News Round Up: May 2, 2011

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Today’s essential reads.

FRACKING:

Hydraulic Fracturing To Tap Oil-Rich Shale In Baton Rouge Area To Be Subject of Hearings

The state plans to hold public hearings on whether a potentiallyoil-rich shale in the Baton Rouge area will be tapped on a large scale through a process used to develop natural gas from north Louisiana’s Haynesville Shale.

The High Cost of Fracking – And The Movement Against It

According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the Marcellus Shale is “a sedimentary rock formation deposited over 350 million years ago in a shallow inland sea located in the eastern United States where the present-day Appalachian Mountains now stand” and it “contains significant quantities of natural gas.” How significant? Well, it kind of depends on whom you ask. University researchers said there was quite a bit, but a key industry player claimed a wildly larger amount (emph. added):…

MIT Web Tools Help Small Landowners Navigate Gas Leasing Frenzy

The sign at the end of Jill Wiener’s driveway simply reads “No Frack.” The declaration reflects her two-year effort to keep natural gas wells off her and her neighbors’ property.

Reim: North East Residents Find Voice To Create Ordinance To Ban Fracking

Price tells people we don’t have a drilling, polluting, mining problem in Pennsylvania, but a democracy problem. People’s rights to enjoy clean air and water are in both our state and federal constitutions, and we need only to assert them. And that the basic premise of government relies on the consent of the governed.

BP OIL SPILL:

Shell Tries to Calm Fears on Drilling in Alaska

Shell Oil will present an ambitious proposal to the federal government this week, seeking permission to drill up to 10 exploratory oil wells beneath Alaska’s frigid Arctic waters.

BP Oil Spill: Environmental Restoration Key To Economic Recovery, Advocate Says

When the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded last year, researchers didn’t know a lot about the ocean at 5,000-foot depths, where the oil was spewing, one scientist said today…Meanwhile, he said, the social and economic impacts of the spill have been of “biblical proportions” for at least 1 million people directly affected along the Gulf Coast. “Why has the human component not responded as effectively as the Gulf?” he said.

Can Mayor Mitch Landrieu Reinvent New Orleans?

New Orleans is one of the oldest cities in America. It’s rich with culture and legendary for its indulgences – and its disasters. Almost six years after Hurricane Katrina and one year after the BP oil spill, New Orleans has a new mayor with a new plan on how to run the city.

Gulf Ecosystem Needs Congress

Here we are a year after the Gulf disaster and the oil has not left the Gulf Coast wetlands, and the ongoing impacts to these fragile ecosystems are not fully known, let alone solved.

JAPAN NUCLEAR CRISIS:

Radioactive cars from Japan arrive in Chilean port

Customs agents in Chile have detected low levels of radioactivity in cars shipped from the Japanese port of Yokohama.

Tourists Visiting Fukushima Despite Nuclear Fears

Fukushima. The name is now synonymous with the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, which lost power and spewed radiation after a massive tsunami devastated Japan’s northeast coast.

 


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

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