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Archive for February, 2014
Property Owners Threaten Second Suit Over Delay on Fracking Study
Posted by Bloomberg: Gerald B. Silverman on February 3rd, 2014
Bloomberg: A coalition of property owners announced Jan. 31 that it will sue New York state over its delay in issuing a long-awaited environmental impact statement on hydraulic fracturing unless the state provides a reasonable timeline by Feb. 13 for finalizing the process.
The lawsuit would be the second of its kind to compel the Department of Environmental Conservation to issue a supplemental generic environmental impact statement (SGEIS) on fracking.
In the first instance, the bankruptcy trustee of...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Property Owners Threaten Second Suit Over Delay on Fracking StudyKeystone: The Pipeline to Disaster
Posted by Huffington Post: Jeffrey Sachs on February 3rd, 2014
Huffington Post: The new State Department Environmental Impact Statement for the Keystone Pipeline does three things. First, it signals a greater likelihood that the pipeline project will be approved later this year by the administration. Second, it vividly illustrates the depth of confusion of US climate change policy. Third, it self-portrays the US Government as a helpless bystander to climate calamity. According to the State Department report, we are trapped in the Big Oil Status Quo We Can Believe In. The proposed...
Billionaire Climate Activist Steyer Urges Review of ‘Defective’ Keystone Report
Posted by Bloomberg: Jeff Kearns on February 3rd, 2014
Bloomberg: Billionaire Tom Steyer, a Democratic Party donor and Keystone XL foe, called on U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to begin a review of the “defective” environmental analysis on the pipeline released last week.
The final environmental impact statement on Keystone “has suffered from a process that raises serious questions about the integrity of the document,” Steyer, who hosted President Barack Obama at his San Francisco home in April, wrote to Kerry yesterday in a letter.
Steyer is the former...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Billionaire Climate Activist Steyer Urges Review of ‘Defective’ Keystone ReportPlaying politics w/ California drought
Posted by LA Times: Editorial on February 3rd, 2014
LA Times: As California's drought continues, and more than a dozen rural communities ponder what to do when their drinking water runs out sometime in March, it would be nice if the state's Republican politicians brought some straightforward plans for relief to the table. But what many of them are bringing instead is a tired political tactic barely, and laughably, disguised as a remedy for the lack of rainfall.
The "man-made California drought" is the term House Republicans use to describe the state's current...
Aboriginals Flex Muscle in Canada, Blocking Oil & Gas Projects
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 3rd, 2014
Washington Post: Back in spring 2012, while walking in the deep woods of northern Ontario, Sonny Gagnon stumbled across a collection of surveying equipment among the towering spruce trees. Gagnon is chief of the Aroland aboriginal tribe, a band of 450 people living in a village of ramshackle houses by swampy muskeg. He tracks everything that goes on in his community. And the surveying tools weren't supposed to be there.
"I was ticked off,' he says, after learning that the equipment belonged to a subcontractor...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Aboriginals Flex Muscle in Canada, Blocking Oil & Gas ProjectsAnother Spill Reported West Virginia’s Freedom Industries
Posted by Al Jazeera: None Given on February 3rd, 2014
Al Jazeera: A subsequent MCHM chemical spill has been reported at Freedom Industries in West Virginia, local media sources said Friday, but state officials have said that the leak was contained before reaching the Elk River, sparing the already weary downstream residents. Test results from water samples taken from area schools, however, showed the continued presence of the chemical in five schools.
A spokesman for a West Virginia environmental agency said cleanup crews at the site of the previous chemical...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Another Spill Reported West Virginia’s Freedom IndustriesAnti-Keystone Protest Vigils Planned
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 3rd, 2014
United Press International: A consortium of U.S. environmental groups said a chorus of voices will let President Obama know the Keystone XL oil pipeline "fails his climate test." The Sierra Club, anti-Keystone group Bold Nebraska, the Natural Resources Defense Council and more than a dozen other environmental groups scheduled "protest vigils" across the country Monday to oppose the Keystone XL oil pipeline. "This is an all-hands-on-deck moment to send the message to President Obama that Keystone XL fails his climate test...
California May Have Hit Its Driest Point in 500 Years, and the Effects Are Frightening
Posted by Huffington Post: Kathleen Miles on February 3rd, 2014
Huffington Post: California is dry as a bone, and the effects are like something out of an apocalyptic film. Cities are running out of water. Communities are fighting over what little water there is. Local governments are imposing rationing coupled with steep fines. Fires are ravaging the state. Entire species and industries are threatened. For California, 2013 was the driest year since the state started measuring rainfall in 1849. Paleoclimatologist B. Lynn Ingram says that, according to the width of old tree...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on California May Have Hit Its Driest Point in 500 Years, and the Effects Are FrighteningEarthquakes Can’t Shake Railroad Commissioner Candidates’ Stances on Fracking in Texas
Posted by Dallas Morning News: David Barer on February 3rd, 2014
Dallas Morning News: Republican candidates for a post on Texas’ oil and gas regulation board are reluctant to pin earthquakes rocking parts of North Texas on industry practices related to “fracking.”
Residents who have felt dozens of quakes where they used to be rare have raised concerns and criticized the Railroad Commission for responding slowly and sharing little information.
Scientists generally agree humans can cause noticeable earthquakes with deep wells such as those used to dispose of waste from hydraulic...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Earthquakes Can’t Shake Railroad Commissioner Candidates’ Stances on Fracking in TexasEnbridge Pipeline Protesters Found Guilty in Michigan
Posted by Lansing State Journal: Ken Palmer on February 3rd, 2014
Lansing State Journal: Three protesters who attached themselves to excavators last summer at an Enbridge Inc. pipeline construction site were convicted Friday on obstruction and trespassing charges.
An Ingham County Circuit Court jury deliberated about nine hours over two days before finding Lisa Leggio, Barbara Carter and Vicci Hamlin guilty of misdemeanor trespassing and resisting and obstructing police, a maximum two-year felony.
Ingham County Circuit Judge William Collette canceled bond for all three and remanded...