Category: Environmental

The next Houston

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Brothers among 4 killed in chemical leak at Texas plant
Brothers among 4 killed in chemical leak at Texas plant.

So now the PTB want to make Philadelphia into the next Houston! Oh, I can’t wait:

(CNN) — Four workers were killed Saturday after a chemical leak at a DuPont plant in La Porte, Texas, on the eastern outskirts of Houston, plant manager Randall Clements said.

A fifth employee exposed to the chemical was hospitalized, but is expected to make a full recovery, Clements said.

The community around the DuPont plant was never at risk, the company said.

The cause of the leak is under investigation, Clements said.

Uh huh. Because they never lie about these things!

Just another example

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Of why the private sector shouldn’t be anywhere near anything as important as nuclear power. Because if they’ll cut corners on the financing, they’ll do it on safety, too:

A federal grand jury has indicted two former executives of a company that hoped to build a nuclear power plant in southwestern Idaho.

Donald L. Gillispie, 71, and 40-year-old Jennifer R. Ransom were indicted Thursday on 14 counts of conspiracy, securities fraud, wire fraud, filing false tax returns and making false statements to federal agents.

The two, both from Meridian, were executives of the Eagle-based Alternate Energy Holdings Inc. Prosecutors say the pair conspired to manipulate and inflate the price of their company’s stock in an effort to attract investors and gain cash financing for the company, and that they didn’t properly report income to the IRS.

[…] Alternate Energy Holdings had proposed building a $10 billion nuclear power-generating plant in Payette County in 2009. That plan came to a halt in 2010, when the federal Securities and Exchange Commission suspended free trading of the company’s stock. The SEC said the company was promoting itself with a deluge of press releases that presented false information, which forced the federal agency to take action.

Now convict the bastard

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

donblankenship

They say the arc of the universe bends toward justice, and I’m glad the universe finally got around to indicting Don Blankenship:

Don Blankenship, the longtime chief executive of Massey Energy, was indicted today on charges that he violated federal mine safety laws at the company’s Upper Big Branch Mine prior to an April 2010 explosion that killed 29 miners.

U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin this afternoon informed representatives of the families of the Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster victims that a four-count indictment had been handed up by a federal grand jury charging Blankenship.

The indictment alleges that Blankenship conspired to cause routine, willful violations of mandatory federal mine safety and health standards at Upper Big Branch during a period from Jan. 1, 2008, to April 9, 2010, according to a notice Goodwin’s office sent to the families.

The notice also said that the indictment alleges Blankenship was part of a conspiracy to cover up mine safety violations and hinder federal enforcement efforts by providing advance warning of government inspections. The indictment also alleges that, after the explosion, Blankenship made false statements to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission about Massey’s safety practices prior to the explosion, the notice to families says.

The indictment comes after a more than four-year investigation by Goodwin that began following the mine disaster on April 5, 2010, but expanded to examine a troubled safety record that critics have long argued put coal production and profits ahead of worker protections.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve Ruby has led an unprecedented government effort to link major safety lapses at Upper Big Branch and other Massey mines up the corporate ladder to Blankenship, who was known for keeping a firm grip on every aspect of Massey’s operations during nearly two decades at the company’s helm.

Blankenship has previously denied any wrongdoing, insisted that Massey put the safety of its miners first, and promoted his theory that the Upper Big Branch explosion was fueled by an uncontrollable flood of natural gas that inundated the Raleigh County mine.

“If they put me behind bars … it will be political,” Blankenship wrote in a May 2013 article posted on a blog he has used to defend his record and attack his critics.

Two government and two independent investigations, though, blamed the Upper Big Branch deaths on a pattern by Massey Energy of violating federal standards concerning mine ventilation and the control of highly explosive coal dust, both of which set the stage for a small methane ignition to turn into a huge coal-dust-fueled explosion.
Continue reading “Now convict the bastard” →

Very bad trade

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Louisiana Runoff 2014

What’s left of the environment for Mary Landrieu?

Legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline cleared a procedural hurdle in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, setting up a vote on the project next week.

Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, who faces a runoff vote in Louisiana on Dec. 6, had pushed for vote on Thursday on the bill.

Her Republican opponent, U.S. Representative Bill Cassidy, pushed for a vote on a similar bill his chamber, as each competed to support TransCanada Corp’s pipeline that would send some 800,000 barrels per day of Canadian oil sand petroleum to refineries in Texas.

Republicans always improve our quality of life

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

IMG_9248.jpg

You have to admire how they assert mandates where none exist. Sure wish Dems would do more of that!

Senate Republicans are gearing up for a war against the Obama administration’s environmental rules, identifying them as a top target when they take control in January.

The GOP sees the midterm elections as a mandate to roll back rules from the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies, with Republicans citing regulatory costs they say cripple the economy and skepticism about the cause of climate change.

Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) identified his top priority come January as “to try to do whatever I can to get the EPA reined in.”

McConnell made his defense of coal a major piece of Kentucky’s economy, a highlight of his reelection bid, which he won easily over Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes.

He said he feels a “deep responsibility” to stop the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, as it proposed to do in January for newly built generators and in June for existing ones.

But those are far from the only rules the GOP wants to target.

Republican lawmakers are planning an all-out assault on Obama’s environmental agenda, including rules on mercury and other air toxics from power plants, limits on ground-level ozone that causes smog, mountaintop mining restrictions and the EPA’s attempt to redefine its jurisdiction over streams and ponds.

The Interior Department is also in the crosshairs, with rules due to come soon on hydraulic fracturing on public land and protecting streams from mining waste.

Many of the rules are part of the “war on coal” that Republicans have accused Obama of waging. They charge that Obama has tried to revive cap-and-trade rules for carbon emissions despite the 2009 failure of legislation when Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress.

A senior GOP aide didn’t take any of Obama’s major environmental rules off the table, saying they all could get scrutiny under Republican control of the Senate, depending on how the regulations develop.

The staffer said Republicans have a series of tools available to them to fight Obama with different degrees of severity.

“It’ll be a combined effort of using the appropriations process and the legislative process and the oversight process to put pressure on the administration prior to finalization,” the aide said.

Energy independence!

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

I’m sure it’ll all be fine, and that the state regulators were doing their job. Ha ha, just kidding!

WILLISTON, N.D. (AP) — Workers are attempting to contain an out-of-control oil well in North Dakota, authorities said Friday.

North Dakota regulators said a well near Watford City in the western part of the state has been leaking oil, gas and water since Thursday.

The Oil and Gas Division said 300 barrels of oil and water have been contained and recovered at the well location. They described the incident as a mechanical failure at a wellhead.

An unknown amount of mist also moved off of the well location. Regulators said they are trying to figure out where the mist settled.

But they also said there is no immediate health risk.

Another oil car derailment

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

There is no safe way to transport tar sands oil:

A major train derailment has occurred near Wadena, Sask., prompting authorities to keep people well back from burning railcars and huge plumes of smoke that may be toxic.​

The CN Rail derailment happened at 10:40 a.m. CST Tuesday about 20 kilometres west of the town of 1,300, which is about 230 kilometres east of Saskatoon.

Officials are worried about toxic smoke from the burning cars and are keeping people eight kilometres from the scene.
….

Six of them contained hazardous materials, including four that had either hydrochloric acid or caustic soda. … The other two had petroleum distillates, CN said.

Free speech for corporations, not for you

~ susie ~ 5 Comments

Man, this stuff pisses me off:

What started as a short YouTube video and a couple of local news interviews about a Texas landowner being able to light his water on fire has ballooned into a free speech fight that’s being closely watched by anti-fracking activists across the country.

Steve Lipsky has complained for years that fracking company Range Resources polluted his drinking water and streams that run through his property. The company sued him in 2011 for defaming its reputation for environmental stewardship.

Now Lipsky will have a chance to argue his case in front of the Texas Supreme Court, The Texas Tribune reported this week. The court will decide whether his right to free speech renders Range’s defamation case moot. If the court rules in his favor, the company’s lawsuit will be thrown out. If that doesn’t happen, he may be on the hook for $3 million.

The case won’t be heard until December, but environmentalists are already drawing parallels between it and other incidents across the U.S. in which hydraulic fracturing companies and anti-fracking activists have butted heads. Lipsky’s supporters say his case adds to a growing list of instances that show governments and courts are too quick to kowtow to industry demands. But if he wins, they say, it could embolden the anti-fracking movement across the country by letting activists know they’re free to badmouth fracking companies without fear of retribution.

“Range has a right to protect its reputation, but the speech they’re complaining about is protected speech,” Lipsky’s lawyer Joe Sibley said. “If we’re going to allow companies to sue people for defamation every time they don’t like what’s being said, then that basically allows corporations to silence public participation.”

H/T Price Benowitz LLP, Virginia Auto Accident Attorneys.