"Spain's Repsol oil company announced Tuesday it was 'almost certain' to withdraw from exploration in Cuba, after spending an estimated $150 million on a dry well and seeing far more profitable prospects in other countries such as Brazil and Angola."
"A new study looking at key aquifers beneath the Great Plains and California's Central Valley suggests that areas of Texas and Kansas are drawing groundwater at an unsustainable rate."
The federal Data.gov, while not perfect, has grown over three years especially strong in datasets from federal agencies that deal with the environment, energy, natural resources, health, and science. Many of them are downloadable, so that you can crunch them on your own computer. Several are map layers or geo-tagged in some way. See a few randomly chosen examples here.
The Ohio legislature cleared a fracking bill May 24, 2012 that increases inspections of wells and requires drillers to hold liability insurance. But Reuters reports: "Many Democrats said the bill paves the way for the industry to hide information about toxic chemicals that could contaminate groundwater."
"Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan sued current and past owners of Phillips 66's Wood River, Illinois, refinery on Tuesday, alleging the ground water in the nearby town of Roxana, Illinois, was contaminated by the plant."
"They gathered in airboats off the northeastern corner of the Great Salt Lake shoreline. Above, clouds jostled in the vast Utah sky."
President Obama's preoccupation with Shell's proposal to drill for oil in the offshore Arctic -- even after the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico -- appears to signal that it will be inevitable, barring a major legal challenge.
"Tropical Storm Beryl threatened to snarl traffic on Memorial Day as it brought drenching rain, winds and the possibility of flooding to the southeastern U.S. coast.
The storm made landfall in Florida early Monday near Jacksonville Beach around 12:10 a.m. ET with near-hurricane-strength winds of 70 mph, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
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