Wednesday updates

                              h/t oiltransportationcampaign

Hearing on Inslee plan to charge big polluters draws divided crowd

By Jim Brunner Seattle Times political reporter

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.....

North Dakota: oil producers aim to cut radioactive waste bills

via Yahoo News

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.....

Children Given Lifelong Ban on Talking About Fracking

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

ND moves to raise radioactive fracking waste limit x10

North Dakota Moves to Ease Oil-and-Gas Radioactive Waste Rules Dramatically

New standard would be 10 times current limits in a state whose economy is fueled by the fracking boom.  Public comment till 2/06 (see below)

By Zahra Hirji, InsideClimate News

Dec 19, 2014

North Dakota is the No. 2 crude oil producer in the nation. (Credit: porchlife, Flickr)

North Dakota regulators recently announced plans to bump up the state's allowable oil-and-gas radioactive waste disposal limit by tenfold.

The current threshold is one of the strictest in the country, at 5 picocuries per gram. That's roughly the equivalent of the natural radiation levels found in North Dakota soil. Consequently, many companies truck their waste out of state to places with higher limits, including the neighboring Minnesota and Montana.

But the new limit of 50 picocuries per gram, proposed by the state's Department of Health last week, on Dec. 12, would change all that. Although it's far from the loosest limit around, it would be one of the highest in the Great Plains region.....    

....The Department of Health will hold three public meetings about the rulemaking in January, and it recently extended the public comment period on the rules through February 6. ....more here

A crude proposal: The pros and cons of a controversial Phillips 66 oil-by-rail project

BY RHYS HEYDEN    New Times    12/31/14

When viewed from the proper angle, the central conflict here bears a peculiar type of poetic symmetry: A local refinery would like to transport much of its crude oil into San Luis Obispo County via train, while opponents would prefer such plans to be driven out of the county on a rail.....

.... The primary thrust of the rail spur project is fairly simple: construction of a rail spur facility that would allow the refinery in Nipomo to receive crude oil via rail. Currently, the facility receives oil only by pipeline.....

.... Andrew Christie, director of the local Santa Lucia Chapter [of the Sierra Club], told New Times that his organization emphatically objects to the rail spur project.

“There are just no grounds on which to support this project,” he told New Times. “The impacts are understated, the EIR has been deficient from the start, and there are still 11 ‘significant and unavoidable’ impacts in a defective EIR.”

The 11 “significant and unavoidable” project impacts Christie refers to are a touchstone for the MRWG as well—five in the “air quality and greenhouse gases” category and one each in “biological resources,” “cultural resources,” “hazards and hazardous materials,” “public services and utilities,” and “water resources” categories.

All of these impacts are essentially due to the potential for high levels of toxic emissions from the oil trains or the mushrooming consequences of a possible crude oil spill and/or derailment......  more here