Tag Archives: mexico

Court orders feds to review oil dispersant risks

by mirorita02 Posted on May 31, 2013

Court orders feds to review oil dispersant risks

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Humpback whales don’t like oil dispersants.

A legal victory for environmentalists this week means that sea turtles, whales, and other endangered species may be sheltered from the use of oil dispersants off the California coastline.

Dispersants, which are used to dissolve oil spills, can cause crippling injuries to cleanup workers and wildlife, but regulations governing their use are extremely lax. The EPA successfully fended off a lawsuit recently that tried to force it to regulate where dispersants can be used and in what quantities.

But on Thursday, conservation groups clinched a settlement that will force the federal government to measure and find ways to minimize impacts from dispersants when they are used to battle oil spills under the California Dispersants Plan.

From a Center for Biological Diversity press release:

“During the BP oil spill, no one knew what the long-term effects of chemical dispersants would be, and we’re still learning about their harm to fish and corals,” said Deirdre McDonnell of the Center for Biological Diversity, which brought suit with Surfrider Foundation and Pacific Environment. “People can avoid the ocean after an oil spill, but marine animals can’t. They’re forced to eat, breathe and swim in the chemicals we put in the water, whether it’s oil or dispersants.” …

Studies have found that oil broken apart by the dispersant Corexit 9527 damages the insulating properties of seabird feathers more than untreated oil, making the birds more susceptible to hypothermia and death. Studies have also found that dispersed oil is toxic to fish eggs, larvae and adults, as well as to corals, and can harm sea turtles’ ability to breathe and digest food.

Environmental News Service reports that the settlement covers four dispersants, including Corexit 9500A, which was used during the BP oil spill:

The settlement requires the federal agencies to consider as part of their analysis six named scientific studies of the effects of dispersants in the BP Deepwater Horizon spill.

One of the six studies found that COREXIT increases the toxicity of oil by 52 times.

“Dispersants are preapproved to help clean up oil spills and are widely used during disasters. But we have a poor understanding of their toxicity. Our study indicates the increase in toxicity may have been greatly underestimated following the Macondo well explosion,” said Roberto-Rico Martinez of Mexico’s Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes, who led the study, published in the February 2013 issue of the journal “Environmental Pollution.”

Now if we just stopped using oil, we’d have no more oil spills on which to dump dispersants.

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Nation’s biggest uranium mine planned in New Mexico

by Alison O'neil Posted on May 21, 2013

Nation’s biggest uranium mine planned in New Mexico

By John Upton

Mike Fisher

The uranium mine is proposed on terrain such as this, near Mount Taylor, seen in the distance.

Two foreign-owned mining companies, betting that the world will quickly forget the horrors of Fukushima, plan to sink a pair of shafts into the rugged New Mexico landscape near near Mt. Taylor and begin 0perating the nation’s biggest uranium mine.

If approved by the U.S. Forest Service and state agencies, the mine would be the first of its kind to operate in the state in more than a decade, extracting as much as 28 million pounds of the radioactive heavy metal and desecrating as many as 70 acres of land sacred to Native Americans that’s designated by the federal government as traditional cultural property.

Previous uranium mining left the state’s landscape scarred and workers sickened. But the Roca Honda joint venture of Canadian and Japanese companies says the industry has learned from past mistakes and now has the whole safe-isotope-extraction thing sorted out. From the Albuquerque Journal:

[Roca Honda Manager John] DeJoia said he would be the “first to admit there are legacy issues,” but that much has been learned in the industry.

“Were cars less safe 60 years ago? Of course they were … Do we know more about food? We certainly do, and that’s the case with uranium, coal, copper,” DeJoia said. “It is an evolving process and just because it wasn’t done properly 40 or 50 years ago doesn’t mean we can’t do it properly today.” …

He concedes that for now, neither spot market nor long-term sales market prices “support fervent development.”

“However, the nuclear-power situation in the world — in our country — indicates a true shortage and that the price will go up once the fervor over Fukushima and everything gets past us,” he said, noting that the U.S. itself produces only 7 or 8 percent of the 55 million to 60 million pounds of uranium used a year by the nation’s nuclear plants. “We will have to realize nuclear power is probably the most viable, cleanest power source we have.”

Needless to say, DeJoia’s glee is not shared by all of the neighbors of the proposed mine. From the same article:

[A] coalition of community organizations, including several Native American groups and an organization of former uranium miners, contends a mining operation would imperil the area’s water supply and quality. The group also believes it would severely impact an area designated by the Forest Service as a traditional cultural property that has great spiritual significance for indigenous people across the Southwest.

“It is essentially the same as proposing a huge uranium mine in the middle of the Vatican. There’s just no way to avoid the impacts,” said attorney Eric Jantz of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center, which is representing the coalition, the Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment.

Jantz said water pumped from the mine could result in significant drawdowns of surface water and springs. There is also concern waste piles and toxic heavy-metal materials could make their way into ground and surface water, he said.

The Forest Service could issue its approval this year, the newspaper reports, clearing the path for drilling to begin within the next several years. And once that happens, hoo-boy, is New Mexico in for an economic bonanza — the likes of which DeJoia can’t even describe to a reporter:

“I won’t run you through all the economics on that, but you can rest assured there is an awful lot of income tax paid on that,” he said. “There are a lot of New Mexico taxes in there.”

Thanks for sparing us the numbers. Nobody wants to be thinking hard when we could just be mindlessly digging for short-term profits.

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Where did all the tornadoes go?

by RupertxMcmillan Posted on May 7, 2013

Where did all the tornadoes go?

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Remember these guys?

The drought that parched much of the nation during the past year didn’t just stunt crops — it also stunted the annual yield of tornadoes. And an unseasonably chilly spring is so far helping to keep the hellish twisters at bay — although weather forecasters warn that trend may be short-lived.

During the past 12 months, the U.S. was hit by an estimated 197 tornadoes rated EF1 or stronger on the Enhanced Fujita scale, which ranks tornadoes according to their destructive potential from a low “0″ up to a devastating “5.” That was the lowest number of such tornadoes during any 12-month period since record-keeping began in 1954 — well below the previous low of 247 recorded between July 1990 and June 1991.

That’s in huge contrast to the onslaught of tornadoes that tore deadly paths of destruction through the nation in 2011, which was a record-busting year of tornadoes galore.

These tornado statistics come from NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory researcher Harold Brooks. He also noted in a blog post that the number of people killed by tornadoes during the past year — 7 — was the lowest since 1899. Here’s a graph lifted from his post:

NOAA

(Click to embiggen.)

The record tally of tornadoes in 2011 had people wondering then whether climate change was to blame, and the sudden dearth of the storms has people again wondering the same thing. It certainly feels like one of those boom-bust weather cycles that we expect from climate change. But there doesn’t appear to be any evidence directly linking the recent tornado cycle to global warming.

The dearth of tornadoes over the past year was linked to the lack of moisture in the air amid the shortage of rainstorms nationwide. There are divergent views on whether the recent droughts affecting the tornado states were caused by climate change — although climate models do predict more droughts in central North America, which is often a vast playpen of deadly twisters.

Likewise, we can’t singularly blame climate change for the cold snap that recently hit the Great Plains and the Midwest. But climatologists have drawn links between global warming and the weather patterns that delivered the cold spurt.

Climate Central delves into the tornado/climate question:

The drought that enveloped the majority of the lower 48 states during the past year has contributed greatly to the paucity of tornadoes, since the dry conditions have robbed the atmosphere of the water vapor that fuels severe thunderstorms. Other tornado ingredients, such as strong upper-level winds and atmospheric wind shear, have also been missing. …

Since tornado seasons vary considerably from one year to the next due to natural variability, it is unclear that the absence of tornadoes during the past 12 months has anything to do with global warming, just as it’s unclear if the 2011 tornado outbreaks were connected to it, either.

Tornadoes are complicated beasts, affected not only by moisture and temperature but also by wind shear and other factors.

Meanwhile, the Weather Channel warns that the cold conditions that have been recently keeping tornadoes at bay might soon break:

[T]he stubborn cold air of this past week will … gradually give way to more typical warm and humid air returning from the Gulf of Mexico into the central and southern Plains, to the east of a sharpening dryline.

With that said, the polar jet stream will remain well to the north in Canada through at least mid-week, rather far north for early May. Instead, weaker wind flow aloft, despite the upper-level system limping east from California, will be in play.

What that means is while severe thunderstorms and some tornadoes are possible in the Plains this week, the weaker wind flow aloft may keep this episode from reaching a full-fledged, widespread outbreak [of tornadoes] that May is so notorious for.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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Surfers are canaries in the coal mine regarding dirty water

by Myrna Posted on May 6, 2013

Whose responsibility is it to inform the public of safety issues? From:   Surfers are canaries in the coal mine regarding dirty water ; ;Related ArticlesGlobal Wave Conference this weekend in Baja, MexicoThe other 364 daysSaving Trestles… again ;

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Surfers are canaries in the coal mine regarding dirty water

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Global Wave Conference this weekend in Baja, Mexico

by Myrna Posted on April 30, 2013

The gathering of the wave protection tribe happens this weekend in Baja, Mexico. Originally posted here –  Global Wave Conference this weekend in Baja, Mexico Related ArticlesThe other 364 daysSaving Trestles… againThe credit belongs to those who are actually in the arena

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Global Wave Conference this weekend in Baja, Mexico

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Keystone XL oil would be processed in sick East Texas community

by ild4sho Posted on April 29, 2013

Keystone XL oil would be processed in sick East Texas community

By John Upton

Tar Sands Blockade

Children play at a park in front of a Valero refinery in Houston, Texas.

For many, the battle over the Keystone XL pipeline is about national energy strategy and global climate change.

For residents of the Manchester neighborhood in Houston, it’s also about what will be processed and spewed into the air in their backyards.

Activist Doug Fahlbusch recently brought some attention to the community when he held up a sign at a Valero-sponsored golf tournament that said, “TAR SANDS SPILL. ANSWER MANCHESTER.” That protest got him carried away from the links by security guards and arrested.

What did Fahlbusch mean? Why are he and his colleagues at Tar Sands Blockade so concerned about Manchester?

Yes! magazine reporter Kristin Moe took a trip to the embattled neighborhood, where a refinery owned by Valero Energy Corp. could end up processing most of the tar-sands oil that flows south through the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Here is a little of what Moe found in “Houston’s most polluted neighborhood”:

Yudith Nieto, 24, has lived in Manchester since her family came from Mexico when she was a small child. While it’s OK to visit the playground, she says, it’s not OK to bring her camera. On several occasions, security guards from the Valero refinery next door have appeared and asked her to leave, claiming that taking pictures in the park was “illegal.” They’ve even brought in Houston police as reinforcements. Valero, one of the major oil companies operating in this industrial part of Houston, keeps its security busy: Nieto says that they have harassed documentary filmmakers and journalists. And when college students participating in an “alternative spring break” program came to the park to talk to her about the neighborhood’s problems, a guard drove up in an unmarked vehicle and took video of the meeting on his cellphone. “I’m not afraid of the attention I’m getting from these people,” Nieto says, “because we want people to know that we’re aware.”

Manchester, one of Houston’s oldest neighborhoods, is surrounded by industry on all sides: a Rhodia chemical plant; a car crushing facility; a water treatment plant; a train yard for hazardous cargo; a Goodyear synthetic rubber plant; oil refineries belonging to Lyondell Basell, Valero, and Texas Petro-Chemicals; as well as one of the busiest highways in the city. Industrial development continues uninterrupted down the Houston Ship Channel for another 50 miles south to the Gulf of Mexico. The refineries around Houston have been called the “keystone to Keystone” because they’re expected to process 90 percent of tar sands crude from Alberta [PDF] if the controversial Keystone XL pipeline is completed.

It’s one of the most polluted neighborhoods in the U.S., one where smokestacks grace every backyard view. But it’s taking on a new significance as the terminus of Keystone because the pipeline is at the center of the highest-stakes environmental battle in recent years. As international pressure builds, residents are beginning to organize, educate themselves, and speak out for the health of their families. …

Manchester is in some ways typical of low-income urban neighborhoods: it’s almost entirely Latino and African American, with a large number of undocumented immigrants. A full third of residents live below the poverty line. Drugs, unemployment, and gangs are a problem. And there’s a strange smell in the air: sometimes sweet, sometimes sulfurous, often reeking of diesel. The most striking thing is that people here always seem to be sick. They have chronic headaches, nosebleeds, sore throats, and red sores on their skin that take months to heal.

Manchester is where the tar-sands rubber will hit the ground. Or where the bitumen will hit the air, if you will. To learn more about the community’s battles against Valero and Keystone XL, read the full article in Yes!

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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BP oil spill cleanup continues, three years after blowout

by Laura Posted on April 17, 2013

BP oil spill cleanup continues, three years after blowout

By John Upton

Louisiana GOHSEP

Tar balls on a Louisiana beach in 2010. Unfortunately, tar balls still keep washing ashore.

As the three-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon blowout approaches, laborious efforts to remove mats of oil and tar balls are still underway along Gulf of Mexico shorelines.

The U.S. Coast Guard just wrapped up a 10-day operation along a two-mile stretch of Pensacola Beach in Florida that recovered more than 450 pounds of oil from the spill, which was triggered by the explosion of a BP oil rig on April 20, 2010.

From the Pensacola News Journal:

Coast Guard spokeswoman Lt. Commander Natalie Murphy said most of that [oil] was found in one large mat.

“The mat was the only big hit, and we had some scattered tar balls but nothing else significant,” she said.

The search was field-testing scientific analysis of data related to the number of tar balls collected in the area since oil washed up on local beaches in June of 2010, along with shoreline erosion and wave/current action to pinpoint likely spots where the oil may have become buried.

Similar cleanup efforts are tentatively planned along other beaches where BP’s tar balls continue to pollute the coastline, such as on Perdido Key near Pensacola.

With the three-year anniversary coming up this weekend, The Independent reports on the grim and still-unfolding legacy of the 4.9-million-barrel spill of crude:

Infant dolphins were found dead at six times average rates in January and February of 2013. More than 650 dolphins have been found beached in the oil spill area since the disaster began, which is more than four times the historical average. Sea turtles were also affected, with more than 1,700 found stranded between May 2010 and November 2012 — the last date for which information is available. On average, the number stranded annually in the region is 240.

Contact with oil may also have reduced the number of juvenile bluefin tuna produced in 2010 by 20 per cent, with a potential reduction in future populations of about 4 per cent. Contamination of smaller fish also means that toxic chemicals could make their way up the food chain after scientists found the spill had affected the cellular function of killifish, a common bait fish at the base of the food chain.

Deep sea coral, some of which is thousands of years old, has been found coated in oil after the dispersed droplets settled on the sea’s bottom. A recent laboratory study found that the mixture of oil and dispersant affected the ability of some coral species to build new parts of a reef.

Meanwhile, locals and environmentalists continue to call for BP to be held accountable for the disaster. The company is currently on trial in New Orleans, where a judge will rule on how much it must cough up for payouts and federal fines. The New Orleans Times-Picayune posted photographs of a courthouse demonstration held Tuesday to commemorate the anniversary. From an Environmental Defense Fund press release:

“Three years after the Gulf was inundated with BP oil, the wildlife, habitats and people of the Gulf are still feeling the effects of the disaster,” [said David Muth of the National Wildlife Federation]. “In 2012 alone, some 6 million pounds of BP oil was collected from Louisiana’s shorelines and 200 miles of coast remain oiled. We can’t allow BP off the hook for anything less than justice requires—a full payment for its recklessness so that real restoration of the Gulf’s ecosystem and economy can begin.”

“We still have concerns about the long term effects on the Gulf and its estuaries. We still see oil on the surface after storms with no one out there monitoring it. We will not stop until we get the help we need,” Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser said.

“Our cuisine, culture and economy are all dependent on a thriving, healthy Gulf. That means we’ve all got a stake in holding BP accountable and ensuring effective restoration begins as soon as possible,” said Susan Spicer, chef and owner of Bayona and Mondo restaurants.

“Two years ago, BP promised $1 billion to early restoration to be used in two years. To date, BP has only spent seven percent of the promised total,” said Cynthia Sarthou, executive director of the Gulf Restoration Network. “Despite BP’s slick ad campaigns, the Gulf is still hurting and can’t wait any longer for restoration. It’s time BP be held fully accountable under the law.”

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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Tar-sands oil spills in Arkansas and Minnesota

by Vonnie Criswell Posted on April 1, 2013

Tar-sands oil spills in Arkansas and Minnesota

By John Upton

As the Obama administration mulls approval of the Keystone XL pipeline that would carry tar-sands oil from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries, the heavy toxic gunk is already spilling out over America.

Last Wednesday, a southbound train carrying Canadian oil derailed in Minnesota, spilling about 15,000 gallons of tar-sands crude – described by The Washington Post as “a mixture of heavy bitumen and lighter dilutents.”

Two days later, an ExxonMobil pipeline carrying tar-sands oil burst beneath a suburban neighborhood in Arkansas. The exact size of the spill hasn’t yet been determined, but ExxonMobil says it’s preparing to be able to clean up 420,000 gallons, though it doesn’t believe the spill is that large. The oil flooded yards and streets and led to the evacuation of 22 homes in Mayflower, a small community about 20 miles northwest of Little Rock.

Watch a video of the spill:

From Reuters:

[An ExxonMobil] spokesman confirmed the line was carrying Canadian Wabasca Heavy crude. That grade is a heavy bitumen crude diluted with lighter liquids to allow it to flow through pipelines, according to the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association (CEPA), which referred to Wabasca as “oil sands” in a report.

You may recall that this is not Exxon’s first major oil spill. Just last week, the U.S. Department of Transportation fined the company $1.7 million for safety violations that led to a 2011 oil spill in the Yellowstone River. (As a point of reference, ExxonMobil’s profits last year were $44.9 billion.)

Reuters / Jacob Slaton

Tar-sands oil from an Exxon pipeline is making a big mess in Mayflower, Ark.

Tar-sands oil is especially potent stuff. It’s heavier than standard crude, which causes it to quickly sink and complicates cleanup efforts. It is cut with cancer-causing chemicals such as benzene to thin it out so it can flow through pipes.

The North American oil boom has maxed out the capacity of pipelines that carry the material south to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico, so oil companies have begun loading their toxic cargo onto trains even as they lobby the U.S. government to approve Keystone XL.

Some Keystone boosters argued that Wednesday’s train derailment and spill in Minnesota showed the urgent need for the pipeline, because pipelines are supposed to be safer than train shipments.

After Friday’s pipeline spill in Arkansas, that argument looks full of holes.

When it comes to transporting tar-sands oil from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries, it seems that the only safe option is to not transport it at all. Leave that shit in the ground and plant some wind turbines and solar panels over it.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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Tar-sands oil spills in Arkansas and Minnesota

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Obama creates five new national monuments

by kowalski099 Posted on March 25, 2013

Obama creates five new national monuments

By John Upton

Shutterstock

/ Mariia SatsMonumental.

President Barack Obama doesn’t just think the San Juan Islands are awesome. He thinks they are monumentally awesome.

Obama today will announce the designation of five new national monuments, including nearly 1,000 acres on the San Juan archipelago off the coast of Washington state.

That will more than double his monument-designating tally under the 1906 Antiquities Act to a total of nine.

From The Seattle Times:

The lands that islanders had sought to preserve are already federally owned and overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. While there were no apparent plans for the government to sell or develop the properties, the monument designation offers virtual certainty they will remain protected in perpetuity.

U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Everett, credited “years of persistence” by environmental and business leaders who built a coalition to campaign for the monument.

A national monument is a lot like a national park, except that the president can designate one without the approval of Congress. Other national monuments include the Statue of Liberty in New York City and the Muir Woods north of San Francisco. There are about 100 in all.

Here are the national monuments being protected today, from USA Today:

The San Juan Islands National Monument in Washington state
First State National Monument in Delaware
The Rio Grande del Norte National Monument in New Mexico
Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument in Ohio
A monument commemorating Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railway in Maryland

Having gained lots of experience handing public land over to energy companies to drill and pollute, Obama today offers an overdue nod to wilderness and American history.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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Multibillion dollar question: How gross was BP’s negligence?

by dig1iti43 Posted on February 25, 2013

Multibillion dollar question: How gross was BP’s negligence?

By John Upton

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill was gross. Really gross. But what about BP’s negligence in creating that gross oil spill? Was that negligence also gross?

If you’re already tired of hearing the word “gross” over and over, you might want to tune out news of a trial that began today in New Orleans. The U.S. government and Gulf Coast states are seeking billions of dollars from BP in damages and fines. One of the key decisions that the federal judge must make in the case is whether BP was grossly negligent in causing the deadly explosion and subsequent oil spill, or whether the company was merely negligent. The stakes are big — big with a capital B. Billions of dollars are at stake.

The government says the company’s negligence was totally gross. But, like somebody who farts in an elevator and then asks everybody to please stop whining because they didn’t try to make it smell so gross, BP is denying that claim. From a statement issued by BP:

“Gross negligence is a very high bar that BP believes cannot be met in this case,” said [BP General Counsel Rupert Bondy]. “This was a tragic accident, resulting from multiple causes and involving multiple parties. We firmly believe we were not grossly negligent.”

If U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier rules that the company was grossly negligent, then it could be fined up to $4,300 per barrel spilled under the Clean Water Act. (Barbier is hearing the case without a jury.) The government says 4.1 million barrels spilled, having reportedly backed away from an earlier estimate of 4.9 million barrels. If the judge accepts that figure, and also rules that BP was grossly negligent, the company may have to fork out $17.6 billion to the American people in Clean Water Act fines alone.

And that figure doesn’t include additional fines and compensation for damage that the spill caused, which is expected to be billions more, over and above the tens of billions of dollars in settlements and cleanup costs to date.

If Barbier rules that the company was just plain ol’ negligent, however, the Clean Water Act fines would be capped at $1,100 per barrel. If he also accepts BP’s claim that no more than 3.1 million barrels of oil was spilled, then the company could be liable for up to $3.4 billion in Clean Water Act fines.

Opening arguments began in Barbier’s courtroom this morning, despite press reports that the parties are mulling a $16 billion settlement. That proposed settlement is opposed by environmental groups, which criticize the sum as paltry and say it is unlikely to be enough to fully restore the Gulf of Mexico. (This morning’s courtroom action doesn’t preclude the possibility that a settlement might yet be reached.) Without a settlement, the trial could take months to resolve. Hundreds of lawyers are involved, all ready to take their share. From The Washington Post:

The list of exhibits runs nearly a thousand pages, and lawyers have filed 126 depositions and the names of about 80 potential witnesses. The plaintiffs’ team has essentially built an entire new firm, with 300 lawyers, paralegals and support staffers dedicated to the case. BP has a similar battery of attorneys from four of the nation’s most prestigious firms.

Gross.

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