Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Wednesday updates

                              h/t oiltransportationcampaign




Hearing on Inslee plan to charge big polluters draws divided crowd

OLYMPIA — Gov. Jay Inslee’s sweeping climate-change bill drew hundreds to a packed public hearing Tuesday, putting the divided world view of supporters and opponents on full display throughout the Capitol.
An air of urgency filled environmentalists who sang songs and waved signs at passing lawmakers, and erected a display of a burning planet.....



Not the Radioactive waste, mind you, just the cost of dealing with it.

By Ernest Scheyder

WILLISTON, N.D. (Reuters) - North Dakota's oil industry is pushing to change the state's radioactive waste disposal laws as part of a broad effort to conserve cash as oil prices tumble.

The waste, which becomes slightly radioactive as part of the hydraulic fracturing process that churns up isotopes locked underground, must be trucked out of state.

That's because rules prohibit North Dakota landfills from accepting anything but miniscule amounts of radiation.....


Two Pennsylvanian children will live their lives under a gag order imposed under a $750,000 settlement.

By Suzanne Goldenberg     The Guardian   Alternet      January 26, 2015

Two young children in Pennsylvania were banned from talking about fracking for the rest of their lives under a gag order imposed under a settlement reached by their parents with a leading oil and gas company.

The sweeping gag order was imposed under a $750,000 settlement between the Hallowich family and Range Resources Corp, a leading oil and gas driller. It provoked outrage on Monday among environmental campaigners and free speech advocates.

The settlement, reached in 2011 but unsealed only last week, barred the Hallowichs' son and daughter, who were then aged 10 and seven, from ever discussing fracking or the Marcellus Shale, a leading producer in America's shale gas boom.

The Hallowich family had earlier accused oil and gas companies of destroying their 10-acre farm in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania and putting their children's health in danger. Their property was adjacent to major industrial operations: four gas wells, gas compressor stations, and a waste water pond, which the Hallowich family said contaminated their water supply and caused burning eyes, sore throats and headaches.

Gag orders – on adults – are typical in settlements reached between oil and gas operators and residents in the heart of shale gas boom in Pennsylvania. But the company lawyer's insistence on extending the lifetime gag order to the Hallowichs' children gave even the judge pause, according to the court documents.

The family gag order was a condition of the settlement. The couple told the court they agreed because they wanted to move to a new home away from the gas fields, and to raise their children in a safer environment. "We need to get the children out of there for their health and safety," the children's mother, Stephanie Hallowich, told the court.....   more here

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