‘Just the Beginning’: US Drought Kills Hundreds of Thousands of Trees by Lauren McCauley, February 1, 2013, Common Dreams
The historic drought of 2012, which continues to ravage over half of the contiguous US, has a new legacy: the death of hundreds of thousands of trees across the Midwest. “This is just beginning,” said Purdue University plant pathologist Janna Beckerman. “I suspect we’ll see trees still dying for the next two or three years.” According to Beckerman, “Indiana’s white cedar and Florida cypress trees began dying in late summer […] and Alberta and Colorado blue spruce are succumbing now.” … “We are going to be talking about drought for much of 2013 as little relief is being projected,” seconded Brian Fuchs, climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska. “A lot of areas are going to go into this spring planting season with a deficit. We are seeing it already with winter wheat, and it is going to continue unless we see changes.”
[Refer also to:
AEA: Support to the identification of potential risks for the environment and human health arising from hydrocarbons operations involving hydraulic fracturing in Europe ”A proportion (25% to 100%) of the water used in hydraulic fracturing is not recovered, and consequently this water is lost permanently to re-use, which differs from some other water uses in which water can be recovered and processed for re-use.” [Emphasis added]
The National Energy Board’s 2009 Primer for Understanding Canadian Shale Gas – Energy Briefing Note
“Flow-back water is infrequently reused in other fracs because of the potential for corrosion or scaling, where the dissolved salts may precipitate out of the water and clog parts of the well or the formation.” … “Drilling and hydraulically fracturing wells can be water-intensive procedures; however, there is very limited Canadian experience from which to estimate potential environmental impacts.” ]