Sunday, April 26, 2015

'Pipelines blow up and people die'

From: Politico

 

After a series of deadly accidents, Congress created an office to oversee the nation’s oil and gas pipelines. A decade later, it’s become the can’t-do agency.
 In this Sept. 9, 2010 file photo, a massive fire roars through a mostly residential neighborhood in San Bruno, Calif. Since last summer, major pipeline accidents have destroyed neighborhoods in California and Pennsylvania and fouled waterways in Montana and Michigan. That's shaken confidence in the system and exposed gaps in oversight of the sprawling network of underground pipelines. Now, politicians from both parties are pushing measures that would tighten control of the industry, which currently gives companies broad leeway to make sure their pipelines are running safely.  (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

On June 10, 1999, a few days after his high school graduation, Liam Wood unexpectedly got an afternoon off work and decided to go fly-fishing on a creek near his hometown of Bellingham, Washington. About 100 miles away, operators missed the signs of a pressure spike in the 16-inch gasoline pipeline that crossed the stream in Whatcom Falls Park.

The pipe ruptured at a point where, several years before, a backhoe had accidentally struck and weakened the 50-year-old iron. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of gasoline began to spew into the creek near where Liam stood, staining the water pink.

It took an hour for control room computers to register an alert. Police began to evacuate the park, but Liam was already dead. Overcome by fumes, the 18-year-old had fallen unconscious into the water and drowned.  MORE

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Five Years After BP Gulf Oil Spill, Region Has Yet to Recover

From:  NBC Nightly News 

Sun, Apr 19 

Half a decade after a BP oil spill devastated the Gulf of Mexico and its wildlife, some still are struggling.

VIDEO

BP’s claims of Gulf recovery are a mockery

From:  Tallahassee Democrat

David Yarnold, Tribune News Service  

Just in time for the fifth anniversary of the worst oil spill in U.S. maritime history, BP has declared all’s well on the Gulf Coast: The oil has been mopped up and there’s been no lasting damage to birds, wildlife or fish.

Really?

At the same time that BP was releasing its five-years-later report, BP contractors were trying to clean up 25,000 pounds of oiled sand from a massive tar mat that slimed one of the fragile barrier islands south of New Orleans.

Toxicology experts at Louisiana State University confirmed it was the same oil that spewed from the April 20, 2010 Deepwater Horizon blowout that killed 11 men.  MORE

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Oklahoma Recognizes Role of Drilling in Earthquakes

From: NY Times 

By  APRIL 21, 2015

 Sparks, Okla., in 2011. A series of shocks that year exceeding magnitude 5.0 caused millions of dollars in damage in the state. CreditSue Ogrocki/Associated Press 



Abandoning years of official skepticism, Oklahoma’s government on Tuesday embraced a scientific consensus that earthquakes rocking the state are largely caused by the underground disposal of billions of barrels of wastewater from oil and gas wells.
The state’s energy and environment cabinet introduced a website detailing the evidence behind that conclusion Tuesday, including links to expert studies of Oklahoma’s quakes. The site includes an interactive map that plots not only earthquake locations, but also the sites of more than 3,000 active wastewater-injection wells.
The website coincided with a statement by the state-run Oklahoma Geological Survey that it “considers it very likely” that wastewater wells are causing the majority of the state’s earthquakes.  MORE