Category Archives: oil pollution

fossil fuels, gulf of mexico clean-up, oil pollution

Thinkprogress.org: Oil Spill Shuts Down 65 Miles Of The Mississippi River

Leave a comment

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/02/24/3321621/oil-spill-mississippi-river/#

BY KATIE VALENTINE ON FEBRUARY 24, 2014 AT 9:10 AM

oil-spill-638x425
An oil spill has shut down 65 miles of the Mississippi River in New Orleans, as authorities work to clean up the oil.

The spill occurred on Saturday when a barge carrying oil crashed into a tugboat between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Authorities closed the stretch of river on Sunday and still can’t say exactly how much oil was spilled, though a light sheen of oil is being reported. No injuries were reported from the crash.

In St. Charles Parish, public drinking water intakes along the Mississippi were closed as a precaution, but a news release Sunday assured the public that the water supply “remains safe” in the parish. As of Sunday night, the closure was stalling 16 vessels waiting to go downriver and 10 waiting to go upriver.

This isn’t the first time the Mississippi River has experienced an oil spill due to a barge crash. Last year, a barge carrying 80,000 gallons of oil crashed into a rail bridge, spilling oil and causing a sheen as far as three miles from the crash site. That spill closed the Mississippi River for eight miles in each direction. In February 2012, an oil barge crashed into a construction bridge, spilling less than 10,000 gallons of oil into the river. In 2008, according to the AP, a major spill occurred on the Mississippi, when a barge broke in half after a collision and spilled 283,000 gallons of oil into the river, closing it for six days.

In this aerial photo, river traffic is halted along the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Vacherie, La., due to a barge leaking oil in St. James Parish, La., Sunday, Feb. 23, 2014.

Update

The Coast Guard reopened the stretch of river affected by the spill on Monday, and officials said about 31,500 gallons of light crude oil spilled into the river. The Coast Guard also said that as of now, there have been no reports of wildlife affected by the spill. This post has been changed to reflect new information on the size of the spill.

CREDIT: AP PHOTO/GERALD HERBERT

Special thanks to Richard Charter

fracking, natural resource management, oil pollution, tar sands

Common Dreams: Historic Rally Challenges Fracking Export Industry in Maryland; Protesters march against LNG export terminal and ‘planet-wrecking vision of new fracking wells, pipelines, and compressors’

Leave a comment

Published on Friday, February 21, 2014
– Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer

(Photo: Chesapeake Climate Action Network) A natural gas export terminal being proposed near a small coastal town in Maryland would increase toxic gas fracking operations around the region, hurt the environment, speed up climate change, and do little for “energy independence” in the United States, campaigners warned at the “the largest environmental protest in Baltimore history” on Thursday.

At issue is the proposal to convert the Dominion Cove Point Liquid Natural Gas import terminal into an export terminal, a plan which is up for approval with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. However, Maryland’s Public Service Commission in Baltimore has the power to veto the proposed 130-megawatt power plant that energy company Dominion needs to build for the export operation, the Baltimore Sun reports.

On Thursday, the commission held a hearing on Dominion’s proposal, which drew over 700 protesters from around Maryland and the Mid-Atlantic region to its doorstep.

“The controversial $3.8 billion Cove Point project, proposed by Virginia-based Dominion Resources, would take gas from fracking wells across the Appalachian region, liquefy it along the Chesapeake Bay in southern Maryland, and export it to Asia,” writes the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, who has helped lead the charge against the project.

Among a long list of grievances with the proposed facility, campaigners a CCAN argue it would:

“Trigger more greenhouse gas emissions than any other single source of climate pollution in Maryland.”
Initiate a “web of new pipelines and processing plants across Maryland and Virginia in order to export fracked natural gas to overseas markets,”
And “Drive demand for a surge of new hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” for gas in our region and require an expanding network of new fossil fuel infrastructure.”

“While the gas industry would profit, we would pay the price of scarred landscapes, polluted air and waterways, livelihoods at risk, and worsened climate change,” they write.

On Thursday protesters carried a 100-foot-long faux gas pipeline reading the words “Stop Cove Point” through Baltimore, stopping at the large rally held outside of the hearing.

“We know it will take a movement to go up against the deep pockets of Dominion, and that movement is here today, representing people from across Maryland and the region who know the major impacts of this project in their local communities,” said Josh Tulkin, director of Maryland Sierra Club, at the rally. “From the streets to the courts, we’ll continue challenging Dominion every step of the way. The stakes for our bay, our communities, and our climate are simply too high to do anything less.”

Reverend Lennox Yearwood, Jr., CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus stated:

The climate crisis is our lunch-counter moment of the 21st century. If we don’t win this one, we all lose. Yet now Dominion is standing at Maryland’s door, trying to block its path to a fossil-free future. Today, we send this message to Dominion: We will organize, we will mobilize, we will fight in every peaceful way possible to ensure clean solar panels and wind turbines crisscross our region – not your planet-wrecking vision of new fracking wells, pipelines, and compressors.”

Inside the hearing Sierra Club attorney Joshua Berman, argued that Dominion’s reasons for building the site were misleading and, infact, the export terminal would cause an increase in domestic natural gas prices and, in turn, increase the domestic use of coal.

U.S. Department of Energy has already given Dominion its approval to go ahead with the terminal. It was unclear after Thursday’s hearing whether or not it will be approved by the Baltimore Commission.

fracking, natural resource management, oil pollution, tar sands

Business Insider–REUTERS: California’s fracking opponents introduce new moratorium bill

Leave a comment

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-californias-fracking-opponents-introduce-new-moratorium-bill-2014-21

RORY CARROLL, REUTERS
FEB. 21, 2014, 6:01 PM 8

By Rory Carroll
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California lawmakers have unveiled a new bill that would halt fracking and other controversial oil extraction practices in the state until a comprehensive review of their impact is complete, reigniting a legislative debate that fracking opponents lost last year.

The bill, introduced Thursday by state senators Holly Mitchell of Los Angeles and Mark Leno of San Francisco, would put the brakes on fracking until the completion of a multi-agency review of the economic, environmental and public health impacts.
The bill, whose submission was first reported by Reuters last week, would also halt the use of acids to dissolve shale rock to increase the flow of oil into wells until the report is finished.

It would also broaden the scope of a study called for as part of a bill introduced separately last year, since passed into law, that required oil companies to disclose more data about their activities.

The proposed, expanded study would include health risks posed by fracking to low-income residents like those living near Los Angeles’ Inglewood Oil Field, the nation’s largest urban oil field where both fracking and acid is being used, according to Mitchell, who represents the predominately minority community.

Last year’s bill did not seek to place a moratorium on fracking while a study was conducted, an outcome that infuriated many environmentalists in the state who see fracking as a threat to drinking water supplies and a potentially large source of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

Fracking, where large amounts of water and some chemicals are pumped underground at high pressure to break apart shale rock and release oil, is considered a key tool in cracking California’s Monterey Shale, a massive deposit that is estimated to hold up to 15 billion barrels of hard-to-reach oil.

The bill faces long odds in the California state legislature, where a similar bill that called for a moratorium failed by a wide margin last year.

California Governor Jerry Brown, who has the power to put a halt to the practice via an executive order, has said he does not support a moratorium. It is better for California to produce its own crude oil than to import it from other states and countries, he has said in the past.

Lawmakers and environmentalists hope that the state’s severe drought might help change minds in Sacramento about the need to continue with the water-intensive practice. Fracking in the state used about 300 acre-feet of water last year, or as much as 300 households, according to state records.

“A moratorium on fracking is especially critical as California faces a severe drought with water resources at an all-time low,” said Leno.

“We are currently allowing fracking operations to expand despite the potential consequences on our water supply, including availability and price of water, the potential for drinking water contamination and the generation of billions of barrels of polluted water.”

(Reporting by Rory Carroll; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
This post originally appeared at Reuters. Copyright 2014. Follow Reuters on Twitter.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

fossil fuels, fracking, oil pollution, tar sands

Common Dreams: Promises of Prosperity, Fracking Delivers Devastating Toxic Emissions New investigative report highlights the impact of the drilling boom on Texas residents

Leave a comment

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/02/18-3

Published on Tuesday, February 18, 2014 by
– Lauren McCauley, staff writer

fracking_banner_texas
Fracking flares around the Eagle Ford Shale sit just meters from area residences. (Photo: Earthworks/ Creative Commons/ Flickr)Residents living near the Eagle Ford Shale were promised riches and jobs when the fracking boom exploded in their region of southern Texas. However, according to a new investigation published Tuesday, with the wells came unchecked toxic emissions that would devastate both their health and the quality of their ‘easy country life.’

While much of the reporting on the negative impact of fracking has focused on the danger it poses to drinking and groundwater resources, this eight-month, joint study by the Center for Public Integrity, Inside Climate News, and the Weather Channel reveals the lesser-known impact on air quality and the unchecked and potentially lethal amounts of toxic chemicals emitted from the wells.

“What’s happening in the Eagle Ford is important not only for Texas, but also for Pennsylvania, Colorado, North Dakota and other states,” where fracking has been sold as an “absolute-game changer” for often depressed rural regions.

Since 2008, over 7,000 oil and gas wells have been drilled in the Eagle Ford Shale and, with another 5,500 approved wells on the way, it has become “one of the most active drilling sites in America.” And though the shale covers 20,000 square miles, the state has installed only five permanent air monitors, which reportedly sit on the “fringes of the shale play, far from the heavy drilling areas where emissions are highest.”

According to the report, chemicals most commonly released during oil and gas extraction include: hydrogen sulfide, a deadly gas found in abundance in Eagle Ford wells; volatile organic compounds (VOCs) like benzene, a known carcinogen; sulfur dioxide and particulate matter, which irritate the lungs; and other harmful substances such as carbon monoxide and carbon disulfide. VOCs also mix with nitrogen oxides emitted from field equipment to create ozone, a major respiratory hazard.

While there are some federal safety standards for workers who encounter these chemicals, there are no protections for people living near the drilling sites. Further, guidelines are typically set for one compound at a time without taking into account the impact of simultaneous exposure to multiple chemicals.

Through a series of interviews with area residents, the report describes a host of negative health impacts which include migraine headaches, nosebleeds and respiratory problems.

According to Robert Forbis Jr., an assistant professor of political science at Texas Tech University, the health issues faced by those living near drilling wells—not just in Texas but throughout country—”simply don’t carry enough weight to counterbalance the financial benefits derived from oil and gas development.”

“Energy wins practically every time,” Forbis said. “It seems cynical to say that, but that’s how states see it—promote economic development and minimize risk factors.”

“This crap is killing me and my family,” said Mike Cerny, a former oil company truck driver who lives a mile within 17 oil wells. The fumes from the nearby wells make Cerny and his wife “dizzy, irritable and nauseous,” while their teenage son suffers from frequent nosebleeds.

“We went from nice, easy country living to living in a Petri dish,” Myra said.

map tx fracking
An image from an earlier report on the Eagle Ford Shale, “Reckless Endangerment While Fracking the Eagle Ford: Government fails, public health suffers and industry profits from the shale oil boom.” (Image: Earthworks Action/ Creative Commons/ Flickr)

gulf of mexico clean-up, Gulf restoration, oil pollution

Times-Picayune: BP Deepwater Horizon spill oil causes heart damage that can kill tuna, new study finds

Leave a comment

video at:

http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2014/02/bp_deepwater_horizon_spill_oil.html?fb_action_ids=10152204442102698&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_ref=s%3DshowShareBarUI%3Ap%3Dfacebook-like&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%5B124634777728610%5D&action_type_map=%5B%22og.likes%22%5D&action_ref_map=%5B%22s%3DshowShareBarUI%3Ap%3Dfacebook-like%22%5D

Nola.com

tuna
A school of bluefin tuna. A new study by scientists with Stanford University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration link oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon spill to heart damage in tuna and other marine species. (Richard Herrmann/Galatee Films)

By Mark Schleifstein, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

on February 13, 2014 at 3:03 PM, updated February 13, 2014 at 3:05 PM

Crude oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon spill contains a chemical that interferes with fish heart cells, slowing heart rates, reducing the ability of the heart to contract and causing irregular heartbeats that can lead to heart attacks or death, according to new research released Thursday by researchers at Stanford University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The scientific paper, which will be published in the Feb. 14 edition of the journal Science, was discussed by several of the researchers at a news conference at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago.
The research was conducted as part of the federal Natural Resource Damage Assessment process required by the Oil Pollution Act in the aftermath of the spill. Its findings will help federal and state officials, working with BP, to determine the extent of damages to natural resources from the spill and how those damages should be mitigated.
Researchers took samples of crude oil from the spill and tested the effects of tiny amounts mixed with water on living heart muscle cells of bluefin and yellow fin tuna.

The tests revealed that very low concentrations disrupted potassium ion channels in heart membranes that control the flow of molecules into and out of the heart cells that in turn regulate the electrical impulses that cause the heart to contract and relax.

The studies found that certain three-ring versions of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons found in the oil – which are also found in coal tar, creosote, air pollution and stormwater runoff from land – were what blocked the potassium ion channels, which increased the time it took for the heart to restart on every beat.

Tuna were chosen for the study in part because the BP spill occurred in an area of the Gulf of Mexico where Atlantic Bluefin tuna were spawning at the time of the accident.

The effects are believed to be more of a problem for fish embryos and early developing fish, because the heartbeat changes could also affect the development of other organs, including the lungs and liver, said Nathaniel Scholz, head of the Ecotoxicology Program at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle.

Adult fish have developed gill and liver systems that can detoxify the PAHs, he said.
He said similar secondary effects were found in other fish species in Alaskan waters in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, including cardiac edema and deformed spines.

The research also found that weathered oil contained more of the three-ring PAH compounds, and thus was more toxic to fish, said Barbara Block, a marine biologist at the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University in Pacific Grove, Calif.

Block’s research has included tracking individual tuna moving into and out of the Gulf of Mexico during spawning seasons. One of those tuna moved back and forth in a part of the Gulf adjacent to the site of BP’s Macondo well a year before the accident.

The study used four different samples of oil from the BP spill: oil taken directly from the riser pipe of the well, riser oil that was artificially weathered by heating, and samples collected from oil slicks by Coast Guard cutter Juniper on July 19 and July 29, 2010, about three months after the Deepwater Horizon accident.

Soon after the news conference, BP issued a statement raising questions about the study and the use of its conclusions in the damage assessment process.

“The paper provides no evidence to suggest a population-level impact on tuna or other fish species in the Gulf of Mexico,” the statement said. “Bathing isolated heart cells with oil concentrations is simply not comparable to the real-world conditions and exposures that existed in the Gulf for whole fish.

“The bodies of live tuna have numerous defensive mechanisms that isolated heart cells do not,” the statement said. “Equally important, the oil concentrations used in these lab experiments were rarely seen in the Gulf during or after the Deepwater Horizon accident.”

The statement said the paper also doesn’t include a realistic assessment of the exposure of fish to oil and its PAH constituents, “and it is scientifically inappropriate to take data from in vitro laboratory tests on isolated tuna heart cells and use it to make unsupported predictions about effects on a variety of live marine species or humans in the Gulf – effects that no one has observed or measured in the field.”

During the news conference, Scholz said other studies under way as partof the damage assessment are aimed at the exposure question.

Meanwhile, Jacqueline Savitz, a spokeswoman for the Oceana environmental group, said it was ironic the study finding Gulf fish “suffering from broken hearts” came on the eve of Valentine’s Day, but said the results are not surprisng.

“Fish larvae are generally more sensitive to the toxic effects of oil and other chemicals than adults,” Savitz said in a statement. “Even in a healthy ocean, only a small fraction of larval fish have what it takes to make it to adulthood. So after a spill, toxic chemicals in the oil could wipe out some of the few fish that might have otherwise succeeded, which could be a major setback to a species in need of recovery like bluefin tuna.”

She said the study backs up her group’s concerns that offshore drilling remains unsafe.

“This and other studies on the impacts of the spill, underline the importance of breaking our oil addiction and not expanding offshore drilling into the Atlantic or the Arctic,” Savitz said.

The research paper concludes that the effects seen in tuna are likely to occur in other vertebrates found in the Gulf of Mexico, including shrimp and other fish species, marine mammals and turtles.

The paper also warns that the scientists’ findings may also indicate a threat to human health resulting from exposure to PAHs in air pollution, including from car exhausts.

“The protein ion channels we observe in the tuna heart cells are similar to what we would find in any vertebrate heart and provide evidence as to how petroleum products may be negatively impacting cardiac function in a wide variety of animals,” Block said in a news release announcing the paper. “This raises the lpossibility that exposure to environmental PAHs in many animals – including humans – could lead to cardiac arrhythmias and bradycardia, or slowing of the heart.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter