"The federal government has agreed to step up its efforts to force freighters sailing on the Great Lakes to begin treating their biologically contaminated ballast water discharges like any other industrial pollutant."
"The Lone Star state is several years ahead of Pennsylvania when it comes to deep natural gas drilling." So the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette went to Texas to see what might be in store, especially as densely settled suburban areas are drilled. For some, such as homeowners, it has meant economic loss; but for drillers, it has meant fortunes.
"In a New York courtroom today, oil giant Chevron Corp. won a halt to enforcement of an $18 billion judgment for oil pollution of the Ecuadorian Amazon imposed by a court in Ecuador."
"The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control will review documents that AVX Corp. kept hidden for nearly 30 years to see if it warrants a criminal investigation of the company and its executives."
Past efforts to regulate toxic and polluting waste from oil and gas drilling operations were thwarted when back-room industry pressure subverted the law and science that justified it. Today, history may be about to repeat itself.
EPA is conducting a study of fracking, no matter where it is used (e.g., gas shale, oil shale, coalbed methane, tight sands). Public comment is being allowed as the agency's Science Advisory Board meets March 7-8, 2011, to review the draft study plan. Initial study and research results are possible by the end of 2012, and a report may be published some time in 2014.
Natural gas drillers hail newly begun reuse and recycling of the millions of gallons of toxic wastewater as a breakthrough that will mitigate harmful effects of their operations. But not all of it is being recycled. Some of it is being spread on roads and contaminating surface water -- rather than groundwater, as before.
The consent decree that established the March 16 release date also mandates that a final rule be published by Nov. 16, 2011 (nine years later than the deadline dictated by the Clean Air Act). Here are several tools you can use to get a handle on the power plants and their emissions in your audience area prior to release of the rule.
As gas companies race to drill more wells that produce gas with a technique known as hydrofracking, the dangers of the toxic wastewater they discharge turn out to be greater than previously understood.
Greenwire sorts through the dust storm of counterclaims on the accuracy of "Gasland," an Oscar-nominated documentary about the impacts of gas drilling and production methods known as "fracking."
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