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The
site is leaking up to 145,000 pounds per hour, according to the
California Air Resources Board. In just the first month, that’s added up
to 80,000 tons, or about a quarter
of the state’s ordinary methane emissions over the same period. The
Federal Aviation Administration recently banned low-flying planes from
flying over the site, since engines plus combustible gas equals kaboom.
Steve
Bohlen, who until recently was state oil and gas supervisor, can’t
remember the last time California had to deal with a gas leak this big.
“I asked this question of our staff of 30 years,” says Bohlen. “This is
unique in the last three or four decades. This is an unusual event,
period.”
Families living downwind of the site have also noticed
the leak—boy, have they noticed. Methane itself is odorless, but the
mercaptan added to natural gas gives it a characteristic sulfurous
smell. Over 700 households have at least temporarily relocated, and one
family has filed a lawsuit against the Southern California Gas Company
alleging health problems from the gas. The gas levels are too low for
long-term health effects, according to health officials, but the odor is
hard to ignore.
Given both the local and global effects of the
gas leak, why is it taking so long to stop? The answer has to do with
the site at Aliso Canyon, an abandoned oil field. Yes, that’s right,
natural gas is stored underground in old oil fields. It’s common
practice in the US, but largely unique to this country. The idea goes
that geological sites that were good at keeping in oil for millions of
years would also be good at keeping in gas.
Three
workers of a chemical manufacturing company were killed on the spot and
two others are reported critical after inhaling a poisonous gas in a
factory premises in the industrial area of Ankleshwar town Thursday
morning, police said. The gas leakage occurred in a scrubber tank
(storage tank) of Shree Ganesh Remedies Company, which produces
pharmaceutical ingredients and pigments, at Ankleshwar GIDC on Thursday
morning. The Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) officials rushed to
the spot after learning about the incident and have started probe. Five
labourers were working near the scrubber tank containing sodium bromide
and hydro chloric acid gas, meant to carry out chemical tests. The
accident occurred when the labourers were changing the bottom pipes in
the tank. They inhaled the toxic gas emanated from the tanker's chamber
and became unconscious. sources said. The incident came into light when
the night shift in-charge, made a routine check-up of the plant. On
finding five labourers lying down and the gas leak, he immediately
stopped the process going on in the chamber and also alerted the factory
owner C M Kothiya, who is also vice-president of Ankleshwar Industrial
Association. All the affected labourers were immediately rushed to A K
Patel Hospital in Ankleshwar. While three of the labourers were declared
brought dead by the doctors, the condition of two others are reported
to be critical. The deceased have been identified as Raja Yadav (26),
Satyendra Yadav (22), Raju Prajapati (24), all residents of Ankleshwar,
while two others under critical situation are identified as Kiran
Chuahan and Suresh Maurya. The GPCB officials, along with District
Industrial Safety and Health officials, and police reached the spot
after learning about the incident and started probe into it. The GPCB
officials also collected samples from the scrubber tank for lab test.
"We have lodged a complaint in this regard and started investigation as
to how the gas leaked. We have also informed government officials
concerned about the incident," said Inspector P L Chaudhari. GPCB
regional officer A V Shah said, "At present it is difficult to say
anything, but we suspect that due to the leakage of sodium bromide gas
and hydrochloric acid gas, the casualties had taken place. We have
started probe to find out more into the incident. Production in the
factory has been stopped." This is the second such incident in this
industrial hub in the recent past. On Monday, two workers had died while
handling chemical waste at the premises of a company.
Three
workers of a chemical manufacturing company were killed on the spot and
two others are reported critical after inhaling a poisonous gas in a
factory premises in the industrial area of Ankleshwar town Thursday
morning, police said.
The gas leakage occurred in a scrubber tank
(storage tank) of Shree Ganesh Remedies Company, which produces
pharmaceutical ingredients and pigments, at Ankleshwar GIDC on Thursday
morning. The Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) officials rushed to
the spot after learning about the incident and have started probe.
Five
labourers were working near the scrubber tank containing sodium bromide
and hydro chloric acid gas, meant to carry out chemical tests. The
accident occurred when the labourers were changing the bottom pipes in
the tank. They inhaled the toxic gas emanated from the tanker’s chamber
and became unconscious. sources said.
Posted: Nov 03, 2015 5:15 PM CST Updated: Nov 03, 2015 5:39 PM CST
By JJ Bailey, Online News Producer
ST. PETERS, Mo. (KMOV.com) - Residents
in St. Charles County are familiar with seeing trains. Locomotives roll
through the county several times a day, but a topic under discussion involving the Westlake Landfill has some on edge.
If
a decision is made to remove radioactive waste from Westlake, railways
could end up transporting it. A derailment is always a risk near any set
of tracks, but if train carrying radioactive waste is the one that
derails, it could be a catastrophe.
“Basically, what we want is to
have the trains run at a slower speed coming through the towns,” said
St. Peters Alderman Rock Reitmeyer. “We don't want to see any accidents
coming through our area and dropping all this waste. It could have a
hazardous effect.”
East end given iodine pills as nuclear disaster precaution
JasonParis from Toronto, Canada - Frenchman's Bay (Pickering - Bay Ridges) Wikimedia.org
Residents
and businesses within 10 kms of the the Pickering and Darlington
Nuclear Generating Stations will receive potassium iodide pills, meant
to protect in case of the nuclear disaster.
By:Daniel OtisNews Reporter, Published on Tue Nov 10 2015
If
you live in Durham Region or Scarborough, you may have just been mailed
a package of pills in a calming sky blue box. Those pills are meant to
protect you in the event of a nuclear disaster — a disaster that you,
living within a sensitive 10km zone surrounding the Pickering and Darlington Nuclear Generating Stations, would be on the frontlines of.
“A serious nuclear accident is extremely unlikely,” says Ontario Power Generation (OPG) spokesperson Neal Kelly.
“(But) we worked with Toronto Health and Durham Health and we came up with a plan.”
200,000 homes and businesses have just received potassium iodide
(KI) pills in a $1.5 million OPG-funded project that is being run in
conjunction with Durham Region and the City of Toronto. Also known as
RadBlock, the pills prevent the thyroid gland from absorbing radioactive
iodine, thus reducing the risk of thyroid cancer in the aftermath of a
nuclear disaster. As a gas, radioactive iodine can travel quickly and is
easily inhaled.
“It’s
for one thing and one thing only — and that’s to reduce the risk of
thyroid cancer,” Ken Gorman, Durham Region’s director of environmental
health, says of the pills. The pills are not blanket anti-radiation
medication, Gorman adds, and they should only be taken as directed
immediately after a radioactive release.
“Radioactive iodine would only be one of the radioactive elements that could be released during an emergency-type situation.”
In
2014, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) ordered OPG to
distribute the pills for free to everyone living and working within the
nuclear plants’ 10 km “primary zones” by the end of 2015. In Toronto,
that means pretty much everyone who lives east of Morningside Ave.
Previously, the pills were available at local pharmacies, but few
residents bothered to pick them up.
Monday, November 02, 2015 by: L.J. Devon, Staff Writer
(NaturalNews)
A five-year fire is burning beneath a landfill in a St. Louis suburb,
and it's rapidly approaching an old cache of nuclear waste.
At
present, St. Louis County emergency officials are unsure whether or not
the fire will set off a reaction that releases a radioactive plume over
the city. An emergency plan was put together in October 2014 to "save
lives in the event of a catastrophic event at the West Lake Landfill."
St.
Louis County officials warn, "There is a potential for radioactive
fallout to be released in the smoke plume and spread throughout the
region."
Many residents are taking precautions; some are buying
gas masks, while others are considering moving away. Just recently, over
500 local residents discussed the precarious situation at a church
meeting which usually draws in less than 50 people.
EPA not worried about the fire or the nuclear waste
Nothing
stands in the way of the uncontrollable landfill fire, which is
smoldering hot underneath the trash of the West Lake Landfill of
Bridgeton County, St. Louis. This "smoldering event" is not uncommon.
Fires ignite and smolder under landfills because the trash becomes so
compact and hot. In this case, the fire is brewing less than a quarter
mile from an old deposit of nuclear waste that threatens to spread
cancer-causing radon gas.
EPA
officials admit that although the waste may eventually emit radon gas,
it won't affect anything outside the landfill property. This is the same
EPA that polluted the Colorado River with 3 million gallons of toxic
sludge full of lead, arsenic and other heavy metals. EPA
contractors breached a mine, sending the sludge flowing into the Animas
river, which quickly turned putrid and murky. That pollution has now
spread to New Mexico, Utah and Arizona, infiltrating the countryside
with toxic elements. Why should anyone in St. Louis County trust the EPA with radioactive waste?
To
make matters worse, the EPA isn't even worried about the fire reaching
the nuclear waste. "We just do not agree with the finding that the
subsurface smoldering event is approaching the radiologically impacted
material," said Mary Peterson, director of the Superfund division for
EPA Region 7.
There have been no plans to remove the radioactive
waste as of yet, leaving local residents baffled and worried. Most
residents were unaware of the existence of the radioactive waste, which
had been dumped there illegally four decades ago. If it weren't for
activists educating the public about the waste, no one would know.
Radioactive waste comes back to haunt St. Louis
The
radioactive waste includes 8,700 tons of leached barium sulfate
residue. It was illegally dumped in the West Lake Landfill by Cotter
Corporation sometime after World War II and wasn't discovered by
investigators until 1973. The radioactive waste was left behind due to
the mishandling of uranium by Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, a company
that started out working for the federal government's Manhattan Project.
Since 1990, the West Lake Landfill
has been managed by the EPA and deemed a Superfund site. The U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services Agency for Toxic Substances and
Disease Registry recently warned all agencies not to disturb the surface
of the landfill.
They warned that radium-226, radon-222 and radium-228 could be released
into the air, putting people near the landfill at risk.
The
agency reported that radon levels in the area are often measured above
regulations "by as much as 10 to 25 times at individual surface test
locations." Moreover, radium increases people's risk of developing bone,
liver and breast cancer.
The EPA is downplaying the potential for a Chernobyl or Fukushima-like disaster,
but residents have every reason not to trust the agency's guesswork,
given its decades-long refusal to safely remove the radioactive material
from the area.
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Tonya
Mason, who works just feet away from the fence line of Republic
Services' landfill in Bridgeton, expresses anger that the air from
burning underground material has never been tested for contaminants on
Thursday, Oct. 15, 2015 at a meeting by Just Moms at John Calvin
Presbyterian Church. Hundreds of people gathered to hear about the
ongoing problems at the site. Photo by Christian Gooden,
cgooden@post-dispatch.com
More
than 40 years ago, radioactive waste was dumped at the West Lake
Landfill in Bridgeton. The decades since have been filled with legal and
political moves that have not gotten the site cleaned up.
Now
a growing number of residents want to know how dangerous it is to live
and work in the area as a fire burns underground in the adjoining
Bridgeton Landfill. More than 500 people showed up at a Bridgeton church
on Thursday for a meeting organized by residents. The monthly meetings
held for the last two years typically attract no more than 50.
The
surge in public interest comes after state reports showed the fire is
moving toward the nuclear waste, and radioactive materials can be found
in soil, groundwater and trees outside the perimeter of the landfill.
At
least six school districts have sent letters home in the last week
outlining their plans for a potential nuclear emergency. St. Louis
County recently released its own emergency evacuation plan that was
written last year.
Underground fires are common in
landfills as buried garbage can get hot, much like the bottom of a
compost pile. Typically they are monitored and allowed to burn out. But
none of the fires have gotten so close to nuclear waste, which was
created during the World War II era for St. Louis’ part in the
production of the atomic bomb.
An
"unknown odor" that caused respiratory irritation for several guests
prompted a hazardous materials response at the Westin hotel Thursday
night, according to the Palo Alto Fire Department. The odor, which
appeared to emanate from an underground garage area, was first reported
to authorities at 9:09 p.m. at the hotel on El Camino Real east of
University Avenue. Fire officials said a dozen people were
"decontaminated and transported" to the emergency rooms at Stanford
Hospital and El Camino Hospital in Mountain View. None of the ailments
appear to be serious or life-threatening. Other hotel guests were
ordered to shelter in place as a precaution. Palo Alto Deputy Fire Chief
Catherine Capriles said the source of the odor was not immediately
clear after an initial foray into the garage by hazmat crews from Palo
Alto Fire and the Mountain View Fire Department. She said pool cleaning
equipment was found, but intact and unlikely the source. After a second
search still did not find a culprit, the hazmat crews dispersed. While
the source of the odor was not known, as of midnight Friday, officials
were confident that it had "vented and dissipated" and posed no
additional risk.
..........
Palo Alto: 12 at Westin hotel sickened by 'unknown odor,' cause still a mystery
Posted: 10/29/2015 10:54:21 PM PDTUpdated: about 11 hours ago
Palo
Alto firefighters responded to a report of hazmat situation at the
Westin Palo Alto Oct. 29, 2015 in Palo Alto, Calif. (KGO-TV )
PALO
ALTO -- An "unknown odor" that caused respiratory irritation for 12
people prompted a hazardous materials response at the Westin hotel,
according to the Palo Alto Fire Department.
The
chemical odor, which appeared to emanate from an underground garage
area, was first reported to authorities at 9:09 p.m. Thursday at the
hotel on El Camino Real east of University Avenue.
Fire
officials said a dozen people were "decontaminated and transported" to
the emergency rooms at Stanford Hospital and El Camino Hospital in
Mountain View. None of the ailments appeared to be serious or life
threatening.
Other hotel guests were ordered to shelter in place as a precaution.
Department
of Energy and Environmental Protection crews were on the scene of a
Waterbury oil spill Monday, as 500 gallons of fuel spilled into the
basement of the Exchange Place Towers on Center Street. This impacted a
sump pump that discharged to the catch basin network. The catch basin
network discharges to Great Brook which is tributary to the Naugatuck
River. DEEP officials say an additional estimated 100 gallons of fuel
reached the surface waters. Crews were able to contain most of the 100
gallons near where the brook meets the river. A contractor has been
hired to assist in the cleanup of both the basement and surface water.
No word on how long the cleanup process will take.
..........
Cleanup crews to return to oil spill site in Waterbury
Posted: Oct 20, 2015 6:19 AM CST Updated: Oct 20, 2015 6:19 AM CST
By Rob Polansky
(WFSB photo)
WATERBURY, CT (WFSB) - A near environmental disaster continued to be cleaned up in downtown Waterbury Tuesday.
More than 1,500 gallons of heating oil spilled in the basement of an apartment building on Center Street on Monday afternoon.
The
Department of Energy and Environmental Protection then said a sump pump
flushed hundreds of gallons of the fuel into the Naugatuck River,
putting wildlife in danger.
An
estimated 500 gallons of fuel spilled out into the basement of a
Waterbury building with about 100 gallons spilling out into a nearby
body of water on Monday.
Members of the emergency response unit
from the Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection
were called to an oil spill at the Exchange Place Towers, which is
located at 44 Center St. DEEP said the leak started in the basement.
First
responders came by land and by sea when a hazardous material spilled at
the Port of Baltimore Tuesday, according to the Baltimore Office of
Emergency Management. Fire boats were deployed to the port, where fire
trucks, the U.S. Coast Guard and Maryland Department of the Environment
had also responded, the office of emergency management reported at
approximately noon Tuesday. There was no health risk due to the hazmat
spill, according to the report.
About
250 barrels of oil spilled from a platform in the North Sea during the
transfer of products to an oil tanker, Norwegian energy company Statoil
said. Statoil said the oil spill was discovered during the loaded of oil
from the Statfjord A platform in the North Sea to oil tanker Hilda
Knutsen. The company said in its latest update on the spill that about
250 barrels in total were released into the North Sea. "Further
assessment and investigations will uncover the scope and causes [of the
spill] in more detail," the company said in a statement. Loading to
Hilda Knutsen was halted, though operations at the Statfjord A platform
were proceeding as normal. Statoil said the relevant authorities were
notified, though there were no statements from the Norwegian Petroleum
Safety Authority. In January last year, the company shut down operations
at the Statfjord C platform after emergency systems detected an oil
leak. More than 250 crewmembers were evacuated to lifeboats but returned
to their living quarters later in the day. No injuries were reported.
Statoil said the weather in the area at the time of the Stratfjord C
incident was "harsh." Statoil said the region is producing an average
80,000 barrels of oil per day.
Norwegian
energy company Statoil said about 250 barrels of oil spilled during
incident at North Sea platform. Photo courtesy of Statoil
STAVANGER, Norway, Oct. 9 (UPI) --
About 250 barrels of oil spilled from a platform in the North Sea
during the transfer of products to an oil tanker, Norwegian energy
company Statoil said.
Statoil said the oil spill was discovered
during the loaded of oil from the Statfjord A platform in the North Sea
to oil tanker Hilda Knutsen. The company said in its latest update on the spill that about 250 barrels in total were released into the North Sea.
"Further
assessment and investigations will uncover the scope and causes [of the
spill] in more detail," the company said in a statement.
Loading to Hilda Knutsen was halted, though operations at the Statfjord A platform were proceeding as normal.
Norwegian
energy company Statoil reported on oil leak Thursday near the Statfjord
oil field in the North Sea, though it's too early to guess on volumes.
The company said sheen was observed during the loading of oil from the
Stratfjord onto the Hilda Knutsen tanker. Loading was halted, though
operations at the field are proceeding as normal. "It is also too early
to say how much oil has leaked," the company said in a statement.
Statoil said equipment was on hand to address the spill and relevant
authorities had been notified. There was no word on the spill from the
nation's Petroleum Safety Authority. Statoil shut down its Statfjord C
rig in January 2014 after emergency systems detected an oil leak. The
270 members of the Statfjord C crew were evacuated to lifeboats but
returned to their living quarters later in the day. No injuries were
reported. Statoil said the weather in the area at the time of the
Stratfjord C incident was "harsh." Statoil said the region is producing
an average 80,000 barrels of oil per day.
ASSOCIATED PRESSIn
this Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2015 photo, Genetha Campbell carries free water
being distributed at the Lincoln Park United Methodist Church in Flint,
Mich, Since the financially struggling city broke away from the Detroit
water system last year, residents have been unhappy with the smell,
taste and appearance of water from the city’s river as they await the
completion of a pipe to Lake Huron. They also have raised health
concerns, reporting rashes, hair loss and other problems. A General
Motors plant stopped using the water, saying it was rusting its parts.
(AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
DETROIT
(AP) -- A public health emergency has been declared in cash-strapped
Flint after tests showed the Michigan city's water supply is causing
elevated levels of lead in children and following months of complaints
about the smell and taste.
Gov. Rick Snyder
this week questioned the switch to the Flint River from the Detroit
water system in 2014, a decision that was made as a cost-saving move
while a new regional pipeline is built to Lake Huron.
And
on Thursday, the Genesee County health department declared a public
health emergency, recommending that people not drink the water unless it
has been filtered and tested to rule out elevated levels of lead. More
steps will be announced Friday.
The problem: Although the river water is treated, it is corrosive and releasing lead from old plumbing in thousands of homes.
A
coalition of residents and national groups petitioned the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency to order the state to reconnect Flint to
Detroit water.
Over 700 Fukushima waste bags swept away by torrential floods
Extensive
and destructive floods across eastern Japan have swept more than 700
bags containing Fukushima-contaminated soil and grass into Japan’s
rivers, with many still unaccounted for and some spilling their
radioactive content into the water system.
Authorities
in the small city of Nikko in Japan’s Tochigi Prefecture, some 175 km
away from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, have said that at least 334
bags containing radioactive soil have been swept into a tributary of
the Kinugawa river, The Asahi Shimbun reports.
According to the
city’s authorities, the washed-away waste was only part of hundreds of
bags being stored at the Kobyakugawa Sakura Koen park alongside the
river. Another 132 bags of waste reportedly rolled down the slopes.
The
incident happened after Tropical Storm Etau caused vast flooding across
Japan forcing the Kinugawa River to burst its banks on September 10.
Twenty bags were found empty downstream on Thursday. Three hundred and
fourteen bags, each with a capacity of one cubic meter, remain
unaccounted for.
A
crane works on the building covering No. 1 reactor (L) at the TEPCO's
tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in this file
photo. Reuters
TOKYO —
Tokyo
Electric Power Co turned down requests in 2009 by the nuclear safety
agency to consider concrete steps against tsunami waves at the Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear plant, which suffered a tsunami-triggered disaster two
years later, government documents showed Friday.
“Do you think you
can stop the reactors?” a TEPCO official was quoted as telling Shigeki
Nagura of the now-defunct Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, who was
then assigned to review the plant’s safety, in response to one of his
requests.
The detailed exchanges between the plant operator and
regulator came to light through the latest disclosure of government
records on its investigation into the nuclear crisis, adding to evidence
that TEPCO failed to take proper safety steps ahead of the world’s
worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
According to records of Nagura’s accounts, Nagura heard TEPCO’s explanations of its tsunami estimates at the agency office in Tokyo
in August and September 2009 as it was becoming clear that the coastal
areas of Fukushima and Miyagi prefectures were hit by massive tsunami in
an 869 earthquake.
TEPCO said the height of waves was estimated
to be around 8 meters above sea level and will not reach the plant site
located at a height of 10 meters, they show.
But Nagura said he
remembered thinking pumps with key cooling functions, which are located
on the ground at a height of 4 meters, “will not make it” and told
TEPCO, “If this is the outcome, you better consider concrete responses.”
