Word: soils
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Andropov era, the KGB has apparently been careful not to soil its own hands with murders of revenge, political assassination and other "wet" (bloody) affairs. A plot against the Pope would have demanded extreme caution, since it conceivably could have endangered Andropov's political prospects and damaged the Kremlin's European peace offensive. Says Hélène Carrère d'Encausse: "If the West becomes convinced of Andropov's implication in this affair, it will not only diminish his international authority but shatter the modern, nonterrorist image that he has sought
Florida's Everglades, a unique mixture of rain forest, wildlife refuge and the world's largest cultivated organic soil bed, stretches 100 miles from Lake Okeechobee in the north to Florida Bay at the state's southern tip. Once the marshland measured an average 45 miles in width; today it extends 35 miles. Little of the land is in its pristine state. Huge tracts have been drained for agricultural and residential development, and thousands of miles of man-made canals have diverted the water from natural channels. Even much of the 62% of land lying within...
...effect has been devastating. At least 50% of the soil has oxidized and eroded, in some places exposing the barren lime rock. Buried septic tanks on Lake Okeechobee's shores have surfaced. The lake itself has receded, from a depth of 17 ft. in the 1960s to 9 ft. last year. Alligators have lost most of their eggs to artificial flooding in three of the past five years. Flooding also led to the deaths of 5,000 deer last year. The region's spectacular wading birds, many of them rarities, are equally threatened. Wood storks, for example, have...
Then, two days before Christmas, the Federal Government released Environmental Protection Agency findings that oil mixed with the deadly poison dioxin, sprayed on unpaved streets a decade ago as a seemingly harmless means to hold down dust, had left dangerous concentrations of the chemical in the soil. But since the EPA samples were taken before Dec. 5, it is still unclear whether the flood waters washed away much of the chemical, making Times Beach safer, or unearthed more dioxin, spreading it throughout the town. The EPA plans new tests, scheduled for this week...
...town meeting last Tuesday with state and federal politicians and health officials, Dr. Henry Falk, an epidemiologist with the federal Centers for Disease Control, advised residents who had left Times Beach after the flooding to stay away. He told those who had returned to avoid exposure to soil and debris until new tests were completed. Falk said that scientific studies with animals show that dioxin, an acutely toxic substance that is produced as an unwanted byproduct in the manufacture of herbicides and other chemicals, can have extremely adverse effects on the skin, liver and immune system. Many of the residents...