Environment

Interior Department Endorsement Is A First Step Toward Allowing Drilling

wsj.com - by Alicia Mundy - February 27, 2014

WASHINGTON—The Interior Department endorsed seismic testing in Atlantic waters on Thursday, a first step toward allowing oil and gas drilling from Delaware Bay to Florida's Cape Canaveral.

In its long-awaited environmental impact statement on what's known as seismic air gun testing, Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said it would demand that the oil and gas companies exploring in the Outer Continental Shelf meet tough environmental standards to protect marine life from the underwater seismic blasts.

Environmental groups oppose the use of the controversial geological survey technology, contending that the seismic blasts pose a significant risk to whales, dolphins, fish and sea turtles.

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CLICK HERE - BOEM - Atlantic Geological and Geophysical (G&G) Activities Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS)

A lined impoundment receives waste at a fracking site in Dimock, Pennsylvania.  J. Henry Fair

Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP)
ehp.niehs.nih.gov - Valerie J. Brown - February 1, 2014

Naturally occurring radionuclides are widely distributed in the earth’s crust, so it’s no surprise that mineral and hydrocarbon extraction processes, conventional and unconventional alike, often produce some radioactive waste.¹ Radioactive drilling waste is a form of TENORM (short for “technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material”)—that is, naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) that has been concentrated or otherwise made more available for human exposure through anthropogenic means.² Both the rapidity and the extent of the U.S. natural gas drilling boom have brought heightened scrutiny to the issues of radioactive exposure and waste management.

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huffingtonpost.com - by Kate Sheppard - February 5, 2014

WASHINGTON – Between 50,000 and 82,000 tons of coal ash flowed into North Carolina's Dan River on Sunday, prompting renewed calls for long-delayed federal rules on the disposal of coal waste.

The ash and water mixture spilled when a stormwater pipe broke at Duke Energy's Dan River Steam Station, a plant that is no longer in operation in Rockingham County, N.C.

The slurry from coal ash can contain potentially toxic elements like arsenic, mercury and lead.

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A fireball goes up at the site of an oil train derailment on Monday, Dec. 30, 2013, in Casselton, N.D. (AP Photo/Bruce Crummy) | ASSOCIATED PRESS

huffingtonpost.com - by James Gerken - January 22, 2014

A new analysis of government data shows that more oil was spilled from trains in the U.S. in 2013 than in every year between 1975 and 2012 combined. Railcars released more than 1.15 million gallons of crude oil last year, reports McClatchy's Curtis Tate, while only a combined 800,000 gallons were spilled in the previous 38 years.

The analysis used data from the Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and does not include the deadly July 6 train derailment in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, that released an estimated 1.58 million gallons of oil and killed 47 people.

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