Today’s Essential Reads
FRACKING:
Colorado Kids to Encana: Don’t Frack Our Schools
With black whiskers painted across her cheeks, 6-year-old Olivia Cusimano roared into the plastic megaphone as if hers were the voice of the blue knotted-up balloon tiger she clutched beneath her left arm.
Fracking: Coming to a City or Suburb Near You
The controversial practice of fracking is just something that happens in the woods of Pennsylvania or the empty stretches of the Mountain West, right? … Right? Think again. Fracking, once a purely rural phenomenon, may be coming to a city or suburb near you.
Fracking, aka hydraulic fracturing, a process for freeing natural gas locked in shale deposits, has caused a boom in natural-gas production in the United States. But some experts worry that the practice results in contaminated drinking water and the release of methane, prompting some localities to limit shale-gas production.
The Great Divide: Fighting Big Energy, Now and Then
The process of Hydraulic Fracturing, or “fracking” — extracting gas or petroleum from rock layers by boring deeply underground and pumping water, sand and other chemicals into fissures — is making news headlines. It also forms the vortex of ‘The Great Divide” an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s “Enemy of the People” produced by Berkeley’s Shotgun Players. Below, Lou Fancher reviews the play, and Adam Tolbert interviews the play’s playwright, Adam Chanzit.
BP OIL SPILL:
New Gulf Oil Spill Claims Process Getting Underway
Thousands of victims of BP’s 2010 Gulf oil spill will participate in a new process for economic-loss and medical claims associated with the accident.
BP’s Email Subpoenas Threaten to Erode the Scientific Deliberative Process
Late last week, we reluctantly handed over more than 3,000 confidential e-mails to BP, as part of a subpoena from the oil company demanding access to them because of the Deepwater Horizon disaster lawsuit brought by the US government. We are accused of no crimes, nor are we party to the lawsuit. We are two scientists at an academic research institution who responded to requests for help from BP and government officials at a time of crisis.
New Oil Spill Claims Offices Open Along Gulf Coast (Photo Gallery)
New offices opened in five states today to help businesses and residents still waiting to settle claims for financial losses two years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Costner, Baldwin Million-Dollar Legal Dispute Opens in New Orleans
Two Hollywood actors, Kevin Costner and Stephen Baldwin, appeared at the Hale Boggs Federal Courthouse Monday as the trial opens involving a huge business deal for a device used during the 2010 BP oil spill.
RADIATION:
Poll: Japanese Opposition to Nuclear Power Grows Amid Widespread Dismay with Government
Japanese oppose nuclear power more strongly than they did while the tsunami-damaged Fukushima plant was still in crisis a year ago, according to a poll that found widespread dismay with the government’s handling of that disaster and the ongoing recovery.
