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Oil Drillers Spared More Misery by U.S. Judge’s Fracking Ruling

A U.S. judge in Wyoming has blocked new rules that tighten controls over fracking on federal lands, granting a measure of relief to producers who would have faced higher costs at a time when profits already are strangled by low crude prices. The order by U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl puts a temporary hold on the most closely-watched effort by the Obama administration to ensure that hydraulic fracturing doesn’t contaminate water supplies. While the rules apply only to federal lands, they are designed to spur states to follow suit, magnifying the impact and potentially slowing development of oil and natural gas resources. Skavdahl said the government’s Bureau of Land Management lacks the authority to control fracking. Republican Rob Bishop, chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, approved of the ruling as “the right decision because it stops the Obama Administration from shoving this harmful policy down the states’ […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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California drought and impending El Niño raise fears of levee breaks

LOS ANGELES — California’s historic drought is in its fourth year and gloom-and-doom scenarios of its impact on everything from killing the state’s vegetation and triggering bug infestation to destroying farming jobs have been trickling in daily. Now, there is another fear: The prolonged drought may have weakened California’s more than 13,000 miles of levees, which could result in floods and affect the quality of water for millions of Californians. That’s a scary prospect for parts of the state that could get doused with torrential rain this winter, thanks to an El Niño weather front triggered by unusually warm Pacific Ocean temperatures. And the mere mention of levee breaks evokes terrifying images of the devastation Hurricane Katrina wreaked on New Orleans 10 years ago. A Mississippi State University civil engineer sounded the alarm in a recent article in Science magazine . “If the drought ends with heavy rainfall-induced flooding, […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Scientists say it’s been 500 years since California has been this dry

A snowboarder threads his way through patches of dirt in Olympic Valley, California. Many Tahoe-area ski resorts have closed due to low snowfall as California’s historic drought continues. (Max Whittaker/Getty Images) Researchers knew California’s drought was already a record breaker when they set out to find its exact place in history, but they were surprised by what they discovered: It has been 500 years since what is now the Golden State has been this dry. California is in the fourth year of a severe drought with temperatures so high and precipitation so low that rain and snow evaporate almost as soon as it hits the ground. A research paper released Monday said an analysis of blue oak tree rings in the state’s Central Valley showed that the amount of mountain snow California relies on for moisture hasn’t been so low since the 1500s. That was around the time when […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Impact of Exxon Valdez spill on fish far greater than thought, study finds

Federal scientists may have found a link between the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill and a decline of herring and pink salmon populations in Prince William Sound. In a study published Tuesday in the online journal Scientific Reports, researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that embryonic salmon and herring exposed to even very low levels of crude oil can develop heart defects. Herring and pink salmon juveniles that were exposed to crude oil as embryos grew slower and swam slower, making them vulnerable to predators, said John Incardona, a research toxicologist at NOAA Fisheries’ Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, in a prepared statement Exxon Valdez: 25 years later We explore the lasting impacts of oil spills on communities and the country. "These juvenile fish on the outside look completely normal, but their hearts are not functioning properly and that translates directly into reduced swimming […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Former Bakken Operator Pleads Not-Guilty

Saltwater Waste A Southlake, Texas man charged with illegally injecting saltwater into a disposal well in North Dakota pled not guilty to federal charges last week in federal court. Jason Halek, a former operator of a saltwater well in southwest North Dakota, was indicted on 13 federal counts and fined a record $1.5 million in 2013 for putting drinking water at risk by illegally dumping more than 800,000 gallons of salty, oilfield wastewater into a former oil well in Stark County. He entered not guilty pleas to all charges including violating the Safe Drinking Water Act, making false statements and obstructing grand jury proceedings. The indictment claims Halik conspired to hinder by “craft, trickery, deceit, and dishonest means the lawful and legitimate functions of the EPA, in enforcing federal laws relating to the requirements of the North Dakota underground injection control program.” Saltwater is considered an environmental hazard that […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Texas regulator clears oil and gas company of causing quakes

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The regulatory agency overseeing Texas’ oil and gas industry has determined that a series of small earthquakes in North Texas likely wasn’t caused by drilling operations by an Exxon Mobil subsidiary. The preliminary findings mark the first decision by the Texas Railroad Commission since it was authorized last year to consider whether seismological activity was caused by injection wells, which store briny wastewater from hydraulic fracturing. The commission ordered hearings after a university study suggested two companies’ wells were responsible for quakes that shook Reno, Texas, in 2013 and 2014. Commission investigators concluded that a well where Exxon Mobil subsidiary XTO Energy pumps millions of gallons of the wastewater likely didn’t cause the quakes, but also said there wasn’t enough evidence to demonstrate the earthquakes were naturally occurring. Parties have 15 days to respond. The report was released Monday, a day before a new law […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Report: Groundwater pumping in California has land sinking

AP Photo/Florence Low FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — Vast areas of California’s Central Valley are sinking faster than in the past as massive amounts of groundwater are pumped during the historic drought, state officials said Wednesday, citing new research by NASA scientists. The data shows the ground is sinking nearly two inches each month in some places, putting roads, bridges and vital canals that deliver water throughout the state at growing risk of damage. Sinking land has occurred for decades in California because of excessive groundwater pumping during dry years, but the new data shows it is happening faster as the state endures its fourth year of drought. "We are pumping at historic levels," said Mark Cowin, head of the California Department of Water Resources. He added that groundwater levels are dropping to record levels – up to 100 feet lower than previously recorded. Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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EPA Chief Apologizes for Toxic Spill Affecting Rivers in Colorado, New Mexico

WASHINGTON—U. S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy apologized Tuesday for a mine spill in Colorado caused by her agency, but she indicated she didn’t know much about what happened and would seek to fix any flaw in the agency’s procedures. “I am absolutely deeply sorry this ever happened,” Ms. McCarthy said at a news conference in Washington. “But I want to make sure we react positively and in a way that’s credible and we move this forward.” An EPA cleanup crew on Aug. 5 accidentally triggered a breach in an abandoned gold mine in the Southwestern part of Colorado, releasing an estimated three million gallons of toxic, mustard-hued sludge through a river system spanning three states. The sludge, which flowed down the Animas River and emptied into the San Juan River in New Mexico, contains such contaminants as lead and arsenic from the Gold King Mine, north of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Nonlinear: New York, London, Shanghai underwater in 50 years?

Those under the impression that climate change is advancing at a constant and predictable rate don’t understand the true dynamics of the issue. The rate of increase of the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, the main driver of climate change, went from 0.75 parts per million (ppm) per year in 1959 to about 1.5 ppm each year through the 1990s, to 2.1 ppm each year from 2002 to 2012, and finally to 2.9 ppm in 2013. The fear is that the ability of the oceans and plants to continue to absorb half the carbon dioxide human civilization expels into the atmosphere each year may have become impaired. That means more carbon dioxide is remaining in the atmosphere where concentrations are building at the fastest rate ever recorded in the modern era. Permafrost across the most northern reaches of land on the globe wasn’t expected to start melting until […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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California drought makes quest for water a consuming grind

PORTERVILLE, Calif. — Their two peach trees had turned brittle in the heat, their neighborhood pond had vanished into cracked dirt and now their stainless-steel faucet was spitting out hot air. “That’s it. We’re dry,” Miguel Gamboa said during the second week of July, and so he went off to look for water. He had a container in the bed of his truck from the dairy where he worked, a 275-gallon tank that had been used to treat milk with chemical preservatives. Now he rinsed it with bleach and drove out of the suburbs, passing rows of tract houses with yellowed front lawns. He went to see a friend who still had a little water left in his well, and the friend offered Gamboa his hose. They stood together and watched the tank begin to fill with water that looked hazy and light brown. “You really want this?” the […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple