Feds studying fracking and pollution
PITTSBURGH — A top official with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is optimistic that a nationwide project examining natural gas hydraulic fracturing and potential drinking water impacts will provide comprehensive guidelines to help scientists and the public identify the key issues to focus on. But the industry said past studies have already shown the process is safe.
Fracking and Radioactivity
Fracking for gas not only uses toxic chemicals that can contaminate drinking and groundwater—it also releases substantial quantities of radioactive poison from the ground that will remain hot and deadly for thousands of years.
Loveland officials see fracking’s dark side
LONGMONT — Two new schools, a church, a library and a medical clinic sit cheek-by-jowl with oil and natural gas wells in two adjacent southern Weld County towns.
A Loveland delegation led by City Manager Bill Cahill and Mayor Cecil Gutierrez visited all of them on Friday.
They traveled aboard a city bus through the heart of the Wattenberg gas and oil field to see, hear — and even smell — what happens when a community’s development collides with the quest for energy independence.
Growing trend in support of municipal anti-fracking initiatives
n a demonstration of the growing trend in favor of local control over fracking siting decisions, the citizens of the cities of Longmont, CO, and Mansfield and Broadview Heights, OH, voted on Tuesday in support of measures that would ban or otherwise limit fracking and related activities within their borders.
Citizens concerned about fracking attend Pulaski Township hearing
PULASKI TOWNSHIP, Pennsylvania – Some people who live in and near a Lawrence County community are concerned about the shale drilling going on in their backyards.
At a township hearing Thursday night, the board of supervisors claimed they don’t have the authority to regulate drilling while that issue of control is tied up in litigation.
Pa. Farmer Bans Fracking on Land through 1st-of-its-Kind Conservation Easement
A Pennsylvania farmer has become the first landowner in the United States to use a conservation easement to recognize and protect the rights of water, forests and wild ecosystems.
Land with fracking potential offered for sale
A Texas-based energy company and its parent are working to complete the sale of a key portion of eastern Ohio holdings, but the deals on an estimated 539,000 acres at the heart of Ohio’s Utica shale are not yet finalized.
Preview of What Fracking Can Do
With the issue of fracking still looming in our future, it is important to realize what that future could bring.
Most folks do not travel through the areas where fracking is occurring now and thus are unable to see the results personally. Fortunately (or unfortunately), we can look at a preview of one aspect, heavy truck traffic road damage, right here in Whispering Pines.
EPA Gas Drilling Study: Top Agency Official Optimistic Before Report’s Release
A top official with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is optimistic that a nationwide project examining natural gas hydraulic fracturing and potential drinking water impacts will provide comprehensive guidelines to help scientists and the public identify the key issues to focus on. But the industry said past studies have already shown the process is safe.
Researchers from Alberta universities will eavesdrop on fracking
EDMONTON – Scientists will be “listening in” to hydraulic fracturing as part of a $1.86-million joint research project at the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary.
Oil-spill repairs’ pace too slow, state claims
BP’s early program to repair environmental damage from its 2010 oil spill is not moving quickly enough, Louisiana officials said.
Federal officials have announced the next round of early restoration projects paid for through $1 billion BP set aside. But while there is money to restore turtle and bird habitat in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, there is no money for Louisiana.
Oil terminal a danger zone, pipeline firm told
The risk of a marine oil spill dominated the first public information sessions Kinder Morgan is hosting in the Lower Mainland on the planned twinning of its Trans Mountain pipeline.
Coast Guard: No sign of spill in area where oiled wildlife was found
Investigating oiled wildlife found on St. Lawrence Island, a U.S. Coast Guard plane on Thursday found no signs of an oil spill along the Bering Sea island coast or surrounding waters.
Because Of North Slope Oil Spill In 2006, BP Ordered To Pay Alaska $255 Million
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A subsidiary of London-based BP PLC has been ordered to pay the state of Alaska $255 million for royalties the state lost because of production shutdowns after two North Slope oil spills in 2006 and a subsequent pipeline replacement project.
Caldwell presents sinkhole bill
State Attorney General James “Buddy” Caldwell issued a demand letter to Texas Brine Co. LLC and Occidental Chemical Corp. seeking payment for $3.47 million in costs run up by state agencies dealing with an Assumption Parish sinkhole emergency involving crude oil and gas releases as well as a related Texas Brine salt cavern failure.
Obama limits oil-shale development OK’d by Bush
Oil shale is a weird energy source. It’s a rock that contains shale oil, a type of hydrocarbon that differs from regular petroleum in part because it needs to be heated in order to be released. And it differs from the sort of shale in the Bakken Formation that’s feeding North Dakota’s oil boom — it’s much harder to extract. So hard to extract, in fact, that oil companies don’t even really try any more.
Official backs studying quake risks at nuke plants
ATLANTA — Recent earthquakes demonstrate the need for the nation’s nuclear industry to re-evaluate the geologic hazards facing power plants, a process that has already started, the new chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said this week.
When a doctor told a Fukushima mother recently that the chance of her child having cancer was only 1 in 100. This mother had let her children evacuate to Yamagata after two of her children had gotten 3 milimeter thyroid cists in their throats had answer to the doctor. For her she said, it is not 1 in 100, but it is 1 in 1.
Mascot bird teaching Fukushima children how to avoid radiation
Nearly two years after Japan was struck by the Fukushima nuclear disaster, officials have begun printing leaflets featuring a yellow cartoon bird that instructs children on radiation safety – though it may be too late for thousands.
Fukushima’s disaster task force has started issuing leaflets with a bird character called Kibitan telling children to stay away from pools and ditches where radioactive cesium from the damaged nuclear power plant might have accumulated.
Testimony clouds DEP water testing
Testimony by a high-ranking Department of Environmental Protection employee revealed that the DEP Bureau of Laboratories reran parts of its residential water tests for fracking pollution and, in some cases, the numbers differed substantially
Anti-fracking vote could raise volume in Fort Collins
On Election Day, Longmont voters said five words to Big Oil: Don’t frack up our city.
Voters approved Longmont’s measure banning hydraulic fracturing, Question 300, by a nearly 20 percent margin, an overwhelming rebuke of modern oil and gas drilling within city limits despite the oil industry’s $500,000 campaign against the measure.
Fracking worries Amherst County official
The Amherst County utilities director alerted officials last week to the potential for use of a controversial natural gas extraction method called fracking in the George Washington National Forest.
EPA Seeks Research For Fracking Study
The Environmental Protection Agency has put out a call for peer-reviewed studies on hydraulic fracturing. The request, published this week in the Federal Register, seeks information that would relate to the EPA’s fracking study.
Algeria to exploit controversial shale gas
Algeria, the world’s fourth-largest gas exporter, has decided to develop its shale gas potential as well, but experts fear this could cause severe environmental problems.
Karl Grossman: The Unseen Dangers of Hydrofracking
Fracking for gas not only uses toxic chemicals that can contaminate drinking and groundwater—it also releases substantial quantities of radioactive poison from the ground that will remain hot and deadly for thousands of years.
Ala. groups share $8M in oil spill funds
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Nearly two dozen groups in Alabama will share more than $8 million in oil spill funds to promote Gulf Coast tourism and seafood.
Exxon shuts pipeline after oil leak offshore Nigeria
ABUJA (Reuters) – Exxon has shut a pipeline off the coast of Nigeria’s Akwa Ibom state after an oil leak started by an unknown cause, the company’s local unit said on Saturday.
More than half of reported oil spills are in Nassau
More than half of the reported oil spills the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has responded to are in Nassau County, officials said.
As of Saturday, the DEC had documented 1,205 spills between Nassau and Suffolk counties with 733 of those reported in Nassau, said Charsleissa King, a DEC spokeswoman.
Cellphone radiation impacts fetal brain development: Yale researchers
Cellphone radiation exposure during pregnancy impacts fetal brain development and may cause hyperactivity, Yale School of Medicine researchers say.
Local media are too vague on Fukushima radiation risk
Earlier this year, NHK rebroadcast a documentary it made in the late 1980s about the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident. It showed how the Soviet Union and European countries tested people for effects of radiation throughout the region. Appended to the doc was a discussion with experts who compared the accident with the one that happened at the Fukushima No. 1 reactor in 2011, implying that Fukushima wasn’t as dire as Chernobyl but stopping short of saying it was nothing to worry about. As long as radiation levels and residents’ health were continually monitored, the situation could be managed.
‘Silly’ to run Japanese nuclear plant on fault line
JAPAN’S only working nuclear power plant sits on what may be a seismic fault in the earth’s crust, a geologist has warned.
