenting teacher at Shoreline Community College. A long-time advocate for environmental and education issues, Murray ran for the Washington State Senate in 1988, and defeated two-term incumbent Bill Kiskaddon. She served one term before launching a campaign for the United States Senate in 1992. She has been re-elected five times, most recent ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |