Disasters

Hundreds of coal-waste dams, scattered across Appalachia and often poorly regulated, could bring a new disaster like the one at Buffalo Creek in 1972 that killed 125 people and left 4,000 homeless.

"CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Forty years ago Sunday morning, a trio of coal-waste dams at a Pittston Coal operation on Buffalo Creek in Logan County collapsed. A wall of sludge, water, and debris stormed down the hollow from Saunders to Man.

"In a major ruling in the oil spill litigation, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier ruled Wednesday that BP and Anadarko are responsible parties under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 and are liable for civil penalties under the Clean Water Act for the undersea discharge of oil from the ill-fated Macondo well.

"Dow Chemical Co hoped an Olympic sponsorship would boost its global cache, but the company's link to a gas leak tragedy 28 years ago threatens to curb some of the benefits from the $100 million advertising deal. As many as 25,000 residents of Bhopal, India, died in the aftermath of a 1984 gas leak at a pesticide factory that was owned by a subsidiary of Union Carbide, which sold the facility in 1994. Dow bought Union Carbide in 2001."

"About 5.6 million trees in cities and towns across Texas were killed by last year’s record-setting drought, the Texas Forest Service has estimated after studying before-and-after satellite imagery."

"This 'dramatic' toll on the state’s urban forest is “a slow-moving disaster, not like a hurricane or ice storm,” lead researcher Pete Smith of the Forest Service told Texas Climate News.

"Royal Dutch Shell's bid to drill in the Arctic this summer took another step forward on Friday when the U.S. Interior Department approved its oil spill response plan for the Chukchi Sea."

"The House approved an amendment Thursday pushed by Gulf State lawmakers to dedicate 80 percent of the fines collected from the BP oil spill to a trust fund for coastal restoration of Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas."

As Bhopal proved, chemical plants can be weapons of mass destruction. During the Bush administration, Republicans urged on by the chemical industry, took authority over chemical plant security away from EPA and gave it to the Department of Homeland Security -- which they argued was more competent. Now a GOP-led House investigative panel reveals that DHS has proved incompetent and done nothing in five years.

"A bipartisan group of 41 senators on Monday called on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to pass a long-term flood insurance bill either this month or as soon as possible when the Senate returns from next week's President's Day break."

"Studies of climate change and its impact on coastal communities usually focus on rising sea level. Now, scientists from MIT and Princeton University have developed a method to examine how multiple effects of climate change -- including the combination of sea-level rise and stronger hurricanes -- will affect storm surges that wash over sea walls and inundate communities, damaging buildings and infrastructure."