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Archive for January 3rd, 2015
Heavyweight Response to Local Fracking Bans
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on January 3rd, 2015
New York Times: This northern Colorado city vaulted onto the front lines of the battle over oil and gas drilling two years ago, when residents voted to ban hydraulic fracturing from their grassy open spaces and a snow-fed reservoir where anglers catch smallmouth bass.
But these days, Longmont has become a cautionary tale of what can happen when cities decide to confront the oil and gas industry. In an aggressive response to a wave of citizen-led drilling bans, state officials, energy companies and industry groups...
Plunging Oil Prices Trigger Economic Downturn in Fracking Boom Town
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on January 3rd, 2015
EcoWatch: When fracking and horizontal drilling made the oil embedded in North Dakota‘s underground Bakken shale formation accessible for extraction, it touched off something akin to a gold rush in the state.
Oil production has grown 600 percent in the last decade. Small towns, called “man camps,” have sprouted with growing populations of oil field workers, bringing both increased economic activity and employment and increased crime and social problems such as sexual assaults. But plummeting oil prices...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Plunging Oil Prices Trigger Economic Downturn in Fracking Boom TownInterior Secretary criticizes fracking bans
Posted by Hill: Timothy Cama on January 3rd, 2015
Hill: Interior Secretary Sally Jewell criticized local and state bans on hydraulic fracturing, saying they create confusion for the oil and natural gas industries.
Jewell, who oversees the federal government’s various public land agencies, also said fracking bans often come as a result of what she sees as bad scientific decisions that incorrectly find safety or health problems associated with fracking, radio station KQED reported.
“I would say that is the wrong way to go,” Jewell told KQED Friday...
Canada: Layoffs loom in Alberta’s oil patch
Posted by Financial Post: Geoffrey Morgan on January 3rd, 2015
Financial Post: It`s been years since David Yager has seen multiple “For Sale” and “For Rent” signs in Fort McMurray, the northern Alberta city that is usually crawling with workers from across Canada looking to make a buck in the oilsands boomtown.
In times when the province’s unemployment rate plunged below 4%, workers paid exorbitant rents to live in Fort McMurray garages. In late December of this year, amid predictions of a spike in the province’s unemployment rate, bachelor suites in “Fort Mac” were being...
Viewpoint: Climate change is grave environmental threat
Posted by Pensacola News Journal: Jake Thompson on January 3rd, 2015
Pensacola News Journal: With the start of a new term, Gov. Rick Scott faces a fresh opportunity to confront the gravest environmental threat of our time: climate change.
But with Florida widely regarded as America’s ground zero for global warming, the state is moving in the wrong direction. State regulators recently acted to gut energy efficiency goals and end solar rebates.
That’s wrong. And so is the governor’s refusal to address climate change –despite a warning by the National Climate Assessment that Florida is...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Viewpoint: Climate change is grave environmental threatIs Lake Michigan Being Poisoned by Diabetes Drugs?
Posted by Nature World: None Given on January 3rd, 2015
Nature World: Water pollution is not exactly an underappreciated concern. For years state and federal officials have been working with experts to improve water quality, limit pollution, and test for potential consequences. However, it should go without saying that things can be overlooked. That appears to be the case concerning pollution from a common diabetic drug, which may now be poisoning fish in Lake Michigan.
That's at least according to a team of researchers with the School of Freshwater Sciences at...