Federal investigators Wednesday outlined allegations of safety violations as the likely factors that combined to produce the huge explosion that killed 29 miners on April 5 at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine.
Topics at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Feb. 17-21, 2011 in Washington, D.C., include climate change, energy, health, oceans, national security, nanotechnology, GMOs, religion, space weather and many more.
"Arch Coal Inc. could have cut the stream damage from its proposed Spruce Mine in half without significantly increasing coal-production costs, according to a previously secret engineering report prepared for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."
"The Maryland Department of the Environment has formally threatened to sue the operator of three coal-fired power plants in the state for allegedly polluting ground and surface water with coal ash it's dumping in two unlined landfills."
"State environmental officials approved new coal-ash landfill in southeast Baltimore Tuesday, saying "state-of-the-art" pollution controls there should allay nearby residents' fears that the power plant waste will blow into their neighborhoods and leak into the Patapsco River."
In many states, polluted wastewater from gas drilling is required to be disposed of thousands of feet underground. But Pennsylvania only requires minimal treatment before the stuff is pumped into rivers and streams from which communities get their drinking water.
