Disasters

"A high-priority Obama administration push to unclog a backlog of contested mine safety citations is backfiring. After a West Virginia coal mine explosion in April exposed a weak link in a system designed to identify safety violations, the government has spent $23 million to reform the system. ... Instead, the list of unresolved safety appeals has grown to 18,100 cases, from 16,600 at the time of the disaster at the Upper Big Branch mine."

When the Gulf oil spill came to Grand Isle State Park, Louisiana ranger Leanne Sarco knew her job running a summer program for children would be cancelled. So she used Facebook to recruit and organize volunteers in a project to clean oiled hermit crabs.

"Petroleum giant BP's corporate sponsorship of Arco Arena has been lucrative for the Sacramento Kings during a long run that's set to end next year. It's also been a sweet deal for state Capitol workers. Since 2000, Arco's parent company has lavished more than $430,000 in the form of free tickets to basketball games, concerts and other arena events on lawmakers, their staff members and relatives, according to a Bee review of lobbyist disclosures by BP."

"Surprise inspections of deepwater drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico dwindled to about three a year over the past decade, even as exploratory drilling far from shore increased, according to federal data analyzed by The Wall Street Journal."

"Workers raced to build an emergency dam in western Hungary on Sunday as cracks in a reservoir widened, threatening to unleash a second torrent of toxic sludge on the village of Kolontar and nearby rivers."

"The White House is pushing back against the draft reports the National Oil Spill Commission released Wednesday  on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that included scathing criticism of the administration's handling of the disaster. The reports' harshest criticism was directed toward the administration's handling of information about the size of the spill and the extent of the damage."

"The emergency plans for companies operating natural gas pipelines like the one that exploded in San Bruno, Calif., killing eight people and destroying a neighborhood, are effectively off-limits to the public and industry watchdogs because the federal pipeline safety agency doesn't keep copies in its offices."

"The White House blocked efforts by federal scientists to tell the public just how bad the Gulf oil spill could have been, according to a panel appointed by President Barack Obama to investigate the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history."

A second report from the Oil Spill Commission, "entitled 'Decision-Making in the Unified Command,' portrays the cleanup effort as confused, wasteful and often ineffective, and offers thinly veiled criticism of some of the key figures in the effort, including Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.