"After years of internal deliberation and controversy, the Obama administration has issued a document suggesting that when dealing with the aftermath of an accident or attack involving radioactive materials, public health guidelines can be made thousands of times less stringent than what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would normally allow."
"DUBAI -- A powerful earthquake struck close to Iran's only nuclear power station on Tuesday, killing 37 people and injuring 850 as it destroyed homes and devastated two small villages, Iranian media reported."
SEJ member Elizabeth H. McGowan and her InsideClimate News colleagues Lisa Song and David Hasemyer won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for their “The Dilbit Disaster” entry, an investigative piece uncovering what really happened when millions of gallons of tar sands oil from Canada poured into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River after a pipe burst. They were also named as a finalist in the Environmental Reporting category of the 2012 Scripps Howard Awards competition; earned an honorable mention in the 2012 John B. Oakes Award contest presented by the Columbia University School of Journalism; and won the 2012 James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism presented by Hunter College.
"More than 1,000 people were injured when a severe tornado ripped through Joplin, Missouri, on 22 May 2011, and 158 eventually died. Within a few days of the tornado, several of the injured began to suffer from a fungal infection suspected to be cutaneous necrotizing mucormycosis."
"Japan's Tokyo Electric Power Co said on Monday it does not have enough tank space should it need to move contaminated water from storage pits that started leaking over the weekend at its wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant."
"A federal judge on Friday rejected BP's attempt to block the Deepwater Horizon claims administrator from awarding what it said could be billions of dollars in payments for 'business economic losses' that the British oil giant contends are based on 'fictitious' claims of damage.
U.S. District Court Judge Carl Barbier, who also is overseeing the sprawling BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill trial, seemed unlikely from the onset of the hour-long hearing to issue the temporary injunction that BP sought as part of the class action suit.
"Environmental groups on Monday asked the Obama administration to extend the approval process of the Keystone XL pipeline, using last month's spill of heavy Canadian crude oil in Arkansas as their latest reason to delay the project."
"Two Arkansas women sue ExxonMobil after its Pegasus pipeline ruptured, spewing oil onto lawns and roads. The $5 million class-action suit charges the pipeline spill has permanently diminished their property value."
"Newly found court documents from long ago are raising fresh questions about the safety of nuclear reactors made by General Electric."
Reports from the spill of tar sands oil from an ExxonMobil pipeline at Mayflower, Arkansas, indicate that reporters are being kept from doing their jobs. They are kept far away from the oil, threatened with arrest, and told things that aren't true. It looks like Exxon — not federal clean-up agencies — is running the press operation. The result may be skewed or scant coverage — possibly a boon for an Obama administration facing a tough choice on the Keystone XL pipeline. More on media access at The Daily Glob.
