Exxon Mobil is sure doing its best to prevent journalists from covering the recent oil spill from its Pegasus pipeline in Mayflower, Ark. Some reporters say the oil giant has even threatened to have them arrested for merely entering the spill site.
Unfortunately for journalists, a pliant county sheriff’s office has shown it’s all too willing to help Exxon out.
One would have to ask oneself when these Oil Companies became police officers and since when do they police themselves. It seems to me that doing so would be allowing the fox to guard the hen-house.
So then how exactly is this serving the public good?
Where exactly is the government in all this?
Will this be another Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill Exxon will do what it please when it pleases and the people suffering will just have to shut up and take it ?
What in the Hell is going on here ?
How much worse will this get with the proposed pipeline?
If this continues we might as well put up a warning sign for all who enter..........
~Desert Rose~
Shell Pipeline Spill Is Fourth Disaster In Bad Week for Keystone XL Promoters
Last Friday, as national attention turned to the massive Exxon Pegasus tar sands pipeline spill in Mayflower, Arkansas, another oil spill was occurring near Houston, Texas. Operators of a Royal Dutch Shell subsidiary’s West Columbia pipeline, a 15 mile long, 16 inch diameter line, received warnings from the US National Response Center of a potential 700 barrel release (nearly 30,000 gallons) of crude oil on Friday, March 29.
Yesterday, representatives from the US Coast Guard acknowledged at least 50 barrels of oil had entered Vince Bayou, a waterway connected to the Gulf of Mexico.
On Monday, April 1, Shell spokeswoman Kimberly Windon told Reuters “no evidence” of a crude oil leak had been found. “Right now, we haven’t seen anything,” she said at the time. Investigators have since determined at least 60 barrels of the spilled oil had entered the Bayou. It is unclear at this time what kind of crude oil the pipeline carried.
DeSmog contacted Shell Pipelines US media relations department to inquire about the type and size of the spill but did not receive a reply by the time of publication.
Steven Lehman, Coast Guard Petty Officer told Dow Jones, “That’s a very early estimate – things can change.”
The pipeline, which moves crude oil from Genoa to a tank farm in East Houston is run by Magellan Midstream Partners.
“On April 3, about 700 barrels were found to have leaked from the West Colombia pipeline because of an unknown cause, with up to 60 of those barrels emerging in the bayou, Shell spokeswoman Kim Windon said. The pipeline had been shut down and isolated on March 29 after alarms alerted the company that oil may have leaked from the line. “
The 700 barrels, or roughly 30,000 gallons poured into the Vance Bayou that connects to the Houston Ship Channel The pipeline was owned by a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell PLC. Coast Guard Petty Officer Steven Lehman said that the clean up crews from Shell had begun the process of cleaning out the oil from the bayou. The amount of oil spilled has yet to be confirmed.
While the authorities in Houston struggle to determine the size of the latest disaster Arkansas is dealing with their own spill. ExxonMobil’s Pegasus pipeline burst last week spilling thousands of gallons into the small town of Mayflower. By the end of the week 20 homes were evacuated and around 19,000 gallons of oil has been recovered.
This past Tuesday Federal pipeline safety officials issued a corrective action order to ExxonMobil Pipeline Co. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration is now preventing the corporation from restarting operations on the ruptured segments until they are satisfied with repairs.
It’s been labeled the worst environmental disaster in world history, and rightfully so, because the British Petroleum (BP) oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is like the nightmarish gift that keeps on giving. BP and the United States government would have the public believe that all is well in the Gulf. Nothing could be further from the truth. The crisis is not only ongoing; its effects are worsening
The April 20, 2010 the Deep Water Horizon Explosion will be back in the news again. The explosion of this oil rig represents the biggest false flag event in history; the devastation of this false flag event is still being felt and the worst is yet to come. You may have heard about the explosions near the New Madrid Fault and the thousands of generators being shipped to Louisiana by FEMA. Soon all readers of this series will connect the BP oil spill to these recent current events.
Over 34 months later, the oil spill has destroyed the welfare, livelihoods, health and futures of tens of millions of Gulf Coast residents, not to mention the destruction of the fragile ecology in the Gulf of Mexico.
Originally, BP was ordered to initiate $20 billion in restitution to the Gulf Coast victims. In retrospect, BP has never made full restitution to the victims. The overall physical health of the region has been decimated and the mainstream media and government officials reaching as high as President Obama have been complicit in covering up the geological and medical magnitude of the event. Even to this day, BP is still covertly carpet bombing Corexit in the Gulf and the much of the environmental catastrophe remains untouched by the BP cleanup crews.
This new series will expose the fact that BP, Halliburton, Goldman Sachs, Transocean and David Rockefeller’s and the Queen of England’s New York City for Profit members had foreknowledge and hedged their stock market bets in anticipation of the event. In other words, I will present incontrovertible evidence that this event was planned in order to achieve multiple goals in order to further agenda of certain special interests. Further, this series will also expose the fact that the evidence complied from the Executive Filings of President Obama indicates that it is likely that he had foreknowledge of the impending catastrophe in the Gulf. Additionally, this series will demonstrate that the events in the Gulf are part of a regional depopulation scheme. Readers will also learn that the ongoing nature of this false flag event will contribute to the total transition of the American economy to a cap-and-trade system which has been championed by Obama and Valerie Jarrett, from several years ago, which culminated in Obama, a supposed outsider, capturing the Presidency with very little political experience.
Starting at the beginning, it was clear that BP was going to be used as the symbolic fall guy in order to usher a new set of dynamics to the Gulf. However, the powers that be provided BP with a “soft landing” with regard to the potential punitive actions brought against BP.
Every story has a beginning, so let’s review how, what will prove to be the biggest false flag event in the history of our country, unfolded.
Destitution Rather Than Restitution
You remember Ken Feinberg, don’t you? This is the same Ken Feinberg who was in charge of denying medical coverage to 9/11 first responders, which resulted in the premature deaths of many of 9/11′s first responders because of the lack of sufficient medical treatment from claims denied by him. As you read the following paragraphs, you will be shocked as to how history has been allowed to repeat itself.
BP has shamelessly used the event to falsely promote its generosity toward the residents of the Gulf by providing full restitution for tiny minority of residents, thus restoring its public image in the mind of the average American couch potato who believes everything they see on television.
Following the Gulf oil spill, there was a collective mainstream media frenzy which focused on how well BP was responding to the crisis. This was accompanied by BP’s incessant public service announcements in which the oil giant would feature one of their “average” employees professing to being a “local” in which they vowed, on behalf of BP, “to not leave until we make it right.”
All Is Well, Go Back To Sleep American Sheep
Is all well in the Gulf today? After 34 months, did BP make it right? There are two answers to this question, no and hell no! According to BP’s YouTube channel, BP has made complete restitution to the victims of the oil spill and all is indeed well and the American public should be willing to move on to other issues and forget about the Gulf.
BP’s YouTube video channel does make a compelling case that the Gulf is well on its way to a full recovery. Bryan and Brooke Zar, the owners of Restaurant des Families located in Crown Point Louisiana, claim that BP restored their restaurant to a level of profitability just in time for the 2011 spring break vacation period and that “the beaches are again clean”.
An example of BP’s YouTube channel propaganda featured Rick Scali as he describes his return to profitability as his vacation rental home business in Destin, Florida had fallen upon tough times as a result of the oil spill. Scali claims that BP made his rental business whole when he showed BP the rental cancellation slips and was promptly paid for his losses by BP and today all, is again, well. There you have it, all is well on the Gulf Coast Front, or that is what BP, the mainstream media and the government would have the public believe.
The Coverup
Despite the voluminous coverage of the oil spill by the mainstream media, the range of coverage was actually quite narrow. The Coast Guard promptly established no fly zones over much of the impacted beach areas and the oil spill area itself. Reporters were restricted to what they could cover in the beach areas and were threatened with arrest if they strayed into “forbidden zones.” This prompted an on-air emotional tirade regarding the undue restrictions on media’s coverage by CNN’s Anderson Cooper. Nor was there any meaningful coverage of Halliburton applying the highly controversial dispersants of Corexit 9500 and Corexit 9527. However, there was plenty of media coverage of President Obama walking the beaches and eating the local shrimp in a thinly veiled effort on the part of the government and BP in promoting the notion that all is well.
http://www.nwf.org/oilspill – National Wildlife Federation’s Senior Scientist Doug Inkley discusses the concerns scientists have about the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
An estimated 1.8 million gallons of Corexit were dumped into the Gulf of Mexico in an attempt to displace the 206 million gallons of oil that spewed from a broken wellhead on the Gulf floor.
Oil Spill Eater International (OSEI), through the Gulf Oil Spill Remediation Conference group, issued a press release this week saying that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) effectively blocked or otherwise delayed scientific advancement in the cleanup of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil disaster by refusing to acknowledge the toxicity of the oil dispersant Corexit.
According to OSEI, the EPA is guilty of violations to the Clean Water Act because they knowingly used the toxic dispersant instead of opting for cleaner, less toxic methods of oil spill cleanup.
OSEI is actually not off base with their accusations. Reports from late 2012 revealed that using oil dispersants like Corexit make oil spills less visible, but when combined with the oil, create a mixture that is 52 times more toxic than the oil itself. The studies revealed that even in small amounts, the combination of oil and Corexit reduced the number of egg hatchings in small marine invertebrates by 50 percent. These are small creatures like krill, shrimp and other crustaceans that form the bottom of the oceanic food pyramid.
Those results were just from small doses of the mixture. And as I wrote in 2011, the amount of Corexit dumped into the Gulf was anything but “small”:
An estimated 1.8 million gallons of Corexit were dumped into the Gulf of Mexico in an attempt to displace the 206 million gallons of oil that spewed from a broken wellhead on the Gulf floor. And while the dispersant itself was ruled to be less toxic than the oil, the study suggests that the combination mixture of crude oil and dispersant poses a significantly greater threat to both the environment and marine life than either substance on its own. The EPA says that studies have been done on some of the 57 chemical agents found in dispersants, but they also acknowledge that no long-term studies have been conducted on the exposure to these chemicals in quantities as large as were poured into the Gulf.
As for the EPA’s role and knowledge of the dangers of Corexit, that was also known as far back as 2011:
State Department Urged to Declare Keystone Not in National Interest
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration today took the next potential step toward approval of the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline, despite the heavy toll the pipeline and its oil will take on the climate crisis, wildlife and the environment. Some 50,000 people protested outside the White House last month in opposition to the pipeline. Today’s announcement came in the form of a supplemental environmental impact statement on Keystone XL.
“If President Obama is serious about confronting the deepening climate crisis, he needs to take Keystone XL off the table,” said Bill Snape of the Center for Biological Diversity. “There’s simply no way to be in favor of this dirty, dangerous project and still think we’re going to avert climate catastrophe. The State Department should acknowledge the truth and declare this climate-killing pipeline to be not in the national interest.”
The proposed Keystone XL pipeline would, every day, carry up to 35 million gallons of oil strip-mined from Canada’s “tar sands” – some of the dirtiest fuels on the planet. The pipeline would cross the heart of the Midwest and deliver oil to the Gulf of Mexico, where most of it would exported to other countries. Along the way, the pipeline would cut through rivers, streams and prime wildlife habitat, including habitat for at least 20 imperiled species such as the whooping crane and pallid sturgeon.
Strip mining of oil from Alberta’s tar sands is also destroying tens of thousands of acres of boreal forest and polluting hundreds of millions of gallons of water from the Athabasca River, in the process creating toxic ponds so large they can be seen from space.
Extraction and refinement of tar-sands oil produces two times more greenhouse gases per barrel than conventional oil and represents a massive new source of fossil fuels that leading climate scientist Dr. James Hansen has called “game over” for our ability to avoid a climate catastrophe.
TransCanada’s existing Keystone I tar sands pipeline has reportedly leaked 14 times since it went into operation in June 2010, including one spill of 24,000 gallons. The State Department’s environmental reviews have pointed out that spills from Keystone XL are likely to occur, estimating that there could be as many as about 100 spills over the course of the pipeline’s lifespan.
“Oil spills, environmental damage, wildlife put in harm’s way, a doubling-down on the climate crisis: It’s hard to understand why the Obama government is even considering this project,” said Snape.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 450,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
AP | By By MATTHEW DALY Posted: 03/02/2013 3:23 am EST
WASHINGTON (AP) — A new State Department report is the latest evidence that the long-delayed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada should be approved, supporters say.
The draft report, issued Friday, finds there would be no significant environmental impact to most resources along the proposed route from western Canada to refineries in Texas. The report also said other options to get the oil from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries are worse for climate change.
The new report “again makes clear there is no reason for this critical pipeline to be blocked one more day,” said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. After four years of what he called “needless delays,” Boehner said it is time for President Barack Obama “to stand up for middle-class jobs and energy security and approve the Keystone pipeline.”
Environmentalists see the State Department report in a vastly different light.
They say it was inadequate and failed to account for climate risks posed by the pipeline. The report also is based on a false premise, opponents say — namely, that tar sands in western Canada will be developed for oil production regardless of whether the Keystone XL pipeline is approved.
“Americans are already suffering from the consequences of global warming, from more powerful storms like Hurricane Sandy to drought conditions currently devastating the Midwest and Southwest,” said Daniel Gatti of the group Environment America. Production of oil from Canadian tar sands could add as much as 240 billion metric tons of global warming pollution to the atmosphere, Gatti said, a potential catastrophe that would hasten the arrival of the worst effects of global warming.
Gatti and other opponents said development of the vast tar sands is far from certain, despite assurances by the project’s supporters.
[94] Jail Torturers Not Whistleblowers, Oceans: Humanity’s Landfill, War on Terror Killed Liberty
Published on Jan 31, 2013
Abby Martin Breaks the Set on Whistleblower John Kiriakou’s Fight for Truth, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and Post 9/11 Culture of Fear.
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EPISODE BREAKDOWN: On this episode of Breaking the Set, Abby Martin talks to former CIA official, and torture whistleblower, John Kiriakou, about his prison sentence and Obama’s war on whistleblowers. Abby then takes a look at America’s #1 product, trash, and US’ contribution the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. BTS wraps up the show with a discussion with Media Roots journalist, Robbie Martin, about the gradual deterioration of civil liberties in the US and its relevance to past times of war.
New audio from the President shameless supports the unregulated and unelected body of the Environmental Protection Agency. Apparently, the outlandish regulations create jobs…?
democracynow.org — Last week, President Obama’s called the United States “the Saudi Arabia of natural gas” in a speech about boosting domestic energy production. That concerns Wyoming farmer John Fenton, who already has more than two dozen gas wells on his property. The Environmental Protection Agency ruled in December that water contamination in Pavillion, Wyoming, was a result natural gas extraction and the controversial technique known as fracking. “Things changed pretty rapidly,” Fenton says, after fracking took place on his land near Pavillion, and now has to ship in water for drinking. “It didn’t take long to notice a significant impacts to the water, the change to smell like diesel fuel, methane was bubbling in the water. We had neighbors that actually had livestock die from drinking the water and we also saw really huge impacts to our way of life. The farm fields are full of wellheads now that we have to work around. We have people coming and going off our property 24 hours a day, and we’ve seen over a 50 percent devaluation in the value of our land.” We also speak with filmmaker Josh Fox, who was arrested for attempting to recording a Congressional hearing over the EPA report on Pavillion. Fox is producing a sequel to his award-winning film, “Gaslands,” about the impact of fracking across the United States.
Clean water is it ? Seems like the usual duplicitous ” DO as I say and Not as I do” BS to me. So much for Change we can believe in , huh ?
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Steve Horn On Obama’s EPA Censoring A Damning Fracking Report
Steve Horn from DeSmogBlog discusses how President Obama’s EPA censored a damning scientific study on hydro-fracking.
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Seems to me like a whole lot of wishful thinking and mud slinging going on to cover up the fact that both sides stand for the same damn agenda! Can anyone say Psy Ops ???
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Stop Obama’s War on Fracking — WRAG PAC for Mahoning Valley Energy
The Obama Administration and the EPA have waged war on domestic energy for too long. Obama has already destroyed the coal industry, and he is out to prevent fracking at every turn. Do not support the anti-energy president this fall, vote for the pro-energy candidates who will support energy jobs in the Valley and abroad.
Recently there have been many media outlets publishing articles on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation Tanks leaking Radioactive waste underground where they are located. Mixed with a deadly cocktail of nuclear waste and chemicals that not even those directly responsible and in charge of the safety protocol and maintenance of said tanks are sure of.
These p;ants like Nuclear Power Plants are subsidized with taxpayer monies. However, any upgrades or retrofitting that needs to be done must be paid for by the company itself, not taxpayer funds. Right off the nat the fact that company monies must be used to improve, repair or safeguard the facility for the security of the people that live in the surrounding areas, not to mention the soil and the underground water supply. A water supply that would concern areas outside of the immediate are of the Plant. The Colorado River being one of the sources in danger.
According to Wikipedia information available about the Colombia River Watershed, we are looking at waterways basins that empty into and mix with bodies of water all the way from Washington State to the Gulf Of Mexico.
We have Governor Inslee stating that there is no danger to the residents and yet there have been issues associated with the Hanford site since before 2010. That is 3 years of safety irregularities, leaks of dangerous radioactive waste not only into the ground endangering the water shed for millions of Americans both directly and indirectly situated near Hanford. Now they are trying to tell us that there is no danger to the public? According to the testimonies given in the videos provided below. It is indeed obvious that the leaks have been an ongoing problem that was made clear to both the management of the Plant and the DOE. Neither of which made any move to correct. Now we are expected to believe that there is no danger posed, yet the leaks and the danger to their exposure was never addressed, no one cared. SO now we are to believe the very same entities that have lied to us for well into 3 years?
How stupid do they actually think we are , exactly ?
If the testimony being given is to be believed then not only has our watershed been compromised, the air around the plant has been compromised as well. Contaminating the residents that live there and placing their children in danger.
The Nuclear Energy Plants and these Nuclear Waste Facilities are subsidized by taxpayer monies yet we have no say in vetting there safety practices. Nor do we apparently have any say in the approval process of these plants either. Recently the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved licenses to build two new nuclear reactors Thursday, the first authorized in over 30 years. They will be built in Georgia about 170 miles East of Atlanta. The location already contains two old reactors. Just what we needed …. more radioactive waste to be housed in these leaky sieves they call “Nuclear Reservation Plants”
This is madness and if it continues unchecked the contamination of Fukushima and Chernobyl will look like child’s play compared to the disaster in the making here in the US……..
Inslee says 6 underground tanks at Hanford leaking waste
by Associated Press and KING 5 News
Posted on February 22, 2013 at 2:37 PM
Updated yesterday at 5:12 PM
After meeting with Energy Secretary Steven Chu Friday, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee says at least six underground single-shell tanks at Hanford Nuclear Reservation in eastern Washington are leaking, not one as reported last week.
Inslee called the latest development “very disturbing news” and called for a new action plan to remove the nuclear material.
“There is no immediate or near-term health risk associated with these newly discovered leaks, which are more than 10 miles from the Columbia River,” Inslee said in a news release. “But nonetheless this is disturbing news for all Washingtonians. One week ago, Secretary Chu told me there was one tank leaking. But he told me today that his department did not adequately analyze data it had that would have shown the other tanks that are leaking.”
The amount that is leaking varies from tank to tank, but Inslee did not have specific amounts.
Inslee says Chu blames the Department of Energy’s failure to catch the leaks on their inability to properly evaluate the data from the monitors. The leaking was so small over a short period of time that it was imperceptible. If they had looked at the data over a longer period of time, they would have detected the leaks earlier.
Chu said there will be additional evaluations and information released in the coming days.
The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America.[9] The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada. It flows northwest and then south into the US state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state of Oregon before emptying into the Pacific Ocean. The river is 1,243 miles (2,000 km) long, and its largest tributary is the Snake River. Its drainage basin is roughly the size of France and extends into seven U.S. states and a Canadian province.
*****
Most of the Columbia’s drainage basin (which, at 258,000 square miles or 670,000 square kilometres, is about the size of France)[168] lies roughly between the Rocky Mountains on the east and the Cascade Mountains on the west. In the United States and Canada the term watershed is often used to mean drainage basin. The term Columbia Basin is used to refer not only to the entire drainage basin but also to subsets of the river’s full watershed, such as the relatively flat and unforested area in eastern Washington bounded by the Cascades, the Rocky Mountains, and the Blue Mountains.[169] Within the watershed are diverse landforms including mountains, arid plateaus, river valleys, rolling uplands, and deep gorges.
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In 2000, about six million people lived within the Columbia’s drainage basin. Of this total about 2.4 million people lived in Oregon, 1.7 million in Washington, 1 million in Idaho, half a million in British Columbia, and 0.4 million in Montana. Population in the watershed has been rising for many decades and is projected to rise to about 10 million by 2030. The highest population densities are found west of the Cascade Mountains along the I-5 corridor, especially in the Portland-Vancouver urban area. High densities are also found around Spokane, Washington, and Boise, Idaho.
*****
Several major North American drainage basins and many minor ones share a common border with the Columbia River’s drainage basin. To the east, in northern Wyoming and Montana, the Continental Divide separates the Columbia watershed from the Mississippi-Missouri watershed, which empties into the Gulf of Mexico. To the northeast, mostly along the southern border between British Columbia and Alberta, the Continental Divide separates the Columbia watershed from the Nelson-Lake Winnipeg-Saskatchewan watershed, which empties into Hudson Bay. The Mississippi and Nelson watersheds are separated by the Laurentian Divide, which meets the Continental Divide at Triple Divide Peak near the headwaters of the Columbia’s Flathead River tributary. This point marks the meeting of three of North America’s main drainage patterns, to the Pacific Ocean, to Hudson Bay, and to the Atlantic Ocean via the Gulf of Mexico.[174][175]
Further north along the Continental Divide, a short portion of the combined Continental and Laurentian divides separate the Columbia watershed from the MacKenzie-Slave-Athabasca watershed, which empties into the Arctic Ocean. The Nelson and Mackenzie watersheds are separated by a divide between streams flowing to the Arctic Ocean and those of the Hudson Bay watershed.[176] This divide meets the Continental Divide at Snow Dome (also known as Dome), near the northernmost bend of the Columbia River.[177]
To the southeast, in western Wyoming, another divide separates the Columbia watershed from the Colorado-Green watershed, which empties into the Gulf of California. The Columbia, Colorado, and Mississippi watersheds meet at Three Waters Mountain in the Wind River Range of Wyoming.[178] To the south, in Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming, the Columbia watershed is divided from the Great Basin, whose several watersheds are endorheic, not emptying into any ocean but rather drying up or sinking into sumps.[174] Great Basin watersheds that share a border with the Columbia watershed include Harney Basin, Humboldt River, and Great Salt Lake.[174] The associated triple divide points are Commissary Ridge North, Wyoming,[179] and Sproats Meadow Northwest, Oregon.[180] To the north, mostly in British Columbia, the Columbia watershed borders the Fraser River watershed. To the west and southwest the Columbia watershed borders a number of smaller watersheds that drain to the Pacific Ocean, such as the Klamath River in Oregon and California and the Puget Sound Basin in Washington.[174]
*****Please notice point number 15 which enters into the Colorado River Drainage Basin
The map below is of the Colorado River Watershed which stretches from Wyoming all the way down through Mexico. Touching on Wyoming, Colorado, UtahNevada, Arizona, New MexicoBaja Californis , Sonora Mexico
Below is a Map of the Colorado River basin from Colorado all the way to the Gulf of Mexico through New Mexico and Texas as indicated by the yellow line.
Six underground tanks that hold a brew of radioactive and toxic waste at the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site are leaking, federal and state officials said Friday, prompting calls for an investigation from a key senator.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said the leaking material poses no immediate risk to public safety or the environment because it would take a while — perhaps years — to reach groundwater.
But the leaking tanks raise new concerns about delays for emptying them and strike another blow to federal efforts to clean up south-central Washington’s Hanford Nuclear Reservation, where successes often are overshadowed by delays, budget overruns and technological challenges.
Department of Energy spokeswoman Lindsey Geisler said there was no immediate health risk and said federal officials would work with Washington state to address the matter.
Regardless, Tom Towslee, a spokesman for Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said the senator will be asking the Government Accountability Office to investigate Hanford’s tank monitoring and maintenance program.
Wyden is the new chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
State officials just last week announced that one of Hanford’s 177 underground tanks was leaking 150 to 300 gallons a year, posing a risk to groundwater and rivers. So far, nearby monitoring wells haven’t detected higher radioactivity levels.
******************************************************************************************************** Event – Public Hearing on Exposed Workers at Hanford Nuclear Site – Part I
Uploaded on Jan 9, 2010
Part I of the U.S. Department of Energy, Environment, Safety and Health, Public Hearing on Exposed Workers at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation held February 3, 2000 at the Federal Building in Richland, WA.
Sound quality is poor due to on camera mic and bad acoustics.
Talk – Walter Tamosaitis – A Deep Concern on the Hanford Horizon: The WTP
Uploaded on Sep 11, 2010
Talk by Dr. Walter Tamosaitis, the Research and Technology Manager of Hanford’s Waste Treatment Plant, who was summarily terminated from his job after he raised safety issues associated with the design and operation of this nuclear facility
Passengers who spent days stuck on a cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico have described deplorable conditions onboard the powerless vessel. After five days at sea, they are now safely back on land in Alabama. The ship, Carnival Triumph, is being taken for repairs. Al Jazeera’s Charlotte Whale reports.
Sunday morning the cruise ship Carnival Triumph experienced an engine room fire while the vessel was sailing approximately 150 miles off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. The ship’s automatic fire extinguishing systems activated and the fire was contained to the aft engine room. At this time, the fire is fully extinguished. There were no casualties or injuries to guests or crew. All appropriate authorities including U.S. Coast Guard have been notified. The vessel is currently without propulsion and the ship is operating on emergency generator power. The ship’s technical crew has determined the vessel will need to be towed to port. A tugboat is en route to the ship’s location and will tow the vessel to Progreso, Mexico, which is the closest port to the ship’s current location. Guests will be able to disembark and get home as quickly as possible.
The ship is expected to arrive in Progreso Wednesday afternoon and guests will be flown from there back to the U.S. There are 3,143 guests and 1,086 crew on board. Guests are being provided with food and refreshments. Another Carnival ship, the Carnival Elation, is currently on scene and transferring additional food and beverage provisions to the Carnival Triumph. All guests on the current Carnival Triumph voyage will receive a full refund of the cruise, along with transportation expenses. In addition, they will receive a future cruise credit equal to the amount paid for this voyage, as well as reimbursement of all shipboard purchases during the voyage, with the exception of gift shop and casino charges.
By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, February 11, 7:46 AM
NEW ORLEANS — Carnival Cruise Lines said Sunday an engine room fire had disabled the cruise ship Triumph about 150 miles off the Yucatan Peninsula with 3,143 passengers and 1,086 crew members on board.
A statement on Carnival’s website said nobody was hurt and automatic extinguishers put out the fire before it could spread from the aft engine room. The company said the U.S. Coast Guard had been notified and was monitoring the situation.
Triumph cruises from Galveston, Texas, to the Caribbean.
The cruise line said another of its ships, the Carnival Elation, responded to the scene and transferred provisions to the disabled boat.
HOUSTON — Passengers aboard a cruise vessel stranded in the Gulf of Mexico had limited access to bathrooms, food and hot coffee on Monday as they waited for two tugboats to arrive to tow them to Mexico, Carnival Cruise Lines said in a statement.
The Carnival Triumph has been floating aimlessly about 150 miles off the Yucatan Peninsula since a fire erupted in the aft engine room early Sunday, knocking out the ship’s propulsion system. No one was injured and the fire was extinguished. The ship has been operating on backup generator power since the incident, the statement said.
The ship, which left Galveston, Texas, on Thursday and was scheduled to return there Monday, will instead be towed to Progreso, Mexico, and the 3,143 passengers on board will fly back to the United States. There are also 1,086 crew members aboard the ship. They are to arrive in Mexico on Wednesday.
The tugboats are expected to arrive later Monday, Carnival spokesman Vance Gulliksen said in an email. One is coming from Mobile, Ala., and a second is from Mexico, he said. The Coast Guard has informed Mexican authorities of the situation in their waters, a spokesman said.
It’s a first for Boca Grande; a red tide alert system is now in place on the popular island. The monitoring effort went online as large fish kills washed in from the Gulf of Mexico last month. In the Boca Bayou, dead fish last washed in weeks ago; and some remain even still. The lingering problem highlights how aggravating fish kills can be for locals and tourists. But the community has rallied together in hopes research can one day stop the growing – and smelly – problem. “You don’t want anyone to come out here and not have a great time,” said Scott Vanatten, with the Gasparilla Island Bridge Authority. He explained he’s recently taken on a new assignment as a “lookout.”
“Right when the sun comes up, we’ll go. We’ll drive all the way to the end of our property and check if anything weird is going on in terms of dead fish or smells,” he said. He’s on the hunt for any signs of red tide blooms – part of a new monitoring system with Mote Marine. Wildlife experts and fishermen say the annoying organism killed thousands of mullet in the Gulf, which then washed into the beautiful island’s waterways. “Now we can get it anytime of the year even in cold water,” said Captain Phil O’Bannon with Mote Marine. He says in 30 years, he’s been seeing more and more fish kills and says he agrees with state scientists that red tide is the culprit. “This is their spawning season. They run out into this red tide as they go to spawn. It kills thousands of them,” O’Bannon said.
O’Bannon explained daily checks on Boca Grande’s shore give researchers and tourists vital information. And while the system requires some leg work, volunteers we spoke with say they’re not about to complain. “This is the greatest place in the world to work. Every time I wall outside I say I’m lucky,” Vanatten said. It’s all in an effort to make sure visitors flock back to the isnald’s sandy beaches.
Biohazard name:
Red Tide
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
More than a month after BP and the Coast Guard finished a subsea operation to inspect the Deepwater Horizon site for oil leaks, no source has been found. Also, BP and the Coast Guard have not publicly identified a mystery white, milky substance observed seeping from the wreckage. But they say it’s not oil and it’s not harmful. Recurring oil sheens have been spotted in recent months around the Deepwater Horizon site. Several missions to inspect the sunken Deepwater Horizon platform, riser pipe, wellhead, relief wells and containment domes found no oil leaks. However, the Coast Guard reported seeing “an unidentified substance inconsistent with oil” emitting from several areas of the wreckage. Samples were collected for analysis and the Coast Guard this week said the lab “detected no traces of harmful pollutants,” and that a BP test “yielded similar results.” Neither BP nor the Coast Guard responded to the question of what the unidentified substance may be. With no source of leaking oil identified, the Coast Guard told CBS News: “satellite surveillance continue to monitor the sheen while future steps are being considered.” The Coast Guard said the main components of the Deepwater Horizon wreckage, including BP’s main Macondo well and two relief wells, were found to be secure. BP told CBS News it is still working with the Coast Guard to investigate possible sources of one oil sheen in the area: “BP has also capped and plugged an abandoned piece of subsea equipment known as a cofferdam that was identified as a potential source of the sheen.” BP says the Coast Guard has indicated that “the sheen is not feasible to recover and does not pose a risk to the shoreline.”
From February 2010 to Sunday, the bodies of 830 marine mammals, nearly all bottlenose dolphins and a few whales, have been found along the coast from Louisiana to Apalachicola, Fla., according to figures from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Of those, almost 150 dolphins found dead on beaches or in marshes were premature, stillborn or neonatal bottlenose.
In the seven years before 2010, the northern Gulf each year saw an average 63 bottlenose dolphin strandings, incidents where injured or sick marine mammals come ashore.
That the number of dolphin deaths continues to be higher than before 2010 worries Teri Rowles, who heads NOAA’s investigation team.
“This is the longest unusual mortality event nationally,” she said of the dolphin deaths.
The dolphin deaths began their climb before the Deepwater Horizon disaster April 20, 2010, but the oil spill is being considered as a cause. Bacteria and biotoxins, such as red tide, also are being investigated as factors contributing to the deaths.
Scientists don’t know the full scope of the die-off because they rely on field reports of deaths. Not all dead dolphins wash up on populated beaches and waterways where they can be recovered, so many deaths may be going uncounted.
Bacteria culprit
In fall 2011, NOAA scientists confirmed that brucella bacteria killed five dolphins found off of the coast of Louisiana.
And as of Dec. 9, some 13 out of 56 stranded dolphins tested positive or suspected positive for brucella.
Many of the dolphins found dead are too decomposed to test for the bacteria, Rowles said.
Scientists are looking deeply into whether brucella, a common bacteria also found in livestock, has become more lethal in dolphins in the northern Gulf.
Brucella in marine mammals was first recognized in the 1990s and seems to be endemic in many marine mammal populations globally, according to NOAA scientists. But the significance of the bacteria that causes miscarriages, brain infections, pneumonia, and skin and bone infections, is still unknown.
~Desert Rose~
~Desert Rose~
