Boots on the Ground at Annual SEJ Gathering
"GALVESTON - With the world focused on a BP rig explosion in the spring of 2010 that caused the worst oil spill in U.S. history, a massive release of pollutants from the company's Texas City refinery went largely unnoticed."
"PRAGUE, Okla. -- Jerri Loveland sees a connection between the oil drilling that surrounds her home and the earthquake last November that upended her life."
"Flares, leaking pipelines and tanks emitted 92,000 tons of toxic chemicals into the air during accidents, break-downs and maintenance at Texas oil and gas facilities, refineries and petrochemical plants over the past three years, finds a report released today by the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project, EIP."
"They pray for rain these days across a drought-stricken American west. The very idea – a light shower, even an inch of rain – fills Walter Dasheno with dread. Dasheno is the governor of the Santa Clara pueblo, a Native American community living just below a canyon of the same name."
"A new water-purification system using solar power to purify contaminated groundwater holds promise for solving water problems not only on the Navajo Nation, where it is being tested, but for many other indigenous communities as well."
"In Texas, there is still the drought against which all other droughts are measured: the seven-year dry spell in the 1950s. It was so devastating that agriculture losses exceeded those of the Dust Bowl years, and so momentous that it kicked off the modern era of water planning in Texas."
"The historic Texas drought caused the Ogallala Aquifer to experience its largest decline in 25 years across a large swath of the Texas Panhandle, new numbers from a water district show."
The American Bird Conservancy has gone to court after the Interior Department stonewalled its Freedom-of-Information-Act requests for correspondence between feds and the wind industry on how potential wind projects in 10 states might affect birds and bats.
"Thousands flee homes as western wildfires persist. Colorado's Governor Gary Herbert estimates the fire has caused millions of dollars worth of damage. Soot and smoke also worry residents."