[Home]   [Full version]  

Fish kill has Calif. residents worried

Aug 31 ,Space & Earth science


Local activists are worried about California's plan to dump chemicals into Lake Davis to stamp out northern pike.

Conservationists say the northern pike is an invasive predator that must be removed from the Sierra Nevada lake before it spreads to the Sacramento River Delta -- where is could disrupt the populations of native salmon, steelhead and delta smelt, The Christian Science Monitor reported Thursday.

Local activists in Portola, Calif., say the conservation effort doesn't justify putting chemicals into the lake, which is slated for future drinking water use.

Former Town Councilor Larry Douglas said the fish poison, CFT Legumine, has not been tested on humans.

"This has never been tested on a human population before. And I have no desire for our children to be the guinea pigs," Douglas told the newspaper.

The state Department of Health Services says the chemical concentrations fall well within legal limits or within their own safety guidelines.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International

Related stories:

Researchers reveal widespread, hardworking water on ancient Mars
(PhysOrg.com) -- For decades, scientists have theorized – romanticized, even – that Mars has harbored water. The evidence has grown stronger as recent missions to the Red Planet have revealed in stunning detail Martian topography, mineralogy and clues to past climate. But how much water, where it was or is located and what it was doing have been hard to pin down.
Probing Question: Are water wars in our future?
Schoolkids know that over 70 percent of Earth's surface is washed in water. Yet very little of that abundance — less than two percent — is available for drinking and agriculture. Over the last 50 years, moreover, freshwater use has tripled as global population has doubled, leading to scarcities in many regions of the globe. According to the United Nations, over 1.1 billion of the world's people lack access to a clean water supply.
First stars might have been powered by dark matter
For a long time, scientists have assumed that the very first stars were powered by fusion, in processes similar to what goes on in present day stars. But a new theory is emerging to challenge that view. “The first stars were different in a lot of ways,” Katherine Freese, a theoretical physicist at the University of Michigan, tells PhysOrg.com.
North America's northernmost lake affected by global warming
Analyses conducted by researchers from Université Laval’s Center for Northern Studies reveal that the continent’s northernmost lake is affected by climate change. In an article to be published in the September 28 edition of Geophysical Research Letters, the international research team led by Université Laval scientists Warwick Vincent and Reinhard Pienitz reports that aquatic life in Ward Hunt Lake, a body of water located on a small island north of Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic, has undergone major transformations within the last two centuries.
HiRISE Team Begins Releasing a Flood of Mars Images Over the Internet
The University of Arizona-based team that operates the high-resolution camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, in conjunction with NASA, is releasing the first of what will be a non-stop flood of incredibly detailed Mars images taken during the spacecraft's two-year primary science mission.
Full speed ahead for cosmic ray project
Construction is accelerating on a $17 million cosmic ray observatory west of Delta, Utah, thanks to two U.S. agencies: the Bureau of Land Management issued a permit, and the National Science Foundation approved a $2.4 million grant.
Pike escape over dam feared
A heavier-than-normal snow melt could help the voracious non-native northern pike escape from the Plumas County, Calif., reservoir.
Earth Sinks Three Inches Under Weight Of Flooded Amazon
As the Amazon River floods every year, a sizeable portion of South America sinks several inches because of the extra weight – and then rises again as the waters recede, a study has found.

News discussion:

Too many fish? Time to go fishing! in Space & Earth science news

[Home]   [Full version]