Disasters

Lake Charles Newspaper Staff Persists Against Rita's Fury

By JEREMY HARPER
When I went to sleep Wednesday, Sept. 21, Hurricane Rita was threatening the Texas coast, promising to pester Louisiana with no more than a quick bout of tropical storm conditions. I was prepared to ride out the fringe of the storm in either my apartment on the second floor of a sturdy historic building in downtown Lake Charles, La., a city of 75,000 about 40 miles inland of the Gulf of Mexico, or in the newsroom of the American Press, the city's daily newspaper where I have worked for four years as a reporter.

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Feds Fault WV Oversight of Mining Flood Prevention

"West Virginia regulators and coal operators have not properly implemented state rules meant to keep strip mining from contributing to flooding during heavy rains over narrow mountain hollows, according to a new federal report."

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Source: Charleston Gazette, 07/03/2009

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"Is Drilling To Blame For Texas Quakes?"

"People in North Texas worry about tornadoes, not earthquakes. That's not the case in the small town of Cleburne, just south of Fort Worth. They've had six quakes so far this month. Cleburne happens to sit on a huge, recently discovered natural gas deposit called Barnett Shale. There's been a lot of drilling, and some people wonder if that has triggered the earthquakes."

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Source: NPR, 07/02/2009

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Rockefeller Introduces Bill To Outlaw Bayer Chem-Secrecy Ruse

Rockefeller's bill keeps FOIA exemptions for real security information, but forbids using the "sensitive security information" stamp.

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EPA Relents, Releases List of 44 High-Hazard Coal-Ash Ponds

FOIA requests and Congressional pressure got the Obama administration to reverse its decision to withhold key information about dangers to communities from coal-ash ponds operated by electric utilities.

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"EPA Reveals 44 Higher Risk Coal Ash Sites"

"The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday made public a list of 26 communities in 10 states where residents are potentially threatened by coal ash storage ponds similar to one that flooded a neighborhood in Tennessee last year."

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Source: AP, 06/30/2009

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"Report: TVA Dikes on 'Verge of Failure' Pre-Spill"

"The earthen dikes supporting a huge coal ash landfill at a Tennessee power plant were 'on the verge of failure' long before they collapsed and sent tons of toxic muck into a river and lakeside community, an engineering consultant said Thursday."

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Source: AP, 06/26/2009

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"Enviros Demand Locations of 44 'High Hazard' Coal Ash Sites"

"A coalition of environmental groups today formally asked three federal agencies to make public the list of 44 coal ash disposal sites across the country that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has classed as 'high hazard.'"

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Source: ENS, 06/25/2009

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"Deep in Bedrock, Clean Energy and Quake Fears"

Advanced geothermal technology -- deep drilling to fracture rock far underground -- threatens to cause earthquakes when deployed along faults. The Energy Department is funding private firms to try such projects in the U.S.

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Source: NYTimes, 06/24/2009