pollution

Spike In German Finance For Gas Export Projects Harms Gulf Communities

April 26, 2023 Edward Donnelly and Phoebe Cooke, DeSmog. Educate! Germany, Gulf Coast, Oil and Gas Exports, pollution

Deutsche Bank and other German lenders have poured finance into gas export terminals on the U.S. Gulf Coast since Russia invaded Ukraine, a report has found, sparking anger among residents who say the megaprojects are devastating their communities. German banks lent 2.17 billion euros to U.S. gas export projects since the beginning of 2022, a sharp increase on the 1.86 billion euros in loans made during the 10 preceding years combined, according to underlying data used to produce the report by environmental groups Urgewald, Environmental Action Germany (DUH) and Andy Gheorghiu Consulting. The banks also underwrote 610 million euros of bonds for the projects from 2012-2021, the data showed.

Ten Rivers Facing Pollution, Development, And Climate Change

April 20, 2023 Saima May Sidik, Ecowatch. Educate! climate crisis, pollution, Rivers, Water

By America’s waterways need help. Threats such as industrial pollution, poorly planned development, and climate change are widespread. In some cases, help could be imminent—but only with support from the public and lawmakers, according to a report out today from the conservation group American Rivers. The report, called America’s Most Endangered Rivers, has been produced annually since 1984. Each report describes 10 threatened rivers, each facing an upcoming decision with the potential for public influence, such as whether to remove a dam or compel polluters to clean up waste. “I like the focus on action,” said hydrologist Reed Maxwell from Princeton University.

The State Of East Palestine, Ohio From The Eyes Of A Local

March 22, 2023 Katie F., The Real News. Educate! East Palestine, health, pollution, Railroads

Timothea is a long-time resident of East Palestine, Ohio and a victim of the Norfolk Southern train derailment. The train transporting toxic chemicals was 150 cars-long, 20-25% longer than the average length of trains in 2017, and it was operated by three conductors, with only 4 paid sick days each– just half of the national average. Of course, the release of 100,000 gallons of chemicals into a town only 3 square miles in size might have been avoided had our so-called “socialist” leaders fought for the rights of the railroad workers to secure a more favorable contract that was already years overdue. Now, Timothea and her community are stuck with the consequences.

Can You Tell If A ‘Bomb Train’ Is Coming To Your Town?

March 21, 2023 John McCracken, WhoWhatWhy. Educate! Ohio, pollution, Railroads, Transparency

In the wake of the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment, Governor Mike DeWine called on Congress to look into why the rural village didn’t know ahead of time they had volatile chemicals coming through town. “We should know when we have trains carrying hazardous materials through the state of Ohio,” DeWine said at a press conference. This information is out there, but it’s probably not what the governor had in mind. With the derailment of the Norfolk Southern train receiving international attention, more railroad communities are now asking what is traveling through their backyard.

Railroad Workers Call For Immediate Action To Prevent Train Wrecks

February 24, 2023 Railroad Workers United, Popular Resistance. Resist! pollution, Profiteers, Railroads, Workplace Safety

East Palestine, OH - It has been three weeks since the tragic train wreck that devastated this small town. Despite the initial lack of attention it received, politicians and bureaucrats have finally become aware of the tragedy. Railroad Workers United (RWU) urges everyone concerned not to be distracted by rhetoric, hyperbole, promises, and lies but instead to focus on the primary reasons for the derailment and take immediate action to prevent future disasters. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Preliminary Report released on February 23rd clearly stated that "This was 100% preventable..

Activists Occupy Minneapolis’ Roof Depot Site To Stay Demolition

February 22, 2023 Susan Du, Star Tribune. Educate! Community Control, Environment, Minneapolis, pollution

Minneapolis - East Phillips neighborhood activists, including residents of the Little Earth of United Tribes housing complex for Native Americans, snipped the fence barring public access to a city-owned vacant building Tuesday morning and set up more than a dozen tents. But by late evening, police had swarmed the site, clearing the camp, fortifying the fence and arresting at least two of the activists. The activists were protesting plans to raze the former Roof Depot warehouse and build a new Public Works facility for water maintenance staff, their equipment and vehicles that include a new diesel fuel station and roughly 800 parking spaces.

Indigenous-Led Solutions Essential To Reversing Plastic Pollution

August 18, 2022 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. Resist! Environment, Indigenous People, Plastic, pollution

Plastic pollution is an international problem, as trillions of pieces of plastic have made their way into the ocean from commercial and household waste, blown from landfills and trash cans into sewers and rivers and out to sea. Marine animals can ingest and become entangled in ocean plastic, leading to sickness, starvation and death. Plastic leaches toxic chemicals and doesn’t biodegrade naturally in the environment. An inordinate amount of plastic waste has been dumped in the Pacific Islands (Te Moananui) in what is referred to as waste colonization or waste colonialism — where a disproportionate amount of plastic pollution is dumped in a region, leading to threats to the livelihoods and health of its people, a press release from The University of Newcastle, Australia, said.

Flood Maps Show US Underestimates Contamination Risk At Industrial Sites

August 5, 2022 Thomas Marlow, James R. Elliott and Scott Frickel, The Conversation. Educate! climate crisis, Environment, Flooding, pollution

Climate science is clear: Floodwaters are a growing risk for many American cities, threatening to displace not only people and housing but also the land-based pollution left behind by earlier industrial activities. In 2019, researchers at the U.S. Government Accountability Office investigated climate-related risks at the 1,571 most polluted properties in the country, also known as Superfund sites on the federal National Priorities List. They found an alarming 60% were in locations at risk of climate-related events, including wildfires and flooding. As troubling as those numbers sound, our research shows that that’s just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Many times that number of potentially contaminated former industrial sites exist. Most were never documented by government agencies, which began collecting data on industrially contaminated lands only in the 1980s.

Industry Insiders Question Louisiana Regulators Over Cleanup

June 30, 2022 Julie Dermansky and Sharon Kelly, DeSmog. Educate! Environment, ExxonMobil, Louisiana, Oil and Gas, pollution

If you had ventured down a dirt road running through remote marshland along the Gulf Coast in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana, at just the right time back in late February, you might have come across a pit of gray muck. Down in that pit, you’d find a contractor welding a steel cap about the size of a dinner plate onto a stub of pipe jutting up from the mud below. That pipe was the last visible sign of an old oil and gas wastewater well that once dropped over a half-mile deep into the earth, now plugged up and sealed by contractors hired by the state. For decades, oil and gas companies disposed of millions of barrels of waste down that hole, ringed with cement and steel, dubbing the wastewater well Freshwater City SWD 01, according to state records. Experts told DeSmog the well was defective and that using it put underground supplies of drinking water in the area at risk.

The Prison-Industrial Complex Is An Environmental Catastrophe

June 3, 2022 Mansa Musa, The Real News Network. Resistance Report Criminal Justice and Prisons, Environment, pollution, Prison Industrial Complex

“As a result of being on or near wastelands, prisons constantly expose those inside to serious environmental hazards, from tainted water to harmful air pollutants,” Leah Wang recently wrote for the Prison Policy Initiative. “These conditions manifest in health conditions and deaths that are unmistakably linked to those hazards.” In this edition of Rattling the Bars, Mansa Musa speaks with Paul Wright about the scope and scale of the drastic environmental hazards the prison-industrial complex poses to incarcerated people, prison staff, and surrounding communities. Paul Wright is the founder and executive director of the Human Rights Defense Center. He is also editor of Prison Legal News (PLN), the longest-running independent prisoner rights publication in US history.

Enviro Groups Ask State To Widen Scope When Evaluating Harmful Impacts Of Oil And Gas Industry

May 29, 2022 Sean Price, Colorado Times Recorder. Educate! Colorado, Environment, Oil and Gas, pollution

Last week a coalition of 33 environmental groups in Colorado wrote a letter asking the state to include analyses of already existing ozone, air pollution, and climate change impacts when evaluating the effects of pollution from oil and gas operations. The letter, which can be read in full here, is in response to a report by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC), the state’s oil and gas regulatory agency. The “Report on the Evaluation of Cumulative Impacts,” is the first annual edition. That report can be read in full here. The environmental groups addressed the letter to the COGCC and gives a series of recommendations as to how the commission can widen the scope of its report by including a comprehensive view of pollution in a given area and how the various sources of pollution — like pollution from oil and gas activities and pollution from automobiles — compound their respective harmful environmental impacts.

Steven Donziger: A Tale For Our Times

May 16, 2022 Craig Murray. Educate! Amazon Rainforest, Chevron, Legal System, pollution

29 years ago, in 1993, Steven Donziger, a New York lawyer, visited Ecuador and saw communities who lived their lives with their bare feet and hands permanently covered in oil sludge and other pollutants, whose agriculture was ruined and who suffered high levels of mortality and birth defects. He started a class action against Texaco in the United States, representing over 30,000 local people. Texaco, confident that they had control of Ecuador, requested the US court to rule that jurisdiction lay in Ecuador. It also set about obtaining the agreement from the Government of Ecuador to cancel any liability. In 2002 the New York court finally agreed with Texaco (now Chevron) that is had no jurisdiction and the case moved to Ecuador, much to Chevron’s delight.

$50 Million In Public Money Wasted On Private-Equity Potash Venture

April 15, 2022 Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, Popular Resistance. Educate! Michigan, pollution, State Budget, Water

When Governor Whitmer signed the bipartisan Building Michigan Together Plan, she chose to allow a $50 million subsidy to Michigan Potash Company to remain in the bill. MCWC and other concerned groups and citizens learned about this gift to a poorly conceived start-up project only days before the bill came out of the legislature for signature. We have been investigating and opposing this unnecessary and potentially destructive scheme for the last 6 years. Clearly neither the legislature nor the Governor took the time to investigate this venture before slipping it into the otherwise decent infrastructure bill. The people of Michigan deserve a better deal.

A Climate Wake-Up Call For The Chemical Industry

March 14, 2022 David Moore and Donald Shaw, Sludge. Educate! Chemical Industry, EPA, pollution, Regulation

In 2017, the Trump administration sided with industry lobbyists and rescinded safety rules governing thousands of chemical plants across America. Five years later — after multiple chemical plant explosions in the Houston area — government investigators are telling lawmakers that a lack of federal regulation is heightening the risk of chemical disasters during climate change-related extreme weather events at thousands of facilities nationwide. President Joe Biden’s administration is considering issuing a new rule regulating such facilities — but not until next summer. Chemical companies and industry groups have already sicced their lobbyists on the EPA to stop the new rules, arguing that, despite all evidence to the contrary, their members are well-prepared for disasters and will only be made more vulnerable by new regulations.

Woman’s Quest To Safeguard Funds To Clean Up Oil And Gas Industry’s Mess

February 27, 2022 Julie Dermansky, DeSmog. Create! climate crisis, Federal funds, Fossil Fuels, pollution

After the Biden administration’s bipartisan infrastructure law was passed, the administration hailed the bill’s $4.7 billion package to cap orphaned oil and gas wells as a move to tackle “super-polluting methane emissions,” saying it will combat the climate crisis and create jobs. But it is possible that, without tight rules, these public funds could be spent in ways that contradict those goals — and go to the very entities that enabled these environmental messes in the first place. Though the administration claims it will establish safeguards, currently there are no rules to compel state oil and gas regulators to use the federal funds in a way that prioritizes plugging the inactive and supposedly ownerless wells that are emitting the most methane, or even any methane at all.

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