Today’s Essential Reads
FRACKING:
Towns Win a Round in Court Against Unfettered Fracking
TRY TO IMAGINE that you live in a nice suburban residential neighborhood and someone wants to open up an industrial chicken farm nearby — or maybe a fireworks factory or a steel mill. Surely, local zoning laws would not permit it, just as they would prohibit other commercial and industrial uses of residential areas.
Anti-Fracking Movement Goes to Washington
Thousands of people traveled to the West lawn of the U.S. Capitol on July 28 for the first national demonstration against the use of hydraulic fracturing for extracting natural gas from shale formations.
Dimock, PA Water Tests Conducted By EPA Amid Fracking Concerns
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday it has completed tests on drinking water in the northeastern Pennsylvania village of Dimock and has determined it is safe to drink, despite the claims of some residents who say it has been polluted by gas drilling.
Critics of Fracking Sound Alarm Over Chemicals
In the first of a series of meetings concerning hydraulic fracturing for natural gas, three speakers addressed an assembly of town officials and citizens from Germantown, Clermont and Livingston at the Kellner Community Youth and Activities Building on the dangers of the process widely known as hydrofracking.
The Real Story Behind the Fracking Debate
By now, if you have any interest in water, energy, international security and politics, climate change, environmental impacts on small communities, or any number of other issues of the day, you have seen, heard, or read something about “fracking” — the shorthand name for the process of hydraulic fracturing.
BP OIL SPILL:
Abundant Corals Discovered at Shell’s Chukchi Drill Site
Greenpeace submarine research at Shell’s proposed drill site in the Chukchi Sea has collected the first coral specimen from the region. With a Shell vessel nearby, Greenpeace marine biologist and submarine pilot John Hocevar collected two specimens of Gersemia rubiformis coral, also known as sea raspberry, and recorded video to document the presence of large numbers of corals during transects of the sea floor.
Protest at Lake Worth Beach Saturday to Target Offshore Oil Drilling
Palm Beach County residents will hold hands at noon Saturday with a common goal — to stop offshore drilling and support clean energy.
Enbridge Oil Spill in Wisconsin Raises New Concerns About Proposed Pipeline
Critics of the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline are pointing to a new Enbridge oil spill of roughly 1,200 barrels in Wisconsin as another sign that a new conduit for Albertan bitumen is too risky for British Columbia.
Serial Oil Spillers Mucking Up The Midwest
Almost exactly two years to the day after an Enbridge Energy pipeline belched a million gallons of oil into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River, the company is in trouble again. More than 50,000 gallons of oil destined for Chicago area refineries ended up in a field 80 miles north of Madison, Wis., on Friday, after a portion of Enbridge’s Line 14 pipeline burst. The pipeline stretches through Wisconsin to Chicago and was a factor in a horrific accident in New Lennox earlier this year when drag racers were incinerated after hitting one of its pump stations.
RADIATION:
Fukushima Residents Say Resounding “No” to Nuclear Energy
The Fukushima hearing, the ninth out of 11 planned nationwide, sought to gather views on nuclear power’s role in the nation’s energy mix as the government struggles to cover a power shortfall by that could threaten economic growth.
