Environment
Duke Fracking Tests Reveal Dangers Driller’s Data Missed
“When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declared that a group of Texas homes near a gas-drilling operation didn’t have dangerous levels of methane in their water, it relied on tests conducted by the driller itself,” Bloomberg Sustainability reports. Read the full story here.
Read MoreIn Harm’s Way
“An Arizona Republic analysis found that despite warnings from fire and forestry experts, and nature itself, the state’s wildlands are dangerously overgrown. Arizonans, meanwhile, have since 1990 built more than 230,000 homes and other structures in wildfire-prone areas, creating risks for themselves and the firefighters called upon to protect them.”
Read MoreThe secret, dirty cost of Obama’s green power push
The ethanol era has proven far more damaging to the environment than politicians promised and much worse than the government admits today. Farmers have wiped out millions of acres of conservation land, destroyed habitat and contaminated water supplies, an Associated Press investigation found. Five million acres of land set aside for conservation have been converted.…
Read MoreRaising a stink about spreading sewage on farms
“EPA regulations for the land application of biosolids are some of the most lenient in the world, requiring wastewater-treatment plants to check for just nine of some 80,000 pollutants that can make it through processing and into sewage sludge.”
Read MoreExtra Extra Monday: Poverty and profits, innocent drivers arrested, asbestos lawsuits and neglected abuse fatalities
Facing Foreclosure: Oklahoma’s mortgage settlement program benefits attorneys | Tulsa World“So far, the largest financial beneficiary of Oklahoma’s mortgage settlement program is a young attorney who used a system of vouchers and possibly a family connection to acquire dozens of clients.” Shocking cost investigation: Utility middle men charge renters inflated prices | Columbus Dispatch“A 10-month…
Read MoreBP oil refinery waste piles up on Southeast Side
By the end of the year, the oil giant BP is expected to complete work on new equipment that will more than triple the amount of petroleum coke produced by its Whiting refinery on Lake Michigan, the Chicago Tribune reports. The project will turn the sprawling Indiana plant into the world’s second-largest source of petroleum…
Read MoreStimulus Funds Paid For Trees For Wealthy Homeowners
“Stimulus funds aimed at jump starting the economy paid for about 4,000 trees in Denver, with many ending up at million dollar homes in Denver’s priciest neighborhoods where residents acknowledge they could have paid for their own trees, but the government was giving them out for free, so why bother?”
Read MoreWaste Land: Frio County Struggles with Fracking’s Leftovers
County officials estimate there’s been a 756 percent increase in the amount of fracking waste brought to Frio County since 2010 and that this year alone will see an estimated 351,720 truck trips because of it.
Read MoreEven Small Amounts of Precipitation Dump Raw Sewage into Potomac River
Don’t believe the signs city officials have posted at the four outfall spots that dump raw sewage into the Potomac River. The truth is much worse.
Read MoreExtra Extra Monday: Mentally ill inmates, sex predators unleashed, civil liberties violations
Sex Predators Unleashed | Sun-Sentinel“Another child is dead. This time, a brown-haired, brown-eyed girl, a year younger than Jimmy Ryce. A 1999 law passed after Jimmy was raped and murdered at age 9 is meant to protect Floridians from sex offenders by keeping the most dangerous locked up after they finish their prison sentences. But…
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