RSS Feed
Archive for December 19th, 2013
In Northern Gateway Pipeline Decision, Economics Trumped All Else
Posted by InsideClimate: John H. Cushman Jr. on December 19th, 2013
InsideClimate: An independent Canadian federal panel on Thursday approved Enbridge's proposal to build a new pipeline from the tar sands of Alberta to the British Columbia coast, a significant gain in the industry's long campaign to find export markets for the nation's abundant but carbon-heavy form of crude oil. The panel set 209 conditions on the project [3] as a way to overcome environmental and safety concerns. Even that, it said, would not guarantee that there would be no environmental harm. But its central...
Posted in 
Chesapeake fined $3.2 million for West Virginia water violations
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on December 19th, 2013
Reuters: U.S. federal regulators on Thursday said oil and gas company Chesapeake Energy Corp will pay a civil penalty of $3.2 million to settle Clean Water Act violations in West Virginia where it drills in the Marcellus Shale.
Chesapeake will also pay an estimated $6.5 million to restore streams and wetlands. The U.S. oil and gas company allegedly dumped rocks, sand and dirt into wetlands while building drill sites and roads, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department...
Canada regulator urges approval oil-export pipeline
Posted by Reuters: Scott Haggett and Julie Gordon on December 19th, 2013
Reuters: Canadian regulators urged the government to approve the country's first overseas oil-export project on Thursday, concluding that Enbridge Inc's C$7.9 billion (US$7.4 billion) Northern Gateway pipeline plan posed little risk to the environment if the company complied with some 200 conditions. Two years after a panel of environmental and energy regulators began hearings into the project, it sided against the line's many opponents and recommended the completion of a project that would allow Canada...
Bankrupt fracking firm suing New York governor to end moratorium
Posted by Grist: John Upton on December 19th, 2013
Grist: Norse Energy is a failure when it comes to its core business — drilling for gas and oil. Despite America’s huge drilling boom, the company is bankrupt. Unable to turn a profit as a driller, the company has taken to suing governments and officials that limit fracking, blaming them for its undoing. Attorneys for the company’s trustees filed a lawsuit Tuesday against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) and two state commissioners, claiming that the state’s fracking moratorium had brought about the company’s...
First criminal case against a Marcellus Shale firm opens
Posted by Inquirer: Andrew Maykuth on December 19th, 2013
Inquirer: A former state environmental inspector indicated Wednesday that there was evidence of previous, unreported spills on a Marcellus Shale gas drilling site where he discovered toxic wastewater gushing onto the ground in 2010.
Jeremy Daniel, 32, an inspector for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection at the time, said he found puddles of wastewater, sand, and a "defined area of dead vegetation" flowing from several steel wastewater storage tanks on a Lycoming County well site operated...
Water reuse technologies mean drinking toilet water could be a reality
Posted by Guardian: Albert Cho on December 19th, 2013
Guardian: Just decades ago, cities in the developed world routinely dumped untreated sewage directly into rivers and streams, spreading disease and pollution through the human and natural environment. Today, such practices strike us as profoundly misguided, even horrifying.
As an executive in the water industry and a member of the so-called "millennial generation", I believe that many communities will begin to reuse substantially all of their water within my lifetime, and we will look back at today's wasteful...
Christie Administration Ignores Climate Change in New Jersey’s Post-Sandy Rebuild
Posted by InsideClimate: Katherine Bagley on December 19th, 2013
InsideClimate: In the wake of Superstorm Sandy, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a series of aggressive rebuilding initiatives to protect New Yorkers from future climate-related threats. But less than a mile away in New Jersey, just across the Hudson River, political leaders reacted in a much different way. To them, the October 2012 superstorm was just a rare event, not a preview of what scientists expect global warming to bring to the East Coast in the coming decades. When asked in May...
Pennsylvania Supreme Court Declares Portions of Shale Drilling Law Unconstitutional
Posted by Post-Gazette: Don Hopey on December 19th, 2013
Post-Gazette: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court today declared unconstitutional major provisions of the state's Marcellus Shale drilling law, Act 13, including one that allowed gas companies to drill anywhere, overriding local zoning laws.
The court's decision, on a 4-2 vote, also sent back to Commonwealth Court challenges by townships and individuals to the Act 13 provisions that would have prevented doctors from telling patients about health impacts related to shale gas development.
Voting in the majority...
Papua New Guinea: Bougainville mine: locals who oppose its re-opening must have a voice
Posted by Guardian: Antony Loewenstein on December 19th, 2013
Guardian: The mine lies like a scar across a bloody face. Guava village sits in a remote area in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea (PNG), above a copper mine which closed 25 years ago. Resistance to the Rio Tinto-owned pit exploded in the late 1980s and during a recent visit, I got to stand above the massive hole that caused the crisis. Human rights abuses were rampant back then, with locals missing out on the financial spoils. Opposition to the enterprise was inevitable and necessary.
Run by Bougainville...
Fracking Could Be Allowed under Homes in Britain w/out Owners’ Knowledge
Posted by Guardian: Rowena Mason on December 19th, 2013
Guardian: Fracking could take place under thousands of homes without their owners' knowledge after ministers said companies would no longer have to notify people directly about potential gas drilling in their areas.
Nick Boles, the planning minister, said the law would be changed to allow gas companies to put in fracking applications without sending out letters to tell people about possible drilling beneath their properties. Instead, companies will be required to publish a notice in a local newspaper and...