Three stories: water stories: dead zones, fish kills and toxic lakes

Lest we forget and think that global warming is our only environmental issue, three stories:

• Life may have been completely wiped out in the Sixmilewater and Ballymartin Rivers in Glengormley, NEWTOWN ABBEY, UK by a discharge of toxic chemicals from an as yet unknown source. More than 300 incidents of fish kill have been reported in the last five years. Someone's not doing good detective work! Newton Abbey Times.
• If you were a mining company in Canada with lots of toxic tailing to get rid of, and you wanted to get around laws prohibiting destruction of fish habitat, what would you do? How about getting the Canadian government to reclassify 16 pristine lakes as toxic dump sites? The lakes include prime wilderness fishing lakes from B.C. to Newfoundland. In northern B.C., Imperial Metals plans to enclose a remote watershed valley to hold tailings from a gold and copper mine. The valley lies in what the native Tahltan people call the "Sacred Headwaters" of three major salmon rivers. It also serves as spawning grounds for the rainbow trout of Kluela Lake, which is downstream from the dump site. CBC News.
• Forrest Gump would not fare too well at shrimp fishing in Louisiana this summer. The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, which covered more than 6,000 sq.mi.last year, this year was expected to equal an area the size of Massachusetts-- some 10,000 sq.mi.However, that estimate was made before the midwest floods washed an incredible amount of fertilizer down the Mississippi. The dead zone is created by agricultural practices hundreds, evebn thousands of miles away. Time magazine.

Photo: Kerry St. Pe