A regular sewage plant for 28,000 people costs about €225,000 a year to run according to figures from Germany. Installing a new form of digester unit (many sewage plants don’t have them) made by IGB, shortened the digestion process from 30-50 days down to 5-7 days. In addition there is reduction in the residue by about 1/3 which reduces disposal cost by €70,000 a year. In addition, sewage plants us a lot of electricity in the process. The biogas produced by the digester can provide enough electricity to reduce costs by a further €100,000 a year. A bit of a no-brainer?
By Saturday morning, it was riven in two by a vast trench up to 30m across, 5m deep and 200 metres long.
The enormous gully - so big that locals have called it ‘the Grand Canyon of Durham’ - is believed to have been formed in a matter of minutes when millions of gallons of floodwater from surrounding farmland suddenly tore through the soil towards the River Wear.
Simultaneously, the high waters of the Wear had broken the banks at exactly the same point - and in an instant, a new tributary to the river was formed. Luckily, no buildings were near enough to be affected.
Now the floodwater has drained away and the river has returned to its normal level, an almost empty canyon remains, with just a trickle of water at the bottom.
It is an extraordinary illustration of the power of nature - and shows that enough water, flowing with enough force, doesn’t need decades to carve a path through the earth.
In fact, it is estimated that the water carried into the river up to 12,000 cubic metres of soil, weighing 15,000 tons, the volume of 25 swimming pools.
Durham experienced 80mm of rain in 24 hours, ten times the average, helping to create the new feature in a field belonging to Houghall agricultural college in the village of Shincliffe.
Pete Whitfield, from the college, discovered the canyon on Saturday morning when he rushed to work to sort out the flooding problems, which were so bad several pigs were drowned.
He was early enough on the scene to see the water thundering into it from the field.
‘I heard this rushing like Niagara Falls,’ he said. ‘And I could see this water wearing away the land. The field was perfectly flat 25 acres before. Now there’s only about 18 acres left.
‘It’s an amazing phenomenon, but I estimate it’s the result of water from up to 120 acres of flooded land.’
As a result of searching for material for the Amazon unit for Year 7, I came across something that bothered me a lot. As a result of an agreement between Peru and the US, the indigenous people were feeling exploited. Their rights had been removed by parliament and they rebelled. An unknown number were killed by the police. There were international protests and the US were sitting on their hands. What did the UK government have to say about this, I wanted to know. Enter email to my MP. No-one was more surprised than me when I was asked to meet him and discuss this. David Milliband will be asked a question or 2!
Watch this space – I will let you know what happens.
So if it bugs you, let them know. You never know what might happen next.
This is a really important project which our very own RSPB are involved in – do take a look
“I’m so involved with our work in Harapan Rainforest that I often get bogged down in the detail. But the image of a young, healthy Sumatran tiger staring back at me blew me away – I just had to share my excitement with you! As top predators, if tigers are doing well, you can be sure that so is most of the other rainforest wildlife.”
Ian Rowland
RSPB Tropical Forest Conservation Manager
This tiger image is just the latest in a long line of successes from our work in Sumatra. We already hold the management rights to part of Harapan Rainforest, meaning we have stopped the chopping down of trees and are planting them instead – creating a better home for all the rainforest wildlife.
Thanks to your support, all the pieces of our campaign to Save the Sumatran rainforest are now starting to fall into place.
PS We thought you’d also like to know that in the next few weeks we’re expecting to receive the second management licence for Harapan Rainforest – giving us roughly 100,000 ha of some of the last remaining lowland rainforest in Sumatra. Just one more reason to celebrate this challenging and ground-breaking international project.
Global economic downturn drives slowing deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon
Annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell below 10,000 square kilometers for the first time since record-keeping began, reported Brazil’s Environment Minister Carlos Minc on Sunday.
Minc said preliminary data from the country’s satellite-based deforestation detection system (DETER) showed that Amazon forest loss between August 2008 and July 2009 would be below 10,000 square kilometers, the lowest level in more than 20 years. Official figures are due out in August or September.
Falling commodity prices and government action to crack down on illegal clearing are credited for the decline in deforestation.
Conversion to cattle pasture accounts for roughly 80 percent of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Pasture is used for beef production as well as to speculate on rising land prices.
Nearly 20 percent of the Amazon has been cleared since the 1970s, but the Brazilian government has recently committed to significant reductions in deforestation under its climate change mitigation plan. The country aims to raise more than $20 billion in donations from industrialized countries to fund forest conservation.
Palm oil is present in Hovis and Kingsmill bread, the country’s best-selling margarine Flora, KitKat and Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bars, as well as Dove soap, Comfort fabric conditioner and Persil washing powder.
Palm oil is driving the destruction of the rainforests, displacing native people and threatening the survival of the orangutan is present in dozens of Britain’s leading grocery brands, an investigation by The Independent has found.
Wanze and Hugo are descendants of African slaves. These Africans took off into the rainforest when they were brought to Surinam as slaves where they have lived a tribe ever since and are known as the Maron Tribe. The Saramaca — the largest Maroon tribe in Suriname — live by fishing, hunting, planting crops and gathering wild nuts and fruits.
Wanze and Hugo have been fighting tirelessly, and not without threats being made against them, for more than 10 years.
“They saved not only their communities’ 9,000 square kilometers of forest, but strengthened the possibility of saving countless more,” therepresentative of Goldman Environmental Foundation. Wanze and Hugo are to share the $150,000 cash prize.
This box, costing a little over £3 a time, will save wood in poorer countries, as it uses solar power to turn it into an oven.
It won an award for sustainablilty as it was th simplest idea put forward, that will help save the forests and save the poorest people a lot of time and/or money.
It is made of 2 cardboard boxes with newspaper between the layers for insulation. The inside is painted black and the outside is covered with silver foil. This maximises the amount of heat that is trapped inside. It is appropriate technology that can easily produced locally, and because it is a flatpack, is easily transported.
A regular sewage plant for 28,000 people costs about €225,000 a year to run according to figures from Germany. Installing a new form of digester unit (many sewage plants don’t have them) made by IGB, shortened the digestion process from 30-50 days down to 5-7 days. In addition there is reduction in the residue by about 1/3 which reduces disposal cost by €70,000 a year. In addition, sewage plants us a lot of electricity in the process. The biogas produced by the digester can provide enough electricity to reduce costs by a further €100,000 a year. A bit of a no-brainer?
On Friday night, it was a perfectly ordinary, perfectly flat, cornfield.
Now the floodwater has drained away and the river has returned to its normal level, an almost empty canyon remains, with just a trickle of water at the bottom.
As a result of searching for material for the Amazon unit for Year 7, I came across something that bothered me a lot. As a result of an agreement between Peru and the US, the indigenous people were feeling exploited. Their rights had been removed by parliament and they rebelled. An unknown number were killed by the police. There were international protests and the US were sitting on their hands. What did the UK government have to say about this, I wanted to know. Enter email to my MP. 
No-one was more surprised than me when I was asked to meet him and discuss this. David Milliband will be asked a question or 2!
Palm oil is present in Hovis and Kingsmill bread, the country’s best-selling margarine Flora, KitKat and Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bars, as well as Dove soap, Comfort fabric conditioner and Persil washing powder.
Wanze and Hugo are descendants of African slaves. These Africans took off into the rainforest when they were brought to Surinam as slaves where they have lived a tribe ever since and are known as the Maron Tribe. The Saramaca — the largest Maroon tribe in Suriname — live by fishing, hunting, planting crops and gathering wild nuts and fruits.
This box, costing a little over £3 a time, will save wood in poorer countries, as it uses solar power to turn it into an oven.