Disasters

"AUBURN, Ala. -- Scientific testing has confirmed a link between oil from the massive BP spill and tar found on Alabama beaches after Hurricane Isaac."

"Nearly two years before peace activists broke into a U.S. nuclear weapons facility in late July, government investigators warned in classified reports of lax security at the complex where the nation's largest concentration of weapons-grade uranium is stored."

"CHICAGO -- For two decades, one of the most commonly used type of rail tanker has been allowed to haul hazardous liquids from coast to coast even though transportation officials were aware of a dangerous design flaw that almost guarantees the car will tear open in an accident, potentially spilling cargo that could catch fire, explode or contaminate the environment."

Eleven years after the 9/11 terrorism attack, Department of Homeland Security officials explained to a House Energy subcommittee why their program to harden security at U.S. chemical plants still hasn't been implemented.

"The GAO says the Department of Homeland Security has not established the need or effectiveness of a multibillion-dollar upgrade to the BioWatch system."

"Wildfires burning across the northern Rockies threatened hundreds of homes on Monday in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana, while firefighters in Washington state scrambled to battle scores of blazes sparked by weekend lightning storms across the eastern Cascades."

"For years they were alone as their strength was sapped and their bank accounts drained by the cancers they caught at Ground Zero. Now, finally, New York’s 9/11 heroes have gotten some backup."

"A rugged stretch of coastline known as Japan's Nuclear Alley is dotted with 14 nuclear reactors and now there are warnings that several of these ageing nuclear plants sit near, or on, active faultlines."

"ANCHORAGE -- More than four years after Royal Dutch Shell paid $2.8 billion to the federal government for petroleum leases in the Chukchi Sea, a company vessel on Sunday morning sent a drill bit into the ocean floor, beginning preliminary work on an exploratory well 70 miles off the northwest coast of Alaska."

"California regulators have not been conducting the intensive workplace-safety inspections of Chevron's Richmond plant and the state's 14 other oil refineries that federal standards call for, a Chronicle investigation shows."