Disasters

"A new study from the presidential oil spill commission describes the behind-the-scenes, excruciating tension and mistakes behind the three-month effort to cap the busted well."

"Attorneys representing the 10,043 eligible plaintiffs who were injured by exposure to toxics while working in rescue, recovery and debris removal operations at the World Trade Center following the 9/11 terrorist attacks confirmed today that they have met the 95 percent opt-in threshold required in their agreement with the City of New York and its contractors."

"In the aftermath of a deadly gas explosion in San Bruno this year, a Sacramento school district is considering the unthinkable: Closing a school in the middle of the school year and transferring all its students to another campus or campuses."

"Failure to manage the risks of a complex well and to learn from an earlier narrowly missed disaster contributed significantly to the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, a panel investigating the BP oil spill said Wednesday."

"The panel named by President Obama to investigate the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout on Tuesday rejected a call by a consumer activist group for the resignation of its chief counsel, Fred H. Bartlit Jr. The group, Consumer Watchdog, said that the panel should dismiss Mr. Bartlit because his law firm, Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott, once represented Halliburton, one of the companies involved in drilling the BP well."

"They wind underground beneath homes, across plains and through the state's most populous cities. And, according to a Houston Chronicle investigation, more than half of the major natural gas transmission lines in Texas were laid more than 40 years ago and now are vulnerable to failure."

"An environmental group has filed a formal notice that it will sue the Environmental Protection Agency and the Coast Guard for authorizing oil dispersants without studying how they'll affect Alaska's polar bears, Cook Inlet beluga whales, Steller sea lions and other imperiled species."

The Pew Environmental Group Thursday released a detailed report concluding that the risks of a blowout in Alaska's Beaufort Sea could be even worse than the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf.