Category: Pollution


B.C. Officially Opposes Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline

Filed under: bureaucracy, Environmental, Government, World News, Wildlife, Government Overreach, oil, Activism, Pollution, Hypocrisy, Preservation, Crossroads News : Changes In The World Around Us And Our Place In It, Politics, Legislation and Economy News, Special Interests, Greed, Unethical, Nature, Water, Land — 6 Comments
May 31, 2013
 

Reblogged from: Blavatar Earth First! Newswire

31 May

Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press

Cross Posted from CBC

The B.C. government has officially expressed its opposition to a proposal for the Northern Gateway pipeline project, saying it fails to address the province’s environmental concerns. 

The province made the announcement in its final written submission to the Northern Gateway Pipeline Joint Review Panel.

“British Columbia thoroughly reviewed all of the evidence and submissions made to the panel and asked substantive questions about the project, including its route, spill response capacity and financial structure to handle any incidents,” said Environment Minister Terry Lake.

“Our questions were not satisfactorily answered during these hearings.”

Lake said the province has carefully reviewed the evidence presented to the panel.

“The panel must determine if it is appropriate to grant a certificate for the project as currently proposed on the basis of a promise to do more study and planning after the certificate is granted,” Lake said.

“Our government does not believe that a certificate should be granted before these important questions are answered.”

In a news release, Enbridge executive vice president Janet Holder said the province’s five conditions can’t be fully met until the end of the review panel process, saying the company is working hard to meet the conditions and earn the confidence of the government and the people of B.C.

“As a British Columbian, I am personally committed, as is Northern Gateway, to building a pipeline project that meets the highest possible safety and environmental standards anywhere in the world and a project that creates new jobs and opportunities for British Columbians,” she said.

“At Northern Gateway, we are driven by our responsibility to do what’s right for B.C.’s economy and for B.C.’s environment.”

The review panel will hear final arguments starting next month, and must present a report to the federal government by the end of the year. The federal government will have the final say on whether the pipeline goes ahead.

Read More Here

 

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Posted by   on June 3, 2013 12:42 pm

VICTORIA, British Columbia, Canada, June 3, 2013 (ENS) – Oil spill cleanup concerns have led the British Columbia Government to reject a proposed multi-billion dollar tar sands oil pipeline that the Canadian company Enbridge wants to construct across the province.

In its final submission Friday to the federally-appointed Northern Gateway Pipeline Joint Review Panel, the province states that it cannot support the Enbridge Northern Gateway project because the company “has been unable to address British Columbians’ environmental concerns.”

Environment Minister Terry Lake said, “British Columbia thoroughly reviewed all of the evidence and submissions made to the panel and asked substantive questions about the project including its route, spill response capacity and financial structure to handle any incidents. Our questions were not satisfactorily answered during these hearings.”

Terry Lake

B.C. Environment Minister Terry Lake, right, presents environmental awards, 2011 (Photo courtesy Office of the Minister)

“Northern Gateway has said that they would provide effective spill response in all cases. However, they have presented little evidence as to how they will respond,” Lake said. “For that reason, our government cannot support the issuance of a certificate for the pipeline as it was presented to the Joint Review Panel.”

The Enbridge Northern Gateway Project, as proposed, is a twin pipeline system between Edmonton, Alberta and a new marine terminal in Kitimat, British Columbia, which would carry tar sands oil by pipeline across the province, to be loaded onto supertankers for transport to Asia.

The pipelines would cross B.C.’s sensitive Pacific North Coast ecosystem, and threatens First Nations’ land and salmon economy. A spill threatens long-term loss of marine life, pristine waterways, and coastal ecosystems.

First Nation opposition has been strong and united in the position that the Northern Gateway pipeline would never be allowed to cross their land. The pipelines could not be constructed without breaking First Nation unity through financial inducements or land seizure.

The provincial government has established, and maintains, five “strict conditions” in order for British Columbia to consider the construction and operation of heavy-oil pipelines in the province.

  1. Successful completion of the environmental review process. In the case of Northern Gateway pipeline, that would mean a recommendation by the National Energy Board Joint Review Panel that the project proceed.
  2. World-leading marine oil spill response, prevention and recovery systems for B.C.’s coastline and ocean to manage and mitigate the risks and costs of heavy-oil pipelines and shipments.
  3. World-leading practices for land oil spill prevention, response and recovery systems to manage and mitigate the risks and costs of heavy-oil pipelines.
  4. Legal requirements regarding Aboriginal and treaty rights are addressed, and First Nations are provided with the opportunities, information and resources necessary to participate in and benefit from a heavy-oil project.
  5. British Columbia receives a fair share of the fiscal and economic benefits of a proposed heavy-oil project that reflect the level, degree and nature of the risk borne by the province, the environment and taxpayers.

“The five conditions cannot be fully met until the end of the Joint Review Panel process,” said Janet Holder, Enbridge’s executive vice president of Western access, told reporters. “As a British Columbian, I am personally committed, as is Northern Gateway, to building a pipeline project that meets the highest possible safety and environmental standards anywhere in the world—and a Project that creates new jobs and opportunities for British Columbians.”

pipeline

An Enbridge pipeline is laid out for installation (Photo courtesy Northern Gateway)

In its written submission to the review panel on Friday, the company emphasized “the enormous economic benefits that the Project would deliver to Canada, British Columbia, Alberta and Aboriginal peoples.”

“The evidence provided by Northern Gateway … demonstrates that the Project would be safely designed and constructed, and that Northern Gateway is committed to ensuring excellence in operations. It shows that the pipelines would be constructed and operated without causing significant adverse effects to the environment,” the company wrote.

Read Full Article Here

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Tar Sand

What are the Tar Sands?

The “Tar Sands” (or if you are a business executive, “unconventional or heavy oil”) are naturally occurring deposits of petroleum, sand and clay mixed up to make an asphalt-like substance technically known as bitumen. For much of the 20th century, these deposits were largely ignored by oil companies as a source of petroleum due to the comparably inefficient process used to turn bitumen-in-the-ground into gasoline-in-the-tank, if you will. Now, because of dwindling production of conventional petroleum sources since the cresting of Hubbert’s predicted peak oil scenario, every major oil company in the world is now investing in tar sand extraction.

Bitumen, aka tar sand.

Where are the Tar Sands?

Bitumen deposits can be found all over the world, however most of these are too small or inaccessible to make development of these sites feasible. The only deposits currently under commercial development are in Venezuela’s Orinoco Basin, and Alberta, Canada’s taiga forest. The oil industries operations in the Alberta Tar Sands constitute about 90% on the world’s “unconventional oil” industry. The Alberta bitumen deposits stretch across an area roughly the size of Florida and are speculated to contain the world’s second largest (measured by recoverable barrels of oil) deposit of oil after the Saudi Arabian oil fields. Some studies suggest the Alberta Tar Sands are in fact the largest deposit.

Recently, plans have been submitted to begin extracting oil from tar sands in eastern Utah, as well.

Bitumen deposits in Alberta

Well, what’s so bad about that?

The tar sand boom in Alberta has been called the largest, most destructive industrial operation on the planet, ever. At a time when a changing climate and dwindling biodiversity across the globe threaten to drastically alter our way of life, at best, or wipe out all life on Earth, at worst, expansion of the tar sand industry is a step in the wrong direction if we are to develop a sustainable human existence. Tar sand mining irreversibly destroys landscapes, threatens the health of whole watersheds, negatively affects human communities, and accelerates climate change through greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation.

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What impact does the tar sands have on the land?

The tar sand mines of Alberta are the site of the second fastest rate of deforestation in the world, behind the slashing on the Amazon Rainforest. Bitumen is located deep underground and is too thick to be pumped to the surface by traditional means. Oil companies have learned that it is most profitable to dig the bitumen up using strip-mining techniques, such as those used in the coal industry’s mountain top removal mines. Vast expanses of pristine, old-growth taiga (aka boreal) forest are clear-cut. The timber is sold, pulped, burned or otherwise disposed of, along with several meters of peat moss (which any home-gardener can tell you is the richest, and rarest, soil-type there is) and every other living thing in the forest. Unlike regular logging operations, the clear-cutting that occurs before tar sand mining fails to offer even the most cynically token chance of forest recovery. This is because after the forest-scape is removed, the top layer of earth (referred to in the industry as “overburden”) is dug up and hauled away. This surface removal often reaches depths of several hundred feet. Only now is the bitumen accessible and promptly removed, leaving a lifeless moonscape where once there was a lush green wilderness.

This… from horizon to horizon

What impact does the tar sands have on the water?

Tar sand operations use extraordinary volumes of water. Certain types of bitumen extraction (known as “in-situ”) require great quantities of superheated water to be pumped deep underground to essentially melt the tar into a viscous enough substance to pump it to the surface. Bitumen, being too thick to flow naturally through transport pipelines, is diluted at giant facilities near the mines in preparation for pumping to distant refineries. This process, called “upgrading”, results in this localized cluster of tar sand facilities using as much water as the city of Calgary (population ~2 million).

The primary source of water for these processes is the Athabasca River. The Athabasca, a glacier fed river which feeds giant Lake Athabaska 765 miles downstream (this subsequently flows into the Mackenzie River system and, eventually, the Arctic Ocean). The tar sands sit approximately halfway, and this is the point at which great impact occurs. For every barrel of oil produced at the mines, ten barrels are sucked out of the Athabasca, up to half of which becomes so oily and toxic that it can never be excusably returned to the river. This oil-water is stockpiled behind some of the world’s largest dams (built from the overburden of the strip-mining process) to “settle,” or separate… an unproven process which even at best is expected to take several decades to complete, if ever. Meanwhile these toxic ponds grow to such vast size that they are visible from space.

Despite oil companies’ claim to the contrary, environmental reports state that more than five million gallons of this waste-water leaks out of the ponds and back into the river or groundwater annually. In communities downstream that have seen spikes in environmental red-flags such as mutations in wildlife and rare cancers among humans, the once pure Athabasca River is now considered poisonous and off-limits to drinking.

Wildlife near the tailings ponds face their own risks when mistakenly treating the ponds as hospitable, such as the 10,000 estimated waterfowl that die each year when coming into contact with the water’s surface. One such incident included between 500-1200 migrating ducks which died together when the flock landed on the pond.

Duck in a Syncrude Oil Co. waste pond

  Read More Here

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                                                                    Image Source

Moving Wisconsin Beyond Oil through Clean Transportation:

As our oil supply decreases, our dependence becomes more and more risky.  Everyday, we spend $1 billion overseas on oil that could be reinvested in our own economy.  This includes countries that are listed as having “long term, protected conditions that make a country dangerous or unstable,” including Iraq, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia.

Moving Beyond Oil:

With decreasing supply, oil is becoming harder to find and we are going to extremes to get it, including deep into the sea, threatening wildlife refuges, and destroying forests in Canada. Until we can kick our addiction, we will continue to go to great lengths to get every last drop of oil.

We saw the problems associated with offshore oil drilling on Earth Day of 2010 with the worst oil spill in our history; drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge will likely result in a similar travesty.  At the same time, the cost of importing oil from the Middle East has it’s own share of problems.

Tar Sands Before and After Photo

Stopping Tar Sands Development:

Tar sands oil is a dangerous and carbon-intensive way to extract oil from sand. In Wisconsin, a lot of our gasoline comes from tar sands oil.  As a result, we must fight harder to reduce our dependence on the dirty oil source. Click here to learn more about tar sands oil.

Wisconsin has its own proposed Keystone XL, the expansion of Enbridge 67, which would increase the amount of tar sands oil pumping through it to 800,000 barrels per day!

The answer is not the best form of oil, but to reduce the amount of oil we us

 

Read More Here

 

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Tar sands supporters suffer setback as British Columbia rejects pipeline

Canadian province rejects plan for Enbridge Northern Gateway, saying company failed to demonstrate adequate clean-up plan

 

 

Tar sands Canada

Tar sands in Alberta, Canada. The Northern Gateway was going to connect the province to the Pacific coast. Photograph: Orjan F Ellingvag/Dagens Naringsliv/Corbis

 

Efforts to expand production from the Alberta tar sands suffered a significant setback on Friday when the provincial government of British Columbia rejected a pipeline project because of environmental shortcomings.

In a strongly worded statement, the government of the province said it was not satisfied with the pipeline company’s oil spill response plans.

The rejection of the pipeline – which was to have given Alberta an outlet to Pacific coast ports and markets in China – further raises the stakes on another controversial tar sands pipeline, Keystone XL.

Barack Obama is still weighing a decision on that pipeline, intended to pump tar sands crude to the Texas gulf coast.

British Columbia, in its official submission to a pipeline review panel, said the company had failed to demonstrate an adequate clean-up plan for the Enbridge Northern Gateway project. It set five new conditions for the project’s approval.

“Northern Gateway has presented little evidence about how it will respond in the event of a spill,” Christopher Jones, a lawyer representing the province, said in a statement to the federal government panel reviewing the project.

“It is not clear from the evidence that Northern Gateway will in fact be able to respond effectively to spills either from the pipeline itself, or from tankers transporting diluted bitumen,” Jones added.

 

Read Full Article Here

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The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP) the only operating uranium enrichment facility in the U.S.cannot legally stay open, and it can’t safely be shut down. Weapons of Mass Destruction ??

Filed under: Chemicals, Clean up, Community, Contamination, Corporate Assault on Our Lives And Our Health, Environmental, Nuclear, Nuclear Plant Incidents, Nuclear Power Truths, Pollution, Population, Radiation, Water, Wildlife — 3 Comments
May 24, 2013

The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Paducah, Kentucky, is the only U.S.-owned uranium enrichment
facility in the United States.

Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant | usec.com  Home Page

USEC Home Page

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EcoWatch: Uniting the voice of the grassroots environmental movement

Countdown to Nuclear Ruin at Paducah

May 22, 2013

By Geoffrey Sea

Disaster is about to strike in western Kentucky, a full-blown nuclear catastrophe involving hundreds of tons of enriched uranium tainted with plutonium, technetium, arsenic, beryllium and a toxic chemical brew. But this nuke calamity will be no fluke. It’s been foreseen, planned, even programmed, the result of an atomic extortion game played out between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the most failed American experiment in privatization, the company that has run the Paducah plant into the poisoned ground, USEC Inc.

As now scheduled, main power to the gargantuan gaseous diffusion uranium plant at Paducah, Kentucky, will be cut at midnight on May 31, just nine days from now—cut because USEC has terminated its power contract with TVA as of that time [“USEC Ceases Buying Power,” Paducah Sun, April 19, page 1] and because DOE can’t pick up the bill.

DOE is five months away from the start of 2014 spending authority, needed to fund clean power-down at Paducah. Meanwhile, USEC’s total market capitalization has declined to about $45 million, not enough to meet minimum listing requirements for the New York Stock Exchange, pay off the company’s staggering debts or retain its operating licenses under financial capacity requirements of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The Paducah plant cannot legally stay open, and it can’t safely be shut down—a lovely metaphor for the end of the Atomic Age and a perfect nightmare for the people of Kentucky.

Dirty Power-Down

If the main power to the diffusion cascade is cut as now may be unavoidable, the uranium hexafluoride gas inside thousands of miles of piping and process equipment will crystallize, creating a very costly gigantic hunk of junk as a bequest to future generations, delaying site cleanup for many decades and risking nuclear criticality problems that remain unstudied. Unlike gaseous uranium that can be flushed from pipes with relative ease, crystallized uranium may need to be chiseled out manually, adding greatly to occupational hazards.

The gaseous diffusion plant at Oak Ridge, TN, was powered-down dirty in 1985, in a safer situation because the Oak Ridge plant did not have near the level of transuranic contaminants found at Paducah. The Oak Ridge catastrophe left a poisonous site that still awaits cleanup a quarter-century later, and an echo chamber of political promises that such a stupid move would never be made again. But that was before the privatization of USEC.

Could a dirty power-down at Paducah—where recycled and reprocessed uranium contaminated with plutonium and other transuranic elements was added in massive quantities—result in “slow-cooker” critical mass formations inside the process equipment?

No one really knows.

Everybody does know that the Paducah plant is about to close. Its technology is Jurassic, requiring about ten times the energy of competing uranium enrichment methods around the world. The Paducah plant has been the largest single-meter consumer of electric power on the planet, requiring two TVA coal plants just to keep it operating, and it’s the largest single-source emitter of the very worst atmospheric gasses—chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

The plant narrowly escaped the selection process that shuttered its sister plants in Tennessee and Ohio long ago. A 2012 apocalypse for Paducah workers was averted only by a last-second, five-party raid on the U.S. Treasury involving four federal entities pitching together to bail out USEC financially, a deal so arcane that knowledge of Mayan astrological codices would be required to grasp its basic principles. The plot would make for a great super-crime Hollywood movie in which Kentucky’s own George Clooney and Ashley Judd could star, if only the crafting lawyers and bureaucrats had made the Code of Federal Regulations as easy to decipher as bible code, or half as interesting.

“The deal” that saved Paducah operations for a year, past one crucial election non-coincidentally, probably consumed more net energy than it produced by stupidly paying USEC to run depleted uranium waste back through the inefficient Paducah plant—like a massive government program paying citizens to drink their own pee as a way to cut sewerage costs and keep medics employed prior to a Presidential contest. The deal never would have passed muster if it had been subjected to environmental or economic reviews of any kind, but it wasn’t. The “jobs” mantra was chanted, and all applicable laws from local noise-control ordinances to the Geneva Conventions were waived.

But the deal expires on May 31, in nine days. USEC and DOE have both said that discussions for a new extension deal continue, but rumors of a new deal were dashed on May 7, sending USEC stock into a flip-flop, when in an investor conference call, the company announced that no extension had been agreed, with very pessimistic notes about even a “short-term” postponement. That accompanied news that USEC had suffered a $2 million loss in the first quarter of 2013, largely attributable to the power bill at Paducah, which USEC says it’s under no obligation to keep paying.

Showing no enthusiasm whatsoever, USEC CEO John Welch said on May 7:

“While we continue to pursue options for a short-term extension of enrichment at Paducah beyond May 31, we also continue to prepare to cease enrichment in early June.”

Meanwhile, the Kentucky DOE field office in charge, managed by William A. Murphie, has advertised a host of companies “expressing interest” in future use of the Paducah site, with no explanation of how the existing edifice of egregiousness will be made to disappear. “Off the record,” the Kentucky field office has floated dates like 2060 for the completion of Paducah cleanup.

That’s two generations from now and kind of a long time for the skilled workforce and other interested parties to hang around. Even the 2060 date assumes that costs can be minimized by evacuating the diffusion cells before power-down—the scenario that seems certain not to happen because no one has the funding for it. Flushing the cells of uranium hexafluoride gas is the only sensible way to power-down, but it’s costly and time-consuming. At the Piketon, Ohio, plant a semi-clean power-down has cost billions of dollars and has taken twelve years and counting to accomplish. (Murphie will have to explain why he paid USEC so much money for the extended power-down at Piketon, while simultaneously asserting that a Paducah power-down can be accomplished swiftly and cheaply). Clean power-down also requires that workers and supplies be available on demand, and in the Paducah case, there simply isn’t time.

According to reliable sources, contracts are being prepared for the work of placing the plant into what Murphie calls “cold storage”—a term of his invention. But those contracts won’t take effect until October when fiscal 2014 funds are available. “Cold storage” at that point means closing the doors, posting guards outside, and otherwise walking away.

Can there yet be an extension deal to hold over the plant until 2014 funds are available? Probably not, because USEC may not last that long, the equipment in the plant has been run to decrepitude with no attention to maintenance, there isn’t sufficient time to make the arrangements, and a second end-run around environmental compliance would likely generate lawsuits.

Read Full Article here

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USEC to Cease Enrichment at Paducah Plant

- Operations for inventory management and site transition to continue -

BETHESDA, Md.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– USEC Inc. (NYSE: USU) announced today that it had not been able to conclude a deal for the short-term extension of uranium enrichment at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky, and the company will begin ceasing uranium enrichment at the end of May. The Paducah plant is the only U.S.-owned and operated uranium enrichment facility in the United States. USEC leases the plant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

“While we have pursued possible opportunities for continuing enrichment, DOE has concluded that there were not sufficient benefits to the taxpayers to extend enrichment. I am extremely disappointed to say we must now begin to take steps to cease enrichment,” said Robert Van Namen, USEC senior vice president and chief operating officer.

“We will continue to meet our customers’ orders from our existing inventory, purchases from Russia under the historic Megatons to Megawatts program and our transitional supply contract with Russia that runs through 2022,” Van Namen said. “In addition, our work to commercialize the American Centrifuge technology continues through our research, development and demonstration program with DOE, which remains on schedule and within budget, as we remain on a path to deploy this critical technology.”

USEC will take steps to cease enrichment at the Paducah plant over the next month and to prepare the plant site for return to DOE. USEC expects to continue operations at the site into 2014 in order to manage inventory, continue to meet customer orders and to meet the turnover requirements of its lease with DOE.

“We will be working with DOE during the coming months and expect to reach agreement on how to best transition the site. The company and our workforce have unparalleled expertise that should be drawn on. We can provide significant value to the government in making that transition in the most cost-effective and timely manner,” Van Namen said.

USEC expects to begin reducing its workforce at the plant in the coming months. The Company will begin notifying workers as the specifics of the transition activities are defined. USEC anticipates maintaining a workforce at the site into next year to support ongoing operations, perform transition activities and meet regulatory requirements.

“We want to thank our employees and the entire Paducah community for their efforts to support continued enrichment at the plant. Although the community has known about this possibility for a number of years, we recognize that the Paducah area will soon feel the real impact of this decision and its effects on many individuals and families,” said Steve Penrod, vice president of enrichment operations.

“For 60 years, Paducah employees and the community have supported our national security and energy security. For now, at least, that mission is ending, but we are committed to working with the community and DOE for the smoothest possible transition that positions the plant site for its future role in the area’s economy.

“We want to thank members of the Kentucky delegation and our unions, the United Steel Workers and the Security, Police & Fire Protection Professionals, all of whom have worked tirelessly on behalf of the employees at this plant. We fully expect they will now recommit to helping the community create the next economic chapter for this site.”

USEC Inc., a global energy company, is a leading supplier of enriched uranium fuel for commercial nuclear power plants.

Read Full Article  Here

 

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Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

PADUCAH GASEOUS DIFFUSION PLANT

globalsecurity.org

 

The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP) is located in western Kentucky, 10 miles west of the City of Paducah, near the Ohio River in McCracken County. The plant sits on a 3,425-acre tract of property, 750 acres of which are enclosed inside the PGDP security fence and 74 of those contain process buildings. The site is owned by DOE and leased and operated by the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC), a subsidiary of USEC, Inc.

It is the only operating uranium enrichment facility in the U.S. The site contains uranium enrichment process equipment and support facilities. The mission of the Plant is to “enrich” uranium for use in domestic and foreign commercial power reactors. Enrichment involves increasing the percentage of uranium-235 in the material used for creating reactor fuel (UF6). Uranium-235 is highly fissionable, unlike the more common isotope uranium-238. The PGDP enriches the UF6 from roughly 0.7 percent uranium-235 to about 2.75 percent uranium-235…….

 

Read  In Full Here

 

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USEC preparing for close down

May 24, 2013
The United States Enrichment Corp. sits 15 miles west of Paducah on land the Department of Energy owns.

The United States Enrichment Corp. sits 15 miles west of Paducah on land the Department of Energy owns.

USEC will start taking steps to close down its operations at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant over the next month and to prepare the plant site for return to DOE, said Robert Van Namen, USEC senior vice president and chief operating officer.

USEC expects to begin reducing its work force at the plant in the coming months and anticipates maintaining a work force at the site into next year, Van Namen said.

Read Full Article Here

 

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Wikipedia

Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant

History

The former Kentucky Ordnance Works site was chosen from a candidate list of eight sites in 1950. The construction contractor was F.H. McGraw of Hartford, Connecticut, and the operating company was Union Carbide. The plant was opened in 1952 as a government-owned, contractor-operated facility, producing enriched uranium to fuel military reactors and for use in nuclear weapons. The mode of enrichment was the gaseous diffusion of uranium hexaflouride to separate the lighter fissile isotope, U-235, from the heavier non-fissile isotope, U-238. The Paducah plant originally produced low-enriched uranium, which was further refined at Portsmouth and the K-25 plant at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. From the 1960s the Portsmouth and Paducah plants were dedicated to uranium enrichment for nuclear power plants. In 1984 the operating contract was assumed by Martin Marietta Energy Systems. Lockheed Martin has operated the plant since the merger of Martin Marietta with Lockheed in 1995. From 2001, all USEC production has been consolidated at Paducah.[2][3]

The Paducah plant had a capacity of 11.3 million separative work units per year (SWU/year) in 1984. 1812 stages were located in five buildings: C-310 with 60 stages, C-331 with 400 stages, C-333 with 480 stages, C-335 with 400 stages and C-337 with 472 stages.[4]

Employment and Economic Impact

USEC employs around 1100 to operate the plant. The Department of Energy employs around 600 through contractors to maintain the grounds, portions of the infrastructure, and to remediate environmental contamination at the site. The facility has had a positive economic impact on the local economy and continues to be an economic driver for the community. Elected officials are working to ensure that the plant continues to operate though other methods of enriching uranium, such as centrifuge, are more efficient.[1]

Contamination

Plant operations have contaminated the site over time. The primary contamination of concern is trichloroethylene (TCE), which was a commonly used degreaser at the site. TCE leaked and contaminated groundwater on and off the site. The groundwater is also contaminated with trace amounts of technetium-99, a radioactive fission product; other contaminates include polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs). Through normal operations, portions of the plant are contaminated with uranium.

In 1988, TCE and trace amounts of technetium-99 was found in the drinking water wells of residences located near the plant site in McCracken County, Kentucky. To protect human health the Department of Energy provided city water, at no cost, to the affected residents and continues to do so.

Cleanup status

The Department of Energy is using electrical resistance heating, ET-DSP(trademarked) to vaporize the TCE from the groundwater. This clean up action began in mid-2010. Much of the contamination of the actual plant will not be cleaned up until the plant ceases operations.

 

 

 

 

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Sovereign Nations Walk Out of Meeting With U.S. State Department Unanimously Rejecting Keystone XL Pipeline

Filed under: Activism, Crossroads News : Changes In The World Around Us And Our Place In It, Environmental, Indigenous Peoples, Land, Nature, oil, Pollution, Water, Wildlife — Leave a comment
May 18, 2013

Reblogged from :  Earth First News Wire

Cross Posted from Huffington Post

The State Department, still with “egg on its face” from its statement that Keystone XL would have little impact on climate change, sunk a little lower today as the most respected elders, and chiefs of 10 sovereign nations turned their backs on State Department representatives and walked out during a meeting. The meeting, which was a failed attempt at a “nation to nation” tribal consultation concerning the Northen leg of the Keystone XL Pipeline neglected to address any legitimate concerns being raised by First Nations Leaders (or leading scientific experts for that matter).

Tribal nations added probably the most critical danger of the pipeline which is to the water. Their statement is below:

On this historic day of May 16, 2013, ten sovereign Indigenous nations maintain that the proposed TransCanada/Keystone XL pipeline does not serve the national interest and in fact would be detrimental not only to the collected sovereigns but all future generations on planet earth. This morning the following sovereigns informed the Department of State Tribal Consultation effort at the Hilton Garden Inn in Rapid City, SD, that the gathering was not recognized as a valid consultation on a “nation to nation” level:

Southern Ponca
Pawnee Nation
Nez Perce Nation

And the following Oceti Sakowin (Seven Council Fires People):

Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate
Ihanktonwan Dakota (Yankton Sioux)
Rosebud Sioux Tribe
Oglala Sioux Tribe
Standing Rock Tribe
Lower Brule Sioux Tribe
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe
Crow Creek Sioux Tribe

 

The Great Plains Tribal Chairmans Association supports this position, which is in solidarity with elected leaders, Treaty Councils and the grassroots community, and is guided by spiritual leaders. On Saturday, May 18, the Sacred Pipe Bundle of the Oceti Sakowin will be brought out to pray with the people to stop the KXL pipeline, and other tribal nation prayer circles will gather to do the same.

Pursuant to Executive Order 13175, the above sovereigns directed the DOS to invite President Obama to engage in “true Nation to Nation” consultation with them at the nearest date, at a designated location to be communicated by each of the above sovereigns. After delivering that message, the large contingent of tribal people walked out of the DOS meeting and asked the other tribal people present to support this effort and to leave the meeting. Eventually all remaining tribal representatives and Tribal Historic Preservation Officers left the meeting at the direct urging of the grassroots organization Owe Aku. Owe Aku, Moccasins on the Ground, and Protect the Sacred are preparing communities to resist the Keystone XL pipeline through Keystone Blockade Training.

Read More  Here

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Tourist cruises along Rome’s Tiber River have been suspended indefinitely for the first time since they began a decade ago because the waterway is judged too dirty.

Filed under: Community, Crossroads News : Changes In The World Around Us And Our Place In It, Environmental, Pollution, World News — 1 Comment
May 10, 2013
WATER WORLD

Rome river judged too dirty for tourist cruises


 by Staff Writers
 Rome (AFP) May 09, 2013

“Tourists and Rome residents were expecting navigation for the year to resume at Easter. But we didn’t open out of respect for them,” said Mauro Pica Villa from “Rome Boats”, the company in charge of all cruises on the river.

“We’re ashamed of the Tiber’s state of abandonment,” he told AFP on Thursday.

The river’s tall stone embankments have become grey with pollution, the river banks are strewn with rubbish and homeless people live under the bridges.

“The last time the river was cleaned up was in 2008! Everyone can see it since trees along the Tiber are covered in plastic bags and other rubbish every time the river overflows,” which happens several times in a year, he said.

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WAKE UP by Peggy Atwood

Filed under: A Helping Hand, Activism, Activism, Beauty Of Nature, Beyond Our Natural Senses, Blow back, Climate Change, Coexistence, Complacency / Apathy, Consciousness 1, Corruption, Costs of War, Crimes, Crossroads News : Changes In The World Around Us And Our Place In It, Deforestation, Earth Watch Report, Enlightenment, Environmental, Faith, Fallen Soldiers, Freedom, Fundamental Rights, Generosity, Generosity, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), Geo Engineering, Give Forward, Global Community, Goodwill, Government, Grief, Holistic Health, Human Rights, Humanity, Hydraulic Fracking, Indigenous People, Indigenous Peoples, Indoctrination, Justice, Lack Of Transparency, Land, Mindfulness, Mining, Nature, Peace, Politics, Legislation and Economy News, Pollution, Population, Positivity In Mind and Body, Power Struggle, Preservation, Provocation / Incitement, Radiation, Revolution, Seas / Oceans, Secrecy, September 11th, Special Interests, Species Extinction., Sustainability2, Taking Matters Into Our Own Hands, The Atmosphere, Unconditional Acceptance, Unconditional Love, Unethical, Unmanned Drones, Veterans, War Crimes, Wars and Rumors of War, Water, Weaponry / Armament, Wildlife, World News — 1 Comment
May 9, 2013

Peggy Atwood

Published on Jan 30, 2013

A song I wrote when I visited the site after 9/11; always thought a little heavy, but it is time to get it out there. All photos taken from the web, if there is any infringement, please contact me, I will include credits. Included on my CD “Renegade of the Light Brigade” during the remix and urging of the late, great Steve Burgh.

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Distressing scenes as a mother fought to stop her dead calf from sinking into HK’s polluted waters have highlighted plight of iconic pink dolphins

Filed under: Beauty Of Nature, Conservation, Crossroads News : Changes In The World Around Us And Our Place In It, Environmental, Pollution, Protection, Research, Seas / Oceans, Species Extinction., Wildlife — Leave a comment
May 9, 2013

Video of grieving pink dolphin mother underscores plight of disappearing species

 

 

 

Sunday, 05 May, 2013, 2:32pm

Simon Parry and Hazel Knowles

The many economical and ecological benefits to using human excrement and urine as fertiliser are not to be sniffed at. Fred Pearce gets to grips with a sorely underused resource.

10:01PM

 

A pink dolphin is seen in Hong Kong waters.

 

An hour into their journey from Tung Chung pier, the 20 members of the boat party finally got what they had been waiting for – a close encounter with the remaining pink dolphins who still make their home in Hong Kong waters.

 

But as the boat edged closer to the dolphins in the Lung Kwu Chau Marine Park and the eager tourists reached for their cameras, their excitement quickly turned to shock and distress.

 

“There were about four or five dolphins in the water and it seemed at first as if they were trying to get hold of something and support it,” said Ho Tak-ching, 34, a guide with Hong Kong Dolphinwatch. “It really wasn’t normal behaviour.”

 

The dolphins were trying to help a mother support the body of her dead calf and stop it slipping below the water’s surface.

 

“I started to film and it was then that I noticed the dead baby calf. From its size and colour, I guessed it was a newborn. It was so depressing and so very sad. While I was taking the video I couldn’t stop myself crying.

 

“There was a group of four or five dolphins taking turns with the mother to try to keep the baby on the surface of the water. We watched it for about 30 minutes.

 

It was so depressing and so very sad. While I was taking the video I couldn’t stop myself crying

 

“At first, I didn’t want to mention it to the passengers. But then some of them noticed the dead baby. They asked me, ‘How has this happened?’ They seemed very upset. They asked if there was something we could do to help, but I said there was nothing we could do.”

 

Grieving and unable to accept their calves’ deaths, the mother dolphins will spend up to two weeks trying to keep them on the surface of the water, exhausting themselves and going without food as other dolphins rally to help them.

 

These displays of epimeletic, or care-giving, behaviour demonstrate the intelligence and compassion of dolphins.

 

Disturbingly, they have also become an increasingly common sight in Hong Kong waters, where dolphin numbers are already in rapid decline.

 

The sad scene a week ago – captured on video and widely shared on Facebook – was the third separate incident of a dead calf being supported by its mother and other dolphins in Hong Kong waters last month alone.

 

In a scenario that paints a bleak picture for the future of the Hong Kong population, the calves are believed to have been killed by polluted water ingested by the mothers and then passed on to their offspring in their milk.

 

Video: Hong Kong Dolphinwatch

 

Despite being a protected species and a symbol of Hong Kong, figures to be released next month are expected to reveal a further sharp decline in the number of Indo-pacific humpback dolphins – also known as Chinese white dolphins or pink dolphins because of the change in their skin colour as they grow older.

 

Their abundance – or the number of them in Hong Kong waters at any given time – fell from 158 in 2003 to 78 in 2011.

 

Figures for last year are being finalised but will show a further “significant” decline, according to the experts compiling the data.

 

The death of the calves was almost certainly caused by pollutants in the seawater around Hong Kong, said Dolphinwatch spokeswoman Janet Walker.

 

“The toxins from pollutants accumulate in body fat because the dolphins can’t metabolise it and I am told dolphin milk is 40 per cent fat,” she said.

 

“The milk is very rich and fatty so it doesn’t disperse in the water when the mother squirts it out.

 

“That means all the toxins which are collected in the fat cells over 10 or 11 years of the mother living in polluted water goes straight to the first born.”

 

Walker described the death of three newborn dolphins in one month as “horrendous”.

 

She said: “There are not many things that kill babies that little. They are not as likely to get tangled in nets as they used to and I wouldn’t think the deaths were cause by a vessel collision because they stick really close to their mothers. So we think it’s toxins in the mother’s milk.

 

“Ideally, these dolphins should live 30 to 40 years. But here, if they get into their 20s, they are doing well. Half the dead ones every year are juveniles and babies.

 

“It is so frustrating. We have known about the problems facing dolphins for a long time, but no one is doing anything.

 

“The government claims to be doing something but then it is building this bridge to Macau and the third runway at the airport. That is an awful lot of construction in the dolphins’ habitat.”

 

Samuel Hung Ka-yiu with the skull of a dolphin. Photo: Nora Tam

 

Samuel Hung Ka-yiu, chairman of the Hong Kong Dolphin Conservation Society, said he hoped the pitiful video would help people wake up to the reality that Hong Kong is on its way to losing for good the dolphin population first recorded in its waters in the 1600s.

 

“It is heartbreaking to watch,” he said. “You can feel for the mother. Why is she not giving up on the dolphin? It’s because she cannot accept that it has died. And why did it die? It is not the fault of the mother. It is our fault. We are causing this.

 

“The dolphin’s mother has to hold the baby the entire time otherwise it will sink to the bottom and she will do this for a week or two weeks, not eating at all. She is grieving.

 

“And what is causing that grief? It is because of us and everything we have done. I really hope people reflect on that.”

 

Hung, whose group has monitored and campaigned for the conservation of Hong Kong’s dolphin population since the 1990s, said: “I ‘ve never been so pessimistic about the future of our dolphins as I am now.

 

“I always tried to think that we could turn things around. We are able to maybe sustain the population with good conservation measures and good monitoring. But I think the pace of development pressure and the unwillingness to deal with threats like vessel traffic and the reluctance to deal with anything that hinders economic development is just too huge.”

 

In previous years, Hung said, his dolphin group had to deal with two or three threats at a time to dolphin habitat.

 

“Now we are dealing with seven or eight projects at a time,” he said. “It is crazy. There are so many battles to fight.

 

Read Full Article  and  Watch Video Here

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BC’s Huge Gamble – short film – Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline

Filed under: Chemicals, Corporate Assault on Our Lives And Our Health, Disaster Management, Earth Watch Report, Environmental, Global Disaster Watch, Greed, Hazmat, History, Lack Of Transparency, Nature, oil, Pollution, Seas / Oceans, Secrecy, Special Interests, Unethical, Water, Wildlife — 1 Comment
May 6, 2013

This  will happen in  Arkansas and Missouri as well.  It  has already  happened in   The Gulf Coast   States.How long will  we allow to  be sold out  for a  few  dollars.

Can anyone put a price  on  human  life ?

Can money  bring bac the  ecosystem?

Can  the few jobs they  provide  bring  back those who have been compromised for the rest  of their lives?

Is this worth  the few jobs promised to ship this poison??

~ Desert Rose  ~

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Corey Ogilvie

Uploaded on Feb 6, 2012

Please mirror and share with every British Columbian, Canadian, and world citizen who wants to protect the BC coast, Great Bear Rainforest, and our way of life. Enbridge Inc, with their horrible spill record, wants to build a pipeline thru the heart of BC and run tankers up and down our rocky coasts. Whats most amazing, is what we get in return for this HUGE gamble, watch to see…

Follow Corey’s future work:
http://www.facebook.com/OgilvieFilm
http://www.ogilviefilm.com/index.html
Join the BC fight against Enbridge:
http://pipeupagainstenbridge.ca/
http://dogwoodinitiative.org/no-tanke…
http://www.tankerfreebc.org/
http://www.pacificwild.org/
know any more links, pls send as message and I’ll include

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It is the second time in just three months that PIB has killed hundreds of seabirds in the South West.We cannot go on treating our precious marine environment as a dustbin : Tony Whitehead from RSPB

Filed under: Chemicals, Crimes, Crossroads News : Changes In The World Around Us And Our Place In It, Disaster Management, Earth Watch Report, Environmental, Global Disaster Watch, Mass Animal Deaths, Pollution, Seas / Oceans, Wildlife — Leave a comment
May 4, 2013

More than 1000 birds now dead as result of coastal chemical spill in UK

birds/2012_december/cwt_guillemot_glue__WallersteinDead guillemot covered in the glue like substance, photo by Darryl Thorpe/Cornwall Wildlife Trust

Unprecedented number of deads birds washing ashore

April 2013. A week after the first reports of birds covered in a sticky glue like substance being washed up on southwest beaches, wildlife charities have confirmed that the number of dead has passed 1000. This is in addition to the 200+ birds in the care of RSPCA and South Devon Seabird Trust.

Second recent incident
The substance has been identified as polyisobutene (PIB) by researchers at Plymouth University. It is the second time in just three months that PIB has killed hundreds of seabirds in the South West.

In this latest incident birds have been found in a wide area from Dodman Point, Cornwall to the Teign Estuary, Devon but the worst hit areas have been beaches along Whitsand Bay in south east Cornwall where locals have been counting hundreds of birds every day.

Alison Fogg, zoologist and environment campaigner who lives by the sea near Lanteglos in Cornwall has been close to the unfolding disaster; “It is hard to sum up so many different emotions, from the last few days, in a few words . Seeing more than 157 dead birds on Lansallos beach, followed by hundreds more at Lantic Bay, was quite devastating. Lansallos is a small sheltered beach on the South Coast of Cornwall. A haven for nature and totally unspoilt, this beach is popular with holiday makers, walkers and locals for swimming and relaxation.

“The scale of destruction to wildlife, in the beginning of the bird breeding season and at the start of the tourist season is quite difficult to comprehend.”

Bin bags of dead birds collected from one beach, photo by Darryl Thorpe. What is PIB? Polyisobutene (PIB), also known as polyisobutylene or butyl rubber, is a non-toxic and non- aggressive substance, used for example to manufacture chewing gum, adhesive tape and sealants. It is also very sticky - PIB is what makes cling-film stick to whatever it touches. In shipping, it is often used as a thickening agent for industrial lubricant oils. PIB was first developed in the 1940s as a synthetic alternative to natural rubber which was in short supply due to conflicts in rubber-producing regions. As a substance, it is generally colourless or light yellow, odourless, tasteless and cannot easily be identified. One of its special properties is that it is the only form of rubber that is completely impermeable to gas as well as water. PIB, along with other non-petroleum products, is transported around the world on a regular and increasing basis. The global consumption of PIB was over 850,000 tonnes in 2011, with the USA as the leading producer, but Belgium and France together produce almost a fifth of the PIB market. The UK is also a major importer. As a consequence, there is considerable transport of PIB around the UK and Western Europe. Global consumption is forecast to increase by around 40% by 2017 to 1.2 million tonnes per year. What are the impacts of PIB on seabirds and marine wildlife? PIB usually enters the water through ships ‘flushing’, or washing, their tanks and clearing ballast water. PIB is a hydrophobic substance though, so on contact with water it coalesces into a waxy, glue-like formation, generally floating at or just underneath the surface. As such it is extremely hazardous to a range of seabird species, which dive to find food. These birds become covered in the substance, which sticks their wings to their bodies and prevents them from feeding, causing immobilisation, hypothermia, starvation and eventually death. There is also a risk of ingestion of bits of PIB in its waxy form.
Bin bags of dead birds collected from one beach, photo by Darryl Thorpe. What is PIB? Polyisobutene (PIB), also known as polyisobutylene or butyl rubber, is a non-toxic and non- aggressive substance, used for example to manufacture chewing gum, adhesive tape and sealants. It is also very sticky – PIB is what makes cling-film stick to whatever it touches. In shipping, it is often used as a thickening agent for industrial lubricant oils. PIB was first developed in the 1940s as a synthetic alternative to natural rubber which was in short supply due to conflicts in rubber-producing regions. As a substance, it is generally colourless or light yellow, odourless, tasteless and cannot easily be identified. One of its special properties is that it is the only form of rubber that is completely impermeable to gas as well as water. PIB, along with other non-petroleum products, is transported around the world on a regular and increasing basis. The global consumption of PIB was over 850,000 tonnes in 2011, with the USA as the leading producer, but Belgium and France together produce almost a fifth of the PIB market. The UK is also a major importer. As a consequence, there is considerable transport of PIB around the UK and Western Europe. Global consumption is forecast to increase by around 40% by 2017 to 1.2 million tonnes per year. What are the impacts of PIB on seabirds and marine wildlife? PIB usually enters the water through ships ‘flushing’, or washing, their tanks and clearing ballast water. PIB is a hydrophobic substance though, so on contact with water it coalesces into a waxy, glue-like formation, generally floating at or just underneath the surface. As such it is extremely hazardous to a range of seabird species, which dive to find food. These birds become covered in the substance, which sticks their wings to their bodies and prevents them from feeding, causing immobilisation, hypothermia, starvation and eventually death. There is also a risk of ingestion of bits of PIB in its waxy form.

Unknown source
It is not known whether the substance got into the sea as a spill from a ship or as part of legal and routine tank washing operations.

We cannot go on treating our precious marine environment as a dustbin
Tony Whitehead from RSPB said; “The devastation this substance has caused has been appalling. To see the images of beaches strewn with bodies is a sobering reminder that we just cannot go on treating our precious marine environment as a dustbin.

“If this was an illegal spill, we need to support the Maritime and Coastguard Agency in tracking down the ship responsible. Although this will be difficult, surely it’s not impossible.

Legal?
“If this was the result of legal tank washing operations, we need to urge the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to tighten up the rules and make it illegal to wash this stuff into the sea. It’s a noxious substance and we don’t want it in our marine environment.”

 

Read Full Article Here

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Exxon’s Pegasus pipeline explodes again, this time in Missouri

Filed under: Chemicals, Community, Crossroads News : Changes In The World Around Us And Our Place In It, Earth Watch Report, Environmental, Global Disaster Watch, oil, Pollution — 2 Comments
May 3, 2013

Earth Watch Report  -  Environmental Pollution – Oil Spill

RTAmerica RTAmerica

Published on May 2, 2013

Last month, 22 families were displaced after a portion of Exxon/Mobil’s Pegasus pipeline busted leaving 10,000 barrels of crude oil in the streets of a Arkansas community. On Wednesday, the oil giant confirmed it had another mess on its hands after a portion of the same pipeline erupted in Ripley County, Missouri. RT’s Meghan Lopez has the details.

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02.05.2013 Environment Pollution USA State of Missouri, [Pegasus pipeline, Ripley County] Damage level Details

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Environment Pollution in USA on Thursday, 02 May, 2013 at 15:57 (03:57 PM) UTC.

Description
While very much smaller than the recent Mayflower, Arkansas spill, this new rupture causes even more concern over the aging Pegasus pipeline. Questions about the severity of the recent March 29 oil spill in Mayflower, Arkansas are still unanswered. And now there is yet another rupture from the aging pipeline in Ripley County, Missouri, 200 miles north of Mayflower.While Mayflower residents found 10,000 barrels of oil in their back yards, this smaller rupture only spilled an estimated one barrel of crude. But even so, this is worrying. According to Reuters, a resident living just outside the town of Doniphan spotted a patch of oil and dead vegetation in their yard and notified ExxonMobil right away. Luckily with the spill being so much smaller, an Exxon spokeswoman has announced that the cleanup operation is “close to completion.”

A spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources said on Wednesday, “The release occurred from the installation of a guide wire for a power line pipe that was installed approximately 30 years ago.” “The guide wire was located almost directly on top of the pipeline and has worn down over the years,” she added. Reuters reportedly tried to contact the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), who is ultimately responsible for approving the Pegasus pipeline’s restart. Apparently the agency has not immediately responded. A report was released by the PHMSA which advised that of the approximately 5,000 barrels of crude oil involved in the pipeline breach, less than half had been cleaned up by ExxonMobil. The report also mentioned contamination of surface water, accounting for 2,000 barrels of oil located in ditches and a cove south of nearby Lake Conway. Although the latest report does not appear to indicate that oil has reached the larger body of Lake Conway, an independent study conducted by Opflex Solutions indicates otherwise. See their video above.

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Toxic Chemicals Detected In The Air In Mayflower Arkansas Making Residents Ill. Exxon Claims The Water Tested At A legal Limit. No Mention Of The Air.

Filed under: Activism, American National Debt, Austerity, Biological Hazard, Budget Cuts, bureaucracy, Chemicals, Corporate Assault on Our Lives And Our Health, Crimes, Crossroads News : Changes In The World Around Us And Our Place In It, Crude, Disaster Management, Diseases, Drilling, Earth Watch Report, Environmental, Financial, Fiscal Irresponsibility, Fiscal irresponsibility, Government, Government Overreach, Greed, Hazmat, Health, Human Rights, Humanity, Hypocrisy, Jobs, Land, Loot and Pillage, Nature, oil, Pollution, Taking Matters Into Our Own Hands, The Atmosphere, Unethical, Water, Wildlife — 9 Comments
April 30, 2013

Image Source

I  have gone  through the Oil Sands Fact   Check site and  honestly  all I  can  find is boasting as  to  the boon in the  US  economy, jobs and the fact that  activists  are  using the  pipeline and  tar sands oil as a   scapegoat. Not once  in all the  supposed  facts they  have there do they  address the  real concerns, simply   twisting  the  facts to their advantage.  Painting themselves  as  responsible entities.  Never  once addressing that this substance  is way  more dangerous  than oil to  the  environment and  the  water, especially.  The tap dance over  the  fact by  stating that   tar  sands  oil has  been  transported into the US for decades. 

What they  fail to miss is  this:  Instead  of  reporting  the  factual analysis of the  toxic substances that this tar sand emits they  skirt  over the  fact  claiming their emissions testing results.  Now  please correct  me if I  am  wrong , but the  major concern  of environmentalists  and activist is  not the emissions once it is  in the  car.  In  fact the  concern is of the  damage  the  unrefined substance will do  to the  environment  and the  water shed if a spill were to take  place.  As we can  see in  Arkansas the substance is so toxic that   the  residents  are  already  suffering  from it’s effects .

             Image Source                                                                                 Image Source

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They  call themselves  responsible entities, so  then my   question is this :  

what  is  Exxon doing  to  make this right? 

Exxon  has  stated  that the   water   quality was  within  safe  limits. 

So what  exactly  does that  mean ? 

Are  we to  accept  the  status  quo with  regards to safety limits just  as  we  are  to  accept that  GMO’s are  good for us  even  though there   are more and more opponents  coming out  stating  that   it is  in fact  detrimental to human  health?

What about  the air quality?  Or does  that not  matter? 

Children are   getting  sick.  People are  becoming  ill due to the  toxic  conditions.

Are we to believe  this is acceptable ?

Or will this also be  kept from the  people and the sick treated like insignificant data as  the  people of the  gulf  were?

Good health  once it has been compromised cannot be replaced. 

Will your  tar sands oil paycheck take care  of it?

There  is no amount of compensation that will replace good health.  Nor erase catastrophic  illness.

Or does it  not  matter  because  it isn’t your family?

I am sorry to break it to you  , but  unless  you  have a crystal ball that tells  you otherwise .  It could  very well be  you  and  your  family that suffers  next!  Do not  delude  yourself  by  detaching from the reality  of things entertaining the belief that  it  won’t happen to you .  I am sure the  people  of Mayflower , Arkansas never  imagined they would now  be mired  in this  poison.  Their children getting sick and  their  homes surrounded, helpless waiting  for some  heartless  oil company to decide  whether the clean up is worth the expense.  Not the  lives  of the people affected by their poison, but their bottomline.

Don’t kid yourself!

With  the   lack of responsibility  and  lack of corrective  action  taken  by   oil companies in  Africa.  With  leaking pipelines and  toxic sludge where lakes had once been.  Dead  soil where crops were once  grown. 

How can  anyone  in their  right  mind take the  word of these companies as to their integrity and responsibility? 

We  have  seen  what  BP did  in the  Gulf Of Mexico.

Do you  truly  consider what  was done in the  gulf an adequate job  of cleaning up the mess  made by their incompetence  and lust  for profits? 

The sea life  dying  as  a result and scientists complaining  that they  have  been  legally gagged  from making their findings available to the  public. 

Restrained by  whom? 

The oil companies?

No restrained by the  government   that  is supposed to  be looking  out  for our   benefit.  Instead  they are  protecting the Oil Companies interests. 

Is this the kind of safety  measure   you  want?  

The  reins handed over to a company  who’s  haste  for fattening up their bottom line poisons our earth , our  air and our water so  that they  can  police themselves? 

How many  journalists  were   kept away  from  the  Gulf  to keep them from reporting  what they   saw  there?

How many  reporters  were  kept from Mayflower, Arkansas for the  same reason?   

Everyone is crowing about  the jobs the  tar  sands oil will bring to the  US.

  Are  you truly  understanding  what  you are   asking  for? 

Do you  even understand that   Mayflower  Arkansas could be anywhere   in the heartland? 

Do  you  realize  what   would happen if  that   pipeline leaked into the  water  shed.?

It  would not  be someone else’s problem , it  would be  everyone’s problem . You are looking for  jobs, yes  we  understand.  We  all live  here in the   States and we are all going  through  the  same hard  times.  We  all need to  work and  we all  need  to  pay  our  bills. 

Where  do  we   draw the line  at  what  is admissible and what  is  over the  not? 

There  is only  one   Earth and when  she is   completely  trashed   where  will you  go ? 

Will your  job with  tars sands oil help you  bring  her  back ? 

Will you  be  able to remove  the  horrible toxins  deposited by   your  tars  sands  oil from the  earth,the rivers, the  water?

Are  you  not paying attention to what  is  happening around  you?

I want  you  to  understand one very  important thing.  The responsibility   for the  destruction of  our environment  is not just  on the  oil companies.  It is  on  everyone of  you   who  don’t  give it  a second thought.  On  everyone of you that  takes  clean  air ,and water  for  granted.  On everyone of you that  places  a  job  over  the  well  being  of  your  children and your fellow  American’s children.  This is not a  game this is a very   hazardous  situation  that  has   grave   consequences and until all of  you realize  that , we  are  lost.

Money  has become the  denominating factor in our lives. 

What  happened to principal , responsibility and honor.

What  happened to doing  what is  right ?

  Where is  the  concern for our   children’s well being?

   I  see  my  fellow citizens on a collision course with destruction,  hell bent on  ignoring  the  warning   signs.  Their eyes on the prize of money and material things. 

One wonders how much that  money  and those materials possessions  will help when  you  can  no longer   give  your   child a cup of clean , safe  water to  drink?

 

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Excerpts  taken  from  Oils Sands  Fact Check

Top 5 Things You Should Know About Transporting Oil Sands Crude

April 1, 2013 by shannonb

On March 29, an oil pipeline running through Mayflower, Arkansas experienced a leak that resulted in the evacuation of 22 homes and immediate clean up efforts from the pipeline’s operator, ExxonMobil. According to reports, the Pegasus line was carrying Wabasca Heavy crude oil – a blend of crude produced in the Athabasca oil sands region in Alberta.

Of course, in the minds of oil sands opponents, all pipelines are made alike and are uniformly threatened by oil sands crudes. In fact, following the news of the incident, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) stated:

“This latest pipeline incident is a troubling reminder that oil companies still have not proven that they can safely transport Canadian tar sands oil across the United States without creating risks to our citizens and our environment.”

We have the top five reasons why that’s not the case.

1)     Oil sands crudes have been transported safely in the U.S. for more than 40 years. Accident reports from the Pipeline & Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA) from 2002 through mid-2012 show zero internal corrosion-related releases from pipelines carrying diluted bitumen.

 2)     Oil sands crudes are not more corrosive than other crude oils. In a 2011 report, Canadian research group Alberta Innovates found that acid and sulfur compounds found in oil sands crudes “are too stable to be corrosive and some may even decrease corrosion.” Recent testing and studies by ASTM International and Penspen support this conclusion.

 3)     Oil sands crudes are transported at comparable pipeline pressures as other heavy crude oils. All U.S. pipelines must operate under Maximum Operating Pressure limitations administered by PHMSA. In other words, pipelines are constructed to specifications that ensure they can handle the intended operating pressure and the type of liquid that flows through them.

 4)     Oil sands crudes are not heated for transportation in pipelines above the temperature of other crude oils. The range of temperatures for all crude oils from Canada is 40-135 degrees Fahrenheit. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Code for Pipeline Transportation Systems for Liquid Hydrocarbons and Other Liquids does not consider pipeline temperatures to be elevated unless they exceed 150 degrees Fahrenheit.

5)     Keystone XL would “have a degree of safety over any other.” As mentioned in point #3, pipelines must meet certain specifications before transporting any type of crude, no matter if it’s heavy or light. Keystone XL, which will also carry heavy oil from Alberta, is going above and beyond those requirements by adopting 57 extra safety measures, leading the State Department to declare that the project would “have a degree of safety over any other.”

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I challenge  you to watch this  video and  tell me  a  paycheck is worth all this destruction and misery! 

           …………………………….The True Cost Of Oil…………………………………

             If  you  have a  conscience you  would have  to admit  it  is not  worth it.                    Unless this is how you  want  to see  America  when they are done

                                                                             with   her

photo Nowenteringamericavulturesign_zps13093b1f.jpg
~Desert Rose~

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Citizen group sees ‘toxic’ oil soup in Arkansas

UPI
Published: April 30, 2013 at 7:34 AM

LITTLE ROCK, Ark., April 30 (UPI) — There’s been a “toxic soup” hanging over residents in Mayflower, Ark., as a result of an Exxon Mobil oil pipeline accident, a citizen’s group said.

Exxon said about 5,000 barrels of oil was released last month from a 22-foot rupture on its Pegasus pipeline in Mayflower. The pipeline, built in the 1940s, was carrying a diluted form of Canadian crude oil, dubbed oil sands, at the time of the spill.

Air samples taken March 30, the day after the incident, indicated high levels of compounds considered harmful to human health. The samples were conducted by a student activist trained by the Faulkner County (Ark.) Citizens Advisory Group and Global Community Monitor.

“Total toxic hydrocarbons were detected at more than 88,000 parts per billion in the ambient air and present a complex airborne mixture or soup of toxic chemicals that residents may have been exposed to from the Mayflower tar sands bitumen spill,” Neil Carman, a representative from the Texas chapter of the Sierra Club, said in a statement.

Exxon admitted to finding levels of benzene and other harmful chemicals in early samples taken at Mayflower. It said air and water quality was within safe limits in the weeks following the spill, however.

The report, published by the activist groups, said residents are showing signs of exposure to chemicals ranging from benzene, a carcinogen, to toluene, a central nervous system depressant, more than four weeks after the spill.

There was no response from Exxon on the report.

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Study Reveals 30 Toxic Chemicals at High Levels at Exxon Arkansas Tar Sands Pipeline Spill Site

An independent study co-published by the Faulkner County Citizens Advisory Group and Global Community Monitor reveals that, in the aftermath of ExxonMobil’s Pegasus tar sands pipeline spill of over 500,000 gallons of diluted bitumen (dilbit) into Mayflower, AR, air quality in the area surrounding the spill has been affected by high levels of cancer-causing chemicals.

Roughly four weeks after the spill took place, many basic details are still unknown to the public, according to recent reporting by InsideClimate News. Questions include what exactly caused the spill, how big was the spill exactly, and how long did it take for emergency responders to react to the spill, to name a few.

But one thing is certain according to the new study: For the residents of Mayflower, quality of life has been changed forever.

The chemicals found in the samples include benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, n-hexane, and xylenes. Breathing in both ethylbenzene and benzene can cause cancer and reproductive effects, while breathing in n-hexane can damage the nervous system and usher in numbness in the extremities, muscular weakness, blurred vision, headaches, and fatigue.

All of these chemicals are hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), “regulated under the 1990 Federal Clean Air Act amendments as the most toxic of all known airborne chemicals,” as explained in the press release summarzing the study.

 

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