NASA Launches New Weather Satellite

GOES-14 launch - click to see a larger image

On June 27, 2009, NASA successfully launched GOES-14, the newest in a long line of workhorse weather satellites, and will soon turn over operation of the bird to NOAA. Most of the images you see on TV weather reports come from the GOES satellites. They're low-resolution, but cover huge chunks of the planet in a single view. And since they are geostationary (the "G" in GOES) -- parked at an altitude of 22,000 miles where the orbital motion of the satellite precisely keeps time with the rotation of the earth -- these satellites are continuously monitoring cloud patterns and other atmospheric parameters, allowing forecasters to predict the weather and keep a close eye on severe storms.

GOES image of Hurricane Katrina, August 28, 2005

Here at SkyTruth, we use GOES images to help us track the motion of hurricanes that threaten offshore oil and gas facilities, and to evaluate the wind and rain conditions in an area when we're acquiring satellite radar images to detect and map oil slicks. With another hurricane season upon us, we're glad to see this perfect launch.

Natural Gas Drilling, Hydrofracturing, and Ground Water - Drink Up?

A couple of YouTube videos have been making the rounds and causing some alarm among the ever-increasing number of homeowners who have active natural gas drilling in their area, and rely on groundwater for their drinking water supply. This video shows common, normal operations at a modern natural-gas drilling site in western Colorado, operated by the Canadian company EnCana, a major player in the Rockies. One video shows drilling fluids being stored onsite in a plastic-lined open pit (a "fluid reserve pit") while the well is hydrofractured, or "fracced." The other video shows this same pit being closed: as a crew removes residual fluids and pulls out the liner, a bulldozer buries the pit.


We've created a small gallery showing the drill site depicted in these videos, and adjacent residences. Although the operations depicted are probably allowed by Colorado law, nearby homeowners who have water wells for drinking and bathing are concerned about these practices as drilling permeates the area. Multiply this scene tens of thousands of times, and you get the idea what's been happening in recent years with drilling in many parts of the country.

Grasberg Mine Tailings Inundating Forest in Indonesia

File this under "you gotta be kidding me" -- tailings (waste rock, mud, etc.) from the massive open-pit Grasberg copper/gold mine in Irian Jaya, Indonesia, are actually dumped right into the river system. It's called "riverine tailings disposal." Sounds very sophisticated. When the fast-flowing mountain streams hit the forested lowlands, though, they slow down and dump their load of crud across a steadily growing floodplain of desolation, killing most of the vegetation:

Grasberg mine tailings in 1988 (above) and 2003 (below)

According to the New Orleans-based mine operator, Freeport McMoRan, this is all perfectly legal in Indonesia. But some of their investors aren't too happy about this.

We've created a gallery of satellite images showing how rapidly the area of devastation grew between 1988 and 2003. Can't wait to see a more recent image...

Our images appear about 4 minutes into a 2007 documentary film by Kurt Diegert called "Exploiting West Papua." The film also includes spectacular low-altitude aerial shots of the inundated floodplain.

SkyTruth - How Do We Help (Part 2)?

All too often, public notice of a proposed well or other industrial facility -- particularly those related to oil and gas drilling -- gives the location in legal terms that are meaningless to the average citizen. Where, exactly, is the thing going to be drilled or built? We just got another great example of this: a proposed well to dispose of acid gas (carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, waste products of natural gas processing) on the site of a large gas processing plant, by injecting it into an underlying rock formation. Here is the public description of the location:

CASE 14329: Application of Anadarko Petroleum Corporation for approval of an acid gas injection well, San Juan County, New Mexico. Applicant seeks approval to drill an acid gas injection well at its Kirtland New Mexico site. The well will be drilled 1650 feet from the North line and 2310 feet from the West line in Unit F of Section 1, Township 29 North, Range 15 West NMPM, to inject up to 2000 barrels of acid gas per day at a maximum pressure of 1985 psi, into the Entrada Formation, at an approximate depth of 6500 feet to 6700 feet.

Concerned citizens in New Mexico contacted SkyTruth. We loaded the township/range grid into our GIS software, identified the location, and converted it to latitude/longitude coordinates. Then we plugged the location into Google Earth to generate a few images showing the proposed disposal well. Here's the response to our work:

Thank you so much! I do believe you have located it. I was not aware that the plant was this large and so near Kirtland. It is much closer to residences than their permit request implies. We of course are worried about H2S leaks as well as the underground process...

It is really amazing how much we use these satellite pictures now. You have really opened up a valuable tool to us with your work. I find that they really help cut to the chase when shown to someone during a discussion. Usually people are stunned to see them. Can't hide and it is hard to argue with pictures. They are a terrific and valuable tool for sure. - Kris Dixon

SkyTruth - How Do We Help?

At SkyTruth we focus on creating images from satellite and aerial imagery that shed light on environmental concerns, especially landscape- and ecosystem-altering activities such as oil and gas drilling, mining, and deforestation. Many citizen's groups, large and small, use our work to help raise awareness of the problems and issues they're confronting. Every so often we get a note of thanks, letting us know exactly how we've helped, often in ways we didn't even foresee. We just received this one, with permission from the author to share it with you. She is fighting uranium mining in Colorado, and writes this in response to images of mining near residential neighborhoods that we posted last week:

You can never know how much you've helped our effort.

In our pain and anguish, we never found the Butte, Montana, mine. We always looked for a uranium mine. However the Berkeley Mine is pertinent because of the devastation to their water.

We've always believed that there was one issue that would save us... and that is water!

Your photos of the Berkeley Mine led us to diagrams of the dewatering of their area. That mine is literally across the street from Butte, Montana, and the people with private water wells were probably hooked up to city water (that fact is no excuse for this disaster),but what will we do when our water table is lowered and our water wells run dry? We are 9 miles, as the crow flies, from city water.

The Fremont Board of County Commissioners voted to approve Uranium Exploration within 500 feet of 44 land and homeowners. They've stated that they do not believe they can "take" the rancher's minerals. They won't exercise their own authority to deny an inappropriate adjacent land use to our homes and retirement properties.

Water is our last weapon. Your photos lead us to examples of how massive dewatering affects the area. Not only by the absence of water, but by the contamination of the water that infills the contaminated hole that is left. More than one mine in Montana has to have water treatment in "perpetuity." Who pays for that cost? Taxpayers! It's disgraceful to allow this to happen. It's a waste beyond words... of precious Western water, and taxpayer resources.

How can these backwards legislators continue to vote to allow this kind of thing to happen when the results are so proven to cost multi-million dollars more than the few jobs these projects bring?

Thank you, more than words can express. Doesn't mean that they will do the right thing, but it's a fantastic start!

Gold Mining In the 'Hood: Morro do Ouro Gold Mine - Paracatu, Brazil

How'd you like to have a fast-growing open-pit gold mine in your neighborhood?

Town of Paracatu with mining operation (gray) in the background.

That's a serious question facing the folks in Paracatu, in the Minas Gerais state of eastern Brazil. Gold mining there has occurred since the early 1700's, but really kicked into high gear with full-scale open-pit mining beginning in the 1980s, becoming the biggest gold mine in Brazil. Since 2006, a Canadian company, Kinross Gold Corporation, has owned and operated the mine and recently began a major expansion. SkyTruth has created a gallery of vertical and panoramic views showing the mine, processing facilities, tailings impoundment, and proximity to Paracatu, a city of about 100,000 people.

This certainly isn't the only place where mining and neighborhoods collide. Check out our gallery for Cerro de Pasco in Peru.

Cerro de Pasco mine, Peru

And here in the US, the Berkeley Pit copper/gold mine in Butte, Montana, gradually ate up neighborhoods throughout the life of the mine. Now the closed mine poses a toxic threat to groundwater that has landed in the lap of local residents and US taxpayers. It's the gift that keeps on giving. We've posted a couple of pics of this gem.

Berkeley Pit, Butte, Montana

Thanks are (over)due....

...to our friends at ERDAS, makers of Imagine, the powerful image processing and mapping software that we use here at SkyTruth. They provide this at a steeply discounted rate to non-profits like us. Almost everything we do uses Imagine; a couple of examples are our time-series of urban growth in Las Vegas, and our multi-decade analysis of mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia.

...and to our friends at Google Earth, who once again have extended, at no cost, the license for us to continue using Google Earth Pro for another year. Check out a couple of the ways we've used Google Earth Pro: for mapping coal-combustion waste disposal in high-risk flood zones, and showing residential development encroaching into the habitat of the endangered Preble's Mouse.

A big tip o' the hat to companies like these who make a real effort to support the non-profit community.