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Archive for January 19th, 2012
Pa. town with tainted wells getting new EPA water
Posted by Associated Press: Michael Rubinkam on January 19th, 2012
Associated Press: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday that it will deliver fresh water to four homes in a northeastern Pennsylvania village where residential water wells were tainted by a gas driller. It also said it will begin testing the water supplies of dozens more homes as it ramps up its investigation more than three years after homeowners say the water supply was ruined.
Capping a tumultuous two weeks in which the EPA first promised the residents a tanker of water -- and then quickly...
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U.S. EPA to test water in Pennsylvania near fracking site
Posted by Reuters: Edward McAllister on January 19th, 2012
Reuters: U.S. regulators said on Thursday they will perform water tests at about 60 homes in the small town of Dimock in northern Pennsylvania where residents say natural gas drilling has polluted wells.
The Environmental Protection Agency also plans to truck water to four homes in the town where some households have relied on trucked water since drilling by Cabot Oil & Gas began there three years ago, it said in a statement on Thursday.
The tests, which will begin in the coming days, are being carried...
Exxon: Yellowstone spill 1,500 barrels, not 1,000
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 19th, 2012
Associated Press: Exxon Mobil says 1,509 barrels of oil spilled into the Yellowstone River during a pipeline break in Montana last summer -- an increase of more than 500 barrels over the company's earlier estimates.
Spokesman Alan Jeffers said Thursday the company recalculated the volume after discovering the pipeline was completely severed during the July 1 accident near Laurel.
Jeffers says pipeline breaches typically involve a crack or fissure. That was the assumption used to craft the initial estimate. ...
In Keystone wake, Obama campaign touts energy in first ad
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 19th, 2012
Reuters: President Barack Obama's re-election campaign sought to manage fallout on Thursday from his decision to nix a new oil pipeline, putting up its first television ad of 2012 to promote his energy record.
Obama, who is fighting to retain the White House in the November presidential election, came under heated criticism from Republicans for deciding on Wednesday to reject the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada.
The president blamed Republicans for forcing his hand by inserting an "arbitrary" deadline...
Keystone Pipeline Decision Aimed at President Obama’s Political Base
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 19th, 2012
Yale Environment 360: Top aides to President Obama say that his desire to satisfy two key political constituencies -- environmental advocates and affluent Democratic donors -- played a major role in his decision to reject an application to build a pipeline to carry tar sands oil from Alberta to Texas. The president’s political advisers said that approval of the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline would have alienated his political base and would have created nowhere near the 20,000 jobs that oil industry advocates claimed...
Climate change invites alien invaders — Is Canada ready?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 19th, 2012
Physorg: "Many species' distributions are already changing in response to a warming climate, and ecosystems are predicted to become more vulnerable to invasive species as climatic barriers are eliminated," says author Dr. Andrea Smith, IRIS Senior Fellow, currently conducting a legislative review of invasive species policy in Canada for the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and the Canadian Aquatic Invasive Species Network. "The interactive effects of climate change and invasive species are expected to...
Climate related flooding poses threat to Helsinki
Posted by Helsingin Sanomat: None Given on January 19th, 2012
Helsingin Sanomat: According to an Environment Centre report published on Wednesday, floods are the greatest threat to the city of Helsinki posed by the warming climate. The report looks into the effects of climate change on the Finnish capital and maps out ways to adapt to the change. According to the report, floods are caused by extreme weather phenomena, such as storms and heavy rains, and in the long term also by rising sea levels. The most important targets of protection are the city’s building...
Rejecting Keystone XL pipeline proposal, Obama blames House Republicans
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 19th, 2012
New York Times: President Obama on Wednesday rejected, for now, the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, saying the $7 billion project could not be adequately reviewed within the 60-day deadline set by Congress. While the president’s action does not preclude later approval of the project, it sets up a baldly partisan fight over energy, jobs and regulation that will most likely persist through the November election. The president said his hand had been forced by Republicans in Congress, who inserted a provision in...
Australia: Scientists reject plan to save Murray-Darling
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 19th, 2012
Sydney Morning Herald: A GROUP of Australia's leading scientists have rejected the proposed plan to save the Murray-Darling, saying basic information needed to have confidence it will deliver a healthy river is missing.
In a statement released yesterday, the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists has also accused the Murray-Darling Basin Authority of developing a set of river reforms that ''manipulates science in an attempt to engineer a pre-determined political outcome''.
The draft basin plan, released last year,...
Bulgaria: The Dark Side of Serbia’s Oil Shale Fairy Tale
Posted by Inter Press Service: Vesna Peric Zimonjic on January 19th, 2012
Inter Press Service: According to an old Serbian fairy tale, God tells a poor man who enters a gold mine that no matter what he chooses to do inside, he'll be sorry when he leaves. If he takes some gold, he'll be sorry for not taking more; if he doesn't, he'll be sorry for not taking any at all.
Modern Serbia now finds itself in a similar situation to the hero of that ancient tale.
Experts have revealed that parts of South-eastern Serbia lie on two billion tons of oil shale that could be processed into oil worth...