ESSEX — The 160 voters who made up the annual Essex Town Meeting Monday night stood by their elected officials in handling properties at Conomo Point, backed purchasing the town’s streetlights to convert to an LED lighting system, and agreed to shell out $130,000 for a new forestry fire truck.
They also gave their approval to new, fiscal 2018 budgets for the town and the Manchester Essex Regional School District without a peep of discontent, but dug in their heels against allowing the Department of Public Works to raise fees on the town’s recycling and trash services without having to come to them each year for approval.
The 160 voters represented 4 percent of the town’s 2,599 registered voters, and showed a sense of unanimity, including on measures to approve a fiscal 2018 town operating budget of $6.68 million, an increase of $198,000, or 3 percent.
They backed an overall operating budget for the regional school district of $24.79 million, up by 3.27 percent from this year’s $24.07 million spending plan.
Voters didn’t raise a single question or "nay" vote in supporting the town, school district, Essex Tech regional vocational district or the town’s self-sustaining water and sewer enterprise funds.
A citizens petition aimed at holding a non-binding vote next spring to gauge residents’ sentiment regarding the town’s handling of properties at Conomo Point, brought forward and outlined by resident Paul Pennoyer, was moved up on the warrant moments after residents backed a call from Selectwoman Susan Gould Coviello to delay any further appointments to the Conomo Point Planning Committee.
The other no vote came when Trescott DeWitt of the Board of Public Works Commissioners pushed for allowing the Department of Public Works o be able to adjust transfer station rates without requiring approval form Town Meeting.
Appoint members of Conomo Point Planning Committee.
Pay for the town’s fiscal 2018 operating budget of $6.68 million, up 3 percent from current year.
Allow the Department of Public Works Commissioners to raise user fees for transfer station services without having the town voting on it at Annual Town Meeting.

Populist and plain speaking, the Philippines’ new environment secretary, and former yoga nun, has declared war on mining, writes Keith Schneider Regina Lopez, the Philippine secretary of the environment, recalls precisely the moment when her revulsion at the country’s rapacious mining practices started.
The Philippine mining industry hoped Lopez would go away.
And it caused a global disturbance in the mining sector’s biggest wing, the country’s 27 nickel mines which supplied China with 95% of the imported nickel ore used to make steel.
She went on to revoke the government licenses for over 100 proposed metals mines, and signed an order that banned any new open pit mines for gold, silver, copper, nickel and other metals.
Though all the stop work orders that Lopez has issued are subject to appeal, and mines still operate, the response in the global mineral trade, especially in nickel ore sales, has been swift and powerful.
"We have suffered long enough," said Lopez during a news conference here on April 27 to announce the ban on new open pit mining.
All to play for The order to outlaw new open pit mines could very well be Lopez’s last as environment secretary.
The family of the committee’s vice-chairman owns a big metal mine.
I won’t cozy up to the mining companies and sacrifice the welfare of the people.
One of the factors, I think, why people are so supportive is that I just won’t do it."

Essay on water pollution in bangladesh rivers.
Essay on water pollution in bangladesh rivers 20 water pollution facts for the United States and throughout the world give us a glimpse into the devastating effects of pollution to inspire action for prevention.
Simple changes like While many parts of the world face major challenges due to limited freshwater availability, a significant amount of the limited freshwater resources in the world are Oceans are polluted by oil on a daily basis from oil spills, routine shipping, run-offs and dumping.
2) Polluted water can lead to Although inhabited and remote, South Sentinel island is covered with plastic!
Water pollution means the contamination of water bodies (e.g. lakes, rivers, oceans and groundwater).
Water pollution mostly occurs when pollutants are dumped pollution.
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change.
IGCSE Rivers and GCSE Rivers Specification: 2.2.2 River processes Candidates should be able to: • Demonstrate an understanding of the work of a river in eroding The Ganges flows only 200 km through the Himalayas.
The environmental pollution affect the health of more than 120 million people worldwide.
Referring to the expectation of the time that the U.S. population might exceed 300 million by

Egypt develops $20 bn plan to manage water needs until 2037.
A national plan for water resources has been put in place to manage Egypt’s water needs until 2037 at an initial cost of about $20 billion, said Irrigation Minister Mohamed Abdel Aaty.
The plan includes clear procedures for dealing with the challenges of the current and future water sector and facing water pollution in all governorates, which is a priority for the government in the meantime, as well as skill-building for ministry employees, as one of the pillars of development.
Egypt is filling the gap between availabile resources and the actual needs of people by reusing 25 percent of its resources, he added.
The presence of about 5 million refugees in Egypt represents a huge pressure on water resources, in addition to the impact of climate change on the coasts, especially in the Delta area, according to the minister.
The minister said the ministry will not respond to the many requests submitted to cancel fines imposed on farmers who cultivate rice and violate the law by wasting water during cultivation, said Abdel Aaty.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry headed to the Ugandan capital Kampala for a visit, the goal of which is to consult with the Nile Basin countries and support bilateral cooperation between Egypt and Uganda.
Shoukry delivered a letter from President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to his Ugandan counterpart, Yoweri Museveni, that addressed cooperation in water-related fields between member countries of the Nile Basin Initiative.

Sewer plant project: Costly, but useful.
The project includes upgrading the village area’s District I sewage treatment plant on South Street, and also closing the District II plant that serves the area around the intersection of Route 7 and 35, then piping that sewage to the South Street plant for treatment.
The last time the town’s District I sewer plant was renovated, more than 20 years ago, the cost was about $13 million — and the new renovation is expected to cost more.
The project will have several aspects: To upgrade treatment capability at the District I sewer plant, serving the village and town center, to meet higher state environmental standards for the treatment of both nitrogen and phosphorous; To close the District II sewer plant, near the intersection of Routes 7 and 35, and pipe the effluent currently handled by there to the upgraded District I plant off South Street for treatment; To modernize treatment facilities that are old, and have been relentlessly used.
“Those drive the technology that you use, the treatment process that you use to achieve those limits, and those treatment technologies become more complex — and they’re also not what we have in place right now, so we have to get them in place so we can meet our permit limits.” Getting older Sewer plants are supposed to be upgraded every 20 years, and it’s been 24 or 25 years for District I; but the town has been working with the DEEP.
“Instrumentation,” added Siebert.
“Not beyond what we currently have, for in-town, and Route 7,” Marconi added.
Efficiency was also part of the decision to close the District II plant at 7 and 35, and pump that waste down Route 35 to the center of town for treatment at South Street.
“Long-term cost benefits,” said Marconi.
Another is that sewer system benefits the entire town by allowing there to be a more densely developed area, with commercial and multifamily buildings that create a town center — and pay a lot of taxes.

The approval of the ORP, together with the recently received water permit from the Idaho Department of Water Resources ("IDWR") positions the Company to be able to begin construction, subject to financing and certain bonding requirements.
"This is an exceptional achievement for I-Minerals and the result of many months of hard work, by our staff and our environmental engineering consultant HDR Engineering, Inc.," stated Thomas Conway, President and CEO of I-Minerals Inc. "Few exploration companies ever get their projects to the full feasibility stage and those that do often face long permitting challenges, particularly in US jurisdictions.
I-Minerals completed the Feasibility and Permitting tasks in just over two years, which speaks volumes to the quality of our project, our team and the abilities of the permitting agencies to recognize that the Bovill Kaolin Project, which will be a non-metal mine, has less impacts than most mines.
State water quality standards to be maintained at all times during the life of the operation 3.
Obtaining all other necessary permits and approvals from state and federal authorities (e.g. Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan; air quality, consultation with fisheries and US Army Corp of Engineers 404 Permit and Stream Channel Alteration Permits) as required for each production process.
Based upon the March 2016 Feasibility Study by GBM Engineers, the Bovill Kaolin Project is expected to create 100 jobs in the construction phase and 90 full time jobs over the 25+ year mine life.
A 2016 Feasibility Study on the Bovill Kaolin Deposit led by GBM Engineers LLC, who were responsible for overall project management and the process plant and infrastructure design, including OPEX and CAPEX calculated an After Tax NPV of US$249.8 million with a 25.8% After Tax IRR.
Permitting work with the State of Idaho is well underway.
Without limitation, statements regarding potential mineralization and resources, exploration results, and future plans and objectives of the Company are forward looking statements that involve various risks.
Actual results could differ materially from those projected as a result of the following factors, among others: changes in the world wide price of mineral market conditions, risks inherent in mineral exploration, risk associated with development, construction and mining operations, the uncertainty of future profitability and uncertainty of access to additional capital.

Record bill for Thames Water may be tip of the iceberg.
A record fine imposed on Thames Water in March shows the willingness of the courts to exercise new-found powers, with extra discretion for large businesses.
In imposing a £20.3m fine on the utility company for a catalogue of water pollution offences, Judge Francis Sheridan set a new yardstick, smashing the previous record environmental fine by more than 10 times.
And while much of the recent collective energy across the construction industry has been occupied by the increasingly skyward trajectory in health and safety penalties, environmental sentencing has (again) quietly but decisively set the benchmark for punishing corporate regulatory offenders.
The courts apply definitive guidelines for sentencing both environmental and health and safety cases.
Having done so, there are identifiable starting points and financial ranges for judges to apply when sentencing.
Tasked with achieving proportionality, the judge determined that £20.3m was the appropriate penalty ’to get the message across to shareholders that the environment is to be treasured and protected, and not poisoned’” It is tough to envisage a construction business finding itself liable for this level of environmental offending.
But with the guideline already suggesting a top end fine of £3m for large organisations and a clear judicial will to exceed that in appropriate cases, environmental management systems around the sector suddenly come into sharp focus.
Introduced to bring proportionality to the sentencing process, particularly in the case of very large organisations, the guidelines are now really starting to bite.
Fines have tended to be within the guidelines’ ranges so far but this case provides a clear signal that the courts are becoming more comfortable with their new-found sentencing prowess and are ready to exercise their discretion, where appropriate, particularly for the very largest businesses.

Fears that school programs and teachers might be cut, speakers at the town’s first budget hearing urged Town Council members to support an increase in Board of Education funding.
Dozens of speakers approached council members at Monday night’s public hearing to advocate for a 2.75% increase in the Board of Education’s budget for the 2017-18 budget.
Many of the speakers were teachers and students in Stratford’s public schools.
Parents also made their way to the podium.
Many in the audience at Stratford High School’s auditorium held up green “support 2.75%” signs, echoing Council Chairman Beth Daponte’s recommendation for a spending increase.
Daponte’s proposal would increase the schools budget by about $2.93 million.
“Please remember that behind the numbers are the hearts and minds of our children, their futures and their future contributions to society,” she added.
Feehan said there had been only 131 signatures on the petition out of a town of more than 52,000 residents, suggesting that calls to freeze a spending increase were not overwhelming.
Former Board of Ed chairman Andrea Veilleux, who has been critical of the Board of Ed’s spending, said she’s looked at the Board of Ed’s proposed budget and found “a consistent pattern of behavior of providing incorrect or incorrect financials and performance data” in the schools.
His idea is to fund the proposed schools increase and use about $500,000 for mill rate relief.

Unley residents unperturbed about water contamination scare.
KIM Smith and his wife Jo have loved living at their Unley townhouse since they purchased the property on Mary Street about 10 years ago.
His home was one of 300 properties — including those on Charles Lane, Little Charles Lane and Tyne Place — which received a letter from the Environment Protection Authority on Monday evening about a potential trichloroethylene (TCE) contamination.
The harmful chemical was also behind a precautionary evacuation of homes at Clovelly Park and demolition of 25 buildings in 2015.
“There’s nothing we can do anyway,” Mr Smith said.
“It’s a matter of wait and see — what comes to light and then react accordingly whatever that may be.
Mary St resident Andrew Wood, 28, was calm about the potential risks.
Mr Wood, an engineer, has lived in his parent’s property on Mary St for the past 10 years.
“I imagine there is quite a bit of this (testing) done in Adelaide.” Mother-of-one Hongmei Xie, 37, has been living on Mary St for three years with her daughter, Aneesa, 13.
“I don’t know if that has anything to do with the contamination,” she said.

Here’s an overview of some of the key concerns: Groundwater contamination: One big concern is whether the chemicals used in fracking or the natural gas itself could contaminate people’s drinking water.
In recent years, fracking wells have blown out in states like North Dakota.
In another incident, thousands of gallons of fracking fluid leaked out of a storage tank in Dimock, Pennsylvania.
The Environmental Protection Agency is currently conducting a big study into this type of contamination and how to prevent it.
A second question is whether chemicals or natural gas could somehow migrate from the fracked shale layer thousands of feet up into the groundwater — even if the wells are perfectly constructed.
Environmental Protection Agency Wastewater pollution: A separate issue is what happens with all that water after it has been used to crack open shale and is pumped back up to the surface.
But when there aren’t enough injection wells available, the water is either stored in tanks and holding ponds or sent off to treatment plants.
That raises the risk of either accidental spills or improper treatment.
Air pollution: Once an area of shale has been fracked, natural gas begins flowing up out of the well.
In 2012, the EPA began requiring oil and gas companies to limit these emissions and capture the escaped gas.