submitted by Margery Schab

Federal Analysis Says Sabotage of Nine Key Substations Is Sufficient for Broad Outage

wsj.com - by Rebecca Smith - March 12, 2014

The U.S. could suffer a coast-to-coast blackout if saboteurs knocked out just nine of the country's 55,000 electric-transmission substations on a scorching summer day, according to a previously unreported federal analysis.

The study by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concluded that coordinated attacks in each of the nation's three separate electric systems could cause the entire power network to collapse, people familiar with the research said.

A small number of the country's substations play an outsize role in keeping power flowing across large regions.

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News Release - FERC Directs Development of Physical Security Standards

dispatch.com - by Will Drabold - March 12, 2014

While geologists raised questions yesterday about whether a northeastern Ohio fracking operation caused a series of earthquakes in Mahoning County on Monday, state officials refused to provide any answers.

On Monday, Ohio Department of Natural Resources officials ordered Texas-based Hilcorp Energy to shut down an active well at the Carbon Limestone Landfill near Lowellville after four temblors were recorded in the area.

“It’s an area which (before 2011) had no history of earthquakes,” said John Armbruster, a retired Columbia University geology professor who had worked with Ohio officials to monitor a recent series of earthquakes tied to a fracking-waste injection well near Youngstown.

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greenbiz.com - by John Finnigan - March 10, 2014

Two seemingly unrelated announcements drew much attention in the electric utility industry recently. First, the Edison Electric Institute, the trade group for the U.S. electric utility industry, and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) jointly recommended (PDF) changing how utilities should be regulated. Second, Duke Energy announced it will sell 13 Midwest merchant power plants.

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After high water from Hurricane Katrina inundated their nursing home, residents waited for assistance in New Orleans in 2005. Federal officials are trying to avoid these types of situations with new requirements for health care providers ahead of emergencies. Credit Mario Tama/Getty Images

nytimes.com - by Sheri Fink - March 11, 2014

Federal officials are proposing sweeping new requirements for American health care facilities — from large hospitals to small group homes for the mentally disabled — intended to ensure their readiness to care for patients during disasters.

cdc.gov

One of the nation's key preparedness challenges has been determining appropriate state and local public health preparedness priorities. To assist state and local public health departments in their strategic planning, CDC developed 15 capabilities to serve as national public health preparedness standards.

CDC applied a systematic approach to developing the public health preparedness capabilities. The content is based on evidence-informed documents, relevant preparedness literature, and subject matter expertise gathered from across the federal government and the state and local practice community.

CDC's Public Health Preparedness Capabilities: National Standards for State and Local Planning now provides a guide that state and local jurisdictions can use to better organize their work, plan their priorities, and decide which capabilities they have the resources to build or sustain. The capabilities also help ensure that federal preparedness funds are directed to priority areas within individual jurisdictions.

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A truck dumps a load of sand at the loading terminal for Modern Transport Rail in Winona, Minn.  Andrew Link/Winona Daily News/AP/File

yahoo.com - csmonitor.com - by Richard Mertens - March 9, 2014

Sand is used in the fracking process, and there's plenty of it to be mined in the upper Midwest. As a sand-mining boom has emerged, residents are divided over whether it's lifting or ruining their communities.

. . . Sand has become a valuable – and deeply divisive – commodity in the upper Midwest. Hydraulic fracturing, a method of extraction also known as fracking that has boosted oil and natural gas production across the United States, requires sand, and there's plenty of it here. . .

. . . A big question about sand mining is the risk to public health from dust.

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The route of Enbridge’s Line 9, which would connect to a tar sands pipeline in Alberta on one side, and to Montreal on the other. The Montreal connection eventually goes to the eastern coast of Canada.  CREDIT: National Energy Board

thinkprogress.org - by Emily Atkin - March 7, 2014

While all eyes in America were turned to President Obama’s looming decision on the Keystone XL pipeline, Canadian regulators on Thursday approved their own, smaller version — a pipeline that would for the first time directly connect Alberta’s tar sands to Montreal.

Canada’s National Energy Board have approved a proposal by Enbridge Inc. to allow the reversal and expansion of their Line 9 pipeline. . .

. . . With the reversal and expansion approved, environmentalists say the controversial tar sands oil can now be pumped almost to the New England border.

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usgs.gov - March 6, 2014

PASADENA, Calif. — In a new study involving researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey, scientists observed that a human-induced magnitude 5.0 earthquake near Prague, Oklahoma in November 2011 may have triggered the larger M5.7 earthquake less than a day later. This research suggests that the M5.7 quake was the largest human-caused earthquake associated with wastewater injection.

"The observation that a human-induced earthquake can trigger a cascade of earthquakes, including a larger one, has important implications for reducing the seismic risk from wastewater injection," said USGS seismologist and coauthor of the study Elizabeth Cochran.

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CLICK HERE - STUDY - Observations of static Coulomb stress triggering of the November 2011 M5.7 Oklahoma earthquake sequence

submitted by Margery Schab

capitalnewyork.com - by Scott Waldman - March 7, 2014

ALBANY—A consultant hired by the state Health Department to assist in a review of the health effects of fracking recently published a study that concluded “substantial concerns and major uncertainties” should be resolved before it is expanded nationally.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has indicated that his final, long-awaited decision on whether to permit fracking will depend on the department's findings. 

John Adgate, of the Colorado School of Public Health, surveyed a number of recent health-related studies of fracking and published his findings last month in the Environmental Science & Technology journal.

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CLICK HERE - STUDY - Potential Public Health Hazards, Exposures and Health Effects from Unconventional Natural Gas Development

submitted by Margery Schab

(PLEASE SEE LINKS TO REPORTS WITHIN THIS POST)

huffingtonpost.com - by Kate Sheppard - March 6, 2014

WASHINGTON -- From roads and bridges to power plants and gas pipelines, American infrastructure is vulnerable to the effects of climate change, according to a pair of government reports released Thursday.

The reports are technical documents supporting the National Climate Assessment, a major review compiled by 13 government agencies that the U.S. Global Change Research Program is expected to release in April. Scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory put together the reports, which warn that climate-fueled storms, flooding and droughts could cause "cascading system failures" unless there are changes made to minimize those effects.

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Source: USDA

huffingtonpost.com - by Emily Cohn - March 6, 2014

Look, there are lots of things to love about the South. It's clean and quiet. There's delicious food, good people and often amazing weather. But that's exactly why it makes us so sad to think about all the ways in which the region is struggling today.

First off, poverty rates are a lot higher in the South.

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epw.senate.gov

Senator Barbara Boxer
Keystone Pipeline and the Threat to Human Health
February 26, 2014
(As prepared for delivery)

We are here today to share dramatic new information that will shine a spotlight on the health impacts of tar sands oil - health impacts that are already being felt in communities exposed to one of the filthiest kinds of oil on our planet.

The Keystone XL pipeline will allow 830,000 barrels of tar sands oil every day to flow through our nation - an initial increase of 45 percent compared to what is being imported today - and this project could just be the beginning. In the long term, it is projected that Canada would produce almost 300 percent more tar sands oil by 2030.

Image: A fruit juice cafe in Road Town, Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands. Many Caribbean islands are turning to sustainable energy. Photographs: Jenny Bates

theguardian.com - John Vidal - February 10th, 2014

Aruba in the southern Caribbean has 107,000 people, a lot of wind and sun and, until very recently, one very big problem. Despite the trade winds and sunshine, it was spending more than 16% of its economy on importing 6,500 barrels of diesel fuel a day to generate electricity. People were furious at the tripling of energy prices in 10 years and the resulting spiralling costs of imported water and food.

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Leonard Patterson took a picture of a parcel of land on Detroit’s northwest side earlier this month as part of an emerging database. Credit Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times

nytimes.com - by Monica Davey - February 17, 2014

DETROIT — A midnight blue Chevy rolls slowly down a snow-covered street, an emergency strobe light on its roof and a sign on its side that promises this is “official business.” At each house, business, even vacant lot, workers in the car pause to decide whether someone lives there and what shape the place is in before snapping a photo and beaming it to “mission control” miles away.

All over Detroit, scores of these workers — on some days as many as 75 three-person teams — have been wending their way through the streets since December, cataloging on computer tablets one of this bankrupt city’s most devastating ailments: its tens of thousands of abandoned and dilapidated buildings.

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