Environment

May 9, 2007 - More on the Savannah River Ecology Lab pending shutdown that we mentioned here last week... The following announcement was e-mailed to us by Joe Franke:

May 8, 2007 - Wildfires in drought-stricken areas of the South have forced evacuations in Florida and the largest ever wildfire in Georgia, which has consumed more than 100,000 acres, is still burning. Firefighting efforts are being hampered by low humidity and high winds.

May 7, 2007 - With hurricane season less than a month away, experts from the United States and the Netherlands say flaws in New Orleans' repaired levee system could leave the region vulnerable to another disastrous breach like the one that occurred after Hurricane Katrina, which was the largest civil engineering disaster in U.S. history.

May 4, 2007 - The South is among the regions of the United States hit hard by colony collapse disorder, in which large numbers of honeybees are dying off and disappearing, never to be seen again.

May 3, 2007 - The Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (SREL) in Aiken, SC was established in 1951 by University of Georgia with funding from the Atomic Energy Commission. Its mission was to study the effects of the Savannah River Site nuclear weapons facility on the surrounding environment.

May 1, 2007 - When the Army Corps of Engineers solicited bids for new drainage pumps in New Orleans, it copied the specifications from the catalog of the politically well-connected manufacturer that eventually won the $32 million contract, according to a review of documents by the Associated Press.

April 30, 2007 - While hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast residents suffered in desperate conditions following Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration turned down assistance offered by other countries.