Disasters

"A team of international researchers said food production would likely be "severely impaired" by the elevated levels of caesium found in soil samples across eastern Fukushima in the wake of meltdowns at the tsunami-hit plant."

"BP, the biggest oil field operator on Alaska's North Slope, has failed to fix pervasive management and environmental safety problems and is a repeat environmental offender, federal prosecutors said in a new court filing this week."

"A Coast Guard admiral who led the government's response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster is taking over as the nation's chief overseer of offshore drilling safety, the Obama administration said Monday. Rear Adm. James Watson begins his post as director of the Interior Department's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement on Dec. 1."

"Each year, people are killed and maimed by explosions of finely powdered wood, metal or chemicals at factories around the country. Safety experts have studied the threat posed by dust at industrial sites for nearly a decade, yet tighter regulations are still years away."

"FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI NUCLEAR POWER PLANT, Japan -- The most striking feature at this crippled plant on Saturday was not the blasted-out reactor buildings, or the makeshift tsunami walls, but the chaotic mess."

The U.S. nuclear industry more than a decade ago pinned its hopes for a "renaissance" on getting the friendly Bush Nuclear Regulatory Commission to approve a single reactor design. But engineers say the Fukushima disaster revealed this "safe" reactor could fail in seven different ways. Now public interest groups are asking the NRC to delay licensing it until safety issues are resolved.

"The worst was over on Thursday for an 'epic' winter storm that pounded Alaska's west coast with wind and snow and sent a 10-foot surge of seawater into Nome, officials said, leaving residents to assess the damage."

"LAUREL, Mont. — State workers on Tuesday set fire to an oil-tainted logjam on an island along the Yellowstone River, the last of dozens of debris piles smeared with crude from an Exxon Mobil pipeline break that dumped 42,000 gallons of oil into the waterway."

"The state of Louisiana has refused to sign off on a Coast Guard-BP plan to transition from a cleanup program to a long-term recovery in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, charging that the plan leaves coastal beaches and wetlands vulnerable to continued oil contamination with no guarantee that BP will be required to pay for future cleanups."

"A giant Bering Sea storm with hurricane-force winds roared up the western Alaska coastline Wednesday, sending waves over storm barriers, knocking out electricity, flooding parts of some villages and leading to evacuations. But as of Wednesday evening, officials had heard no reports of injuries nor massive damage."