Echo

Carp bomb: Conspiracy theories

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I know this Asian carp looks shocked, but I heard that he helped Jack Ruby sneak through. Don’t forget to join in on the carp bomb fun. Read all about it here.

Echo

VIDEO: Big farms tend to cluster

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Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations are farm operations where large numbers of animals are raised in confined facilities. The farms themselves also tend to concentrate.

Echo

Echo coal pollution report receives national recognition

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When Echo launched a little more than a year ago, our intent was to upend the Great Lakes basin with a journalism that looked at the environment in an innovative manner. At the same time we vowed to remain faithful to fundamental values of fairness, accuracy, credibility. So we’re happy to report that the Society of Professional Journalists has named an Echo report on water pollution from coal plants as a national finalist for an online in-depth journalism award. The four-day Cleaning Coal series by Sarah Coefield, Elisabeth Pernicone, Yang Zhang and Rachael Gleason examined how clean air has come at the cost of dirty water and why coal-fired power plant waste water is poorly regulated. It previously won an SPJ regional award.

Echo

In a stretch, EPA chief compares oil spill size to Great Lakes

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EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson name-dropped the Great Lakes recently while checking out the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. According to a Los Angeles Times blog post, Jackson flew over the spill and later said at a meeting in New Orleans that “it’s like all five of the Great Lakes and the Great Lakes are oil sheen.” It’s good to know that the lakes are still on Jackson’s mind throughout this disaster, but her comparison is a bit of a stretch. The Associated Press reported Sunday that the spill is roughly the size of Puerto Rico, which has a total land area of around 3,500 square miles. That’s only around 4.3 percent of the Great Lakes’ surface area of 80,500 square miles.