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Explosion at West Virginia fracking site seriously injures four
Posted by Grist: John Upton on July 9th, 2013
Grist: Federal investigators are trying to figure out what caused an explosion at a West Virginia fracking site over the weekend. The blast injured at least seven people, including four workers who were sent to a hospital with life-threatening burns.
Residents and activists have long complained about safety practices by frackers operating in the state, where they draw natural gas from the Marcellus shale formation. Traffic accidents involving trucks traveling to and from frack sites in the state are...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Explosion at West Virginia fracking site seriously injures fourQuebec oil-train tragedy triggered oil spill that threatens water supplies
Posted by Grist: John Upton on July 9th, 2013
Grist: The deadly oil-train explosion in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, on Saturday also sparked an environmental disaster. An oil sheen has stretched more than 60 miles down a river that’s used as a source of drinking water.
By Tuesday morning, 13 people had been confirmed dead and some 37 were still missing after runaway train cars loaded with fracked crude from North Dakota derailed in the town and ignited. Lac-Mégantic`s fire chief said the fire is now under control, but a small area of town is still off...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Quebec oil-train tragedy triggered oil spill that threatens water suppliesClimate change could be leading to more El Ninos
Posted by Grist: John Upton on July 3rd, 2013
Grist: El Niño is one of Earth`s most influential climatic phenomena. Its occasional arrival, heralded by warming in parts of the eastern Pacific Ocean, can be a harbinger of floods in Peru, droughts in Australia, harsh winters in Europe, and hurricanes in the Caribbean. Yet we know precious little about it.
But this week, two separate scientific studies chipped away at the mystery.
One study reveals that the El Niño phenomenon has been occurring more frequently as the globe has warmed. The other...
Oil spill stretches 10 miles down a river in Mississippi
Posted by Grist: John Upton on July 3rd, 2013
Grist: A 10-mile stretch of Mississippi`s Chickasawhay River was fouled by more than 200 barrels of oil after equipment at a drilling well malfunctioned.
The Wayne County News reported in an online video that cleanup efforts were complicated by the oil spill`s remote location. The U.S. EPA, Coast Guard, and state and local authorities have responded to the spill, the newspaper reported.
The spill was reported by Logan Oil on Thursday, and the emergency clean-up operations are expected to continue...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Oil spill stretches 10 miles down a river in MississippiHawaiians fight back against GMO experiments
Posted by Grist: John Upton on July 2nd, 2013
Grist: The state of Hawaii has become a lot like the island of Dr. Moreau. Except that instead of Dr. Moreau - the mad scientist in H.G. Wells`s 1896 novel who vivisected animals into beast-people - Hawaii is ruled by the GMO industry.
Monsanto, Dow AgroSciences, Syngenta, DuPont Pioneer, and BASF use the Pacific archipelago as open-air testing grounds for their experimental genetically modified crops, and they spray those crops with herbicides and other chemicals to test how they respond.
But now...
In win for fish, oil companies allowed to abandon old rigs
Posted by Grist: John Upton on June 28th, 2013
Grist: For all the harm that the oil and gas industry inflicts on wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico, it does offer the marine ecosystem at least one big benefit. Offshore oil-drilling rigs serve as artificial reefs, providing shelter for animals and an anchor for plants, coral, and barnacles. Yet once a well is tapped, the federal government has required the drilling company to uproot its rig to help clear clutter that could obstruct shipping.
Following complaints from fishermen and conservationists, however,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on In win for fish, oil companies allowed to abandon old rigsU.S. and World Bank might stop financing dirty coal plants
Posted by Grist: John Upton on June 28th, 2013
Grist: The World Bank says it cares about climate change, so why is it providing loans to help developing countries build coal power plants? Same goes for America`s support for coal plants abroad.
In recognition of this glaring climate policy disconnect, both the World Bank and the Obama administration appear to be finally backing away from financial support of such dirty energy enterprises.
From Bloomberg:
The World Bank plans to restrict its financing of coal-fired power plants to “rare circumstances,”...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on U.S. and World Bank might stop financing dirty coal plantsWill dumping Australia’s climate-savvy prime minister help the climate?
Posted by Grist: John Upton on June 28th, 2013
Grist: In terms of climate policy, Australians face a choice between fairly good and downright evil in an upcoming federal election.
The face of evil belongs to climate skeptic Tony Abbott, leader of the opposition Liberal Party (which, in topsy-turvy Down Under fashion, is in fact conservative).
And the face of relative good is ... in some disarray at the moment. Power brokers in the Labor Party, which narrowly holds power in the country, this week stripped the prime ministership away from Julia...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Will dumping Australia’s climate-savvy prime minister help the climate?EPA tells Ohio to stop keeping fracking secrets from first responders
Posted by Grist: John Upton on June 27th, 2013
Grist: Ohio firefighters, cops, and local officials might soon learn a little bit more about the poisons that frackers are storing and injecting into the ground beneath their feet.
The U.S. EPA told the state that a 12-year-old Ohio law that lets the fracking industry conceal information from emergency-management officials and first responders violates federal law. From The Columbus Dispatch:
The state law, passed in 2001, requires that drilling companies share information about hazardous chemicals...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on EPA tells Ohio to stop keeping fracking secrets from first respondersStudy links fracking to drinking water pollution
Posted by Grist: John Upton on June 25th, 2013
Grist: While the EPA has been dumping and delaying studies of fracking’s effects on drinking water, new academic research reveals that people who live near natural gas wells in Pennsylvania are drinking the same gases that the frackers are pumping out from the shale beneath their feet. Researchers from Duke University, the University of Rochester, and California State Polytechnic University found dissolved methane, which is the main ingredient in natural gas, in water pumped from 82 percent of drinking...