Tagworker safety

Why the BP oil spill still matters after 9 years

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There wasn’t much fanfare in April when the 9th anniversary of the world’s largest-ever oil spill — the BP Deepwater Horizon catastrophe that dumped more than 4 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico — came and went. Usually a 9th anniversary isn’t a big deal, after all. But the lack of attention might cause some folks to think the effects of America’s worst...

The drip, drip, drip of Big Oil on La.’s fragile environment

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More than six years ago, this blog was created largely in response to one gigantic and catastrophic event: The massive BP oil spill in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon explosion. That tragedy has had dozens of story lines — from the toxic dispersant that made so many clean-up workers ill, to the deaths of sea creatures from dolphins to endangered turtles, to the destruction of...

ExxonMobil up to its old dirty tricks in New Jersey

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ExxonMobil is arguably the world’s most powerful corporation, with annual revenues greater than many developing nations and a penchant for CIA-grade secrecy. It’s headquartered in a fortress-style building just outside of Dallas that some employees jokingly call “the Death Star.” But if you remember “Star Wars,” you know that even “the Death Star”...

Clear-eyed look at fracking shows how ugly it is

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One point that I’ve strived to make about fracking from Day One is quite simply this: There was a rush without judgment — a race by Big Oil and Gas to get as many holes in the ground before the public, and the officials they elect, had any sense at all of the real impact. In Pennsylvania, for example, at the epicenter of the Marcellus Shale drilling boom, landmen raced to sign leases...

By land, air and water, fracking is a killer

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One of the big issues surrounding fracking is whether drillers should be required to disclose the chemicals they use to blast through rock formations deep under the earth. Environmental groups and local residents say that information is vital to protecting the public health, while the oil and gas companies insist this is proprietary business information. This week, we got another inkling of the...

North Dakota gets fracked over

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  I could tell you about the out-of-control drilling boom in North Dakota, or you could see it for yourself. From outer space! The picture at the top of this post — taken by satellite of the United States at night — reveals an amazing truth: The gas flares in and around tiny Williston, North Dakota, now burn as brightly, and are as visible from space, as major U.S. metropolitan areas...

Stuart H. Smith is an attorney based in New Orleans fighting major oil companies and other polluters.
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