| Gervais property owner gets one-year sentence
A Gervais man on whose property were found thousands of stolen items was sentenced Monday to a year in prison on federal charges. Ivan Cam, 42, will serve a year in prison after he pleaded guilty Aug. 16 to violating the Clean Water Act, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Kerin, who prosecuted the case. Cam appeared in federal court in Portland and was sentenced to a year in prison and one year of supervised release by U.S. District Court Judge Garr M. King, Kerin said. He also was fined nearly $40,000. Cam was convicted of illegally excavating in the wetlands near his home on Mount Angel-Gervais Road. Cam was the first to be prosecuted for a wetlands violation case in Oregon, Kerin said. In the federal case, Cam repeatedly violated the Clean Water Act by digging ditches, trenches and drains in the land around his 10-acre property, federal court records showed.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers blocks plan to dam Susquehanna
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Thursday that it is denying a permit for an inflatable dam to be built across the Susquehanna River in Wilkes-Barre.
The Luzerne County Flood Protection Authority had proposed building a structure that would have reached 9 1/2 feet high and impounded 4 1/2 miles of the free flowing river. The corps said in a statement that the dam was not the least environmentally damaging way to control floods in the area.
The proposed $14 million dam would fill an acre of wetlands and disrupt the natural current in violation of the Clean Water Act, which requires the corps to maintain the biological integrity of U.S. waterways, the statement said.
The idea of the dam was pushed for many years by U.S.
Virugambakkam canal to be desilted
Instead of waiting for central funds to clean up city waterways, the Corporation staff along with PWD officials would take up temporary works like deweeding and desilting at the Virugambakkam Canal from tomorrow (8 August) at a cost of Rs 60 lakh. Mayor M Subramanian, councillors and top officials of Metrowater, PWD, TNEB and State Highways were taken on a guided tour of the canal at Chinmaya Nagar on Sunday during which residents, welfare groups and Exnora Innovators Club poured out their discontent and sufferings arising due to the misuse of the flood drain as sewage dumps. Metrowater officials informed that individual notices were given to 120 households which let out sewage in the Virugambakkam canal with a one-month time to desist from their 'illegal act' of polluting the storm water drain.
Toothpaste is a bright idea to fix scratched CDs
Dear Billy: Compact discs can scratch easily, but the good news is that many scratches can be wiped away with ordinary white toothpaste. Gels won't work -- just plain, white toothpaste. Squeeze a small amount of toothpaste onto a clean sock or any lint-free cloth and apply to the CD, starting from the inside and working outward like the spokes of a wheel. Remember to wipe it from the inside out, never back and forth. Once the underside is coated, take the clean, dry part of the sock and wipe away the toothpaste, again using spokelike strokes -- from the inner edge to the outer edge. Don't use water. Just continue wiping until the paste is gone. This should work great on minor scratches on DVDs and game discs, too. Dear Heloise: I put two frozen waffles in the toaster.
DENR orders closure of hog farm in Tarlac
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources has ordered the closure of a hog farm in Tarlac and imposed fines on candy and paper manufacturing firms in Cavite for water pollution violations. The Pollution Adjudication Board, headed by Environment Secretary Lito Atienza, issued the cease and desist order on Jan. 24 against Charity Farm located at Barangay Malacampa in Camiling town for its repeated failure to establish water pollution measures since February 2006. The PAB said its inspections and testing showed that the farm exceeded standards on water effluents set under RA 9275 (Clean Water Act). According to the board, the farm's owner failed to do something about it despite several warnings. Added to the violation, the farm also did not have an environmental compliance certificate.
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