Disasters

"In 1957, author John Graves decided to take a canoe trip down the upper Brazos River before a series of dams would turn his favorite stretch of river into a string of lakes. Graves feared that his beloved river would be squeezed dry if five proposed flood-control dams were built in the upper Brazos."

"RALEIGH, N.C. — Records subpoenaed by federal prosecutors show engineers working for Duke Energy warned the company nearly 30 years before a massive coal ash spill that a stormwater pipe running under an ash dump was made of corrugated metal and needed to be monitored for leaks."

"SPOKANE, Wash. — Numerous speakers told a state Senate committee Tuesday that they oppose the rapid increase in railcars carrying crude oil from the Bakken fields of North Dakota and Montana through the state."

"Skeptics of the plan to build a massive ice wall around Japan’s crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility didn’t have to wait particularly long for their first 'I told you so.'"

"Trains carrying a potentially more flammable crude oil have begun rolling with little notice through Sacramento and California in the last year, prompting concerns about safety and calls for more transparency, but state officials said Friday they have decided for now not to release information to the public on where those trains run or how many there are."

"'What gets everybody really suspicious is that you don't have access to watch it, which raises all kinds of issues about transparency.'"

"Somewhere in China, a man typed his user name, 'ghost,' and password, 'hijack,' and proceeded to rifle the computers of a utility in the Northeastern U.S."

"A heated budget battle in Sacramento over more oil-spill protection for rivers, lakes and other inland bodies of water has prompted a last-minute lobbying blitz by formidable adversaries: the oil industry and environmentalists."