tagged w/ Coal
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by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
Image courtesy of Flickr user -Snugg-, via Creative Commons licenseSen. John Kerry (D-MA) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), though down one man, finally released their stab at climate legislation this week. One of the most crucial sections in the bill covers off-shore oil drilling, an issue that was supposed to help solve the tricky math of reaching 60 votes. But since the Deepwater Horizon rig sank in the Gulf of Mexico, drilling has become a wedge issue.
Just a few weeks ago, off-shore drilling could have been a point of compromise around which Senators could rally votes to pass the climate bill; now the bill had to strike a new balance to mollify both potential allies who oppose drilling, like Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), and those who support drilling, like Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA). The draft that Sen. Kerry and Sen. Lieberman released this week allows for expanded drilling but gives states veto power over new projects.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who worked on the bill, said that he had not seen the changes his two colleagues had made since he dropped out of the drafting process—but he looked forward to reviewing their work. Although Sen. Kerry says he thinks the bill can pass, without support from Sen. Graham or another Republican, chances are slim.
Next steps
Now that the two Senators have released the bill, the only work that remains is to pass it.
“I think climate change legislation is dead,” writes Kevin Drum at Mother Jones. His explanation:
“There’s not enough time for a bill to go through the committee process, get passed by the Senate, sent to conference, amended, and then passed by the full Congress before the midterms, and after the midterms Democrats will probably be reduced to 53 or 54 members in the Senate.”
Not everyone agrees that the bill’s chance are so dire, though.
“I think the chances are roughly as good as they’ve ever been in the Senate: low but non-trivial,” says Grist’s David Roberts.
Kerry’s argument
But should green-minded politicos root for the bill’s passage at all? Sen. Kerry and Sen. Lieberman worked closely with energy companies while drafting the bill, and the resulting legislation balances the need to reduce carbon emissions with the interests of prime polluters. The bill includes incentives for old energy industries like coal and natural gas, for instance, and exempts farmers from carbon caps.
On Wednesday, Sen. Kerry made his case to left-leaning environmentalists. “A comprehensive climate bill written purely for you and me — true believers — can’t pass the Senate no matter how hard or passionate I fight on it,” he wrote for Grist. The bill they have, he wrote, can pass, and that victory outweighs the compromises in the legislation.
Responses from the left
On Democracy Now!, Phil Radford, the executive director of GreenPeace USA, said that most environmental groups have given the bill little more than a “tepid endorsement.” Radford squared off on the show with Joseph Romm of the Center for American Progress, who supports the bill.
“This will be the first bill ever passed by the Senate, if it were to pass, that would put us on a path to get off of fossil fuels,” Romm said.
The two men were also divided over issues like the impact the climate bill could have on international negotiations.
They agreed, though, there is room for improvement; the only question is whether the politics of climate change will allow for the passage of a stronger bill any times soon. As Kevin Drum wrote, “If you think this year’s bills are watered down, just wait until you see what a Congress with a hair-thin Democratic majority produces.”
Coal and natural gas
Tripping up environmentalists now, though, are the hand-outs to dirty energy industries. The coal and natural gas industry could both benefit from the provisions of the Senate bill, for instance.
On GritTV, Jeff Biggers, a writer and educator who covers the coal industry, explained his frustration:
“The climate bill is a nice first step and a very well meaning effort for someone like Sen. Kerry who’s been working on this issue for 20 years. But at the same time, because of the massive big coal lobby that has poured millions of dollars into lobbying congress on this climate legislation…there are all sorts of little panders and loopholes and exemptions.”
“What we see in this bill is that Sen. Kerry and Lieberman want to ensure coal’s future,” he said.
The booming natural gas industry also had a hand in shaping the bill and benefited from it. Environmental groups like the Sierra Club favor natural gas as an energy source over coal, and as Kari Lydersen reports in Working In These Times, the industry is driving job growth at a time when the economy needs a boost.
But as Alex Halperin reported last month for The American Prospect, in the places where drilling is occurring, like Ithaca, NY, activists are arguing that the environmental risks could outweigh those economic benefits.
Drill or be drilled
That devil’s bargain—risking natural resources for jobs in the energy industry—went the wrong way for the Gulf Coast, and states like Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida are paying the price even before the oil hits shore.
As I report in AlterNet, the Gulf’s economy could lose billions of dollars and is suffering already from the misconception that its beaches are tarred with oil. With this catastrophe still fresh in voters’ minds, the Senate climate bill proposes pushing new drilling initiatives 75 miles offshore and giving affected states veto power over these projects.
Depending on how long the memory of the Deepwater Horizon spill lasts, politicians could have a good reason to veto drilling. Public News Service reports that 55% of Floridians now oppose off-shore drilling, “almost a complete reversal from one year ago.”
Blame game
Certainly no one is stepping up to take responsibility for the explosion off the coast of Louisiana, as the Washington Independent reports. At a hearing this week, officials from British Petroleum, which was operating the well, Transocean, which owns it, and Halliburton, which was doing contract work that may have caused the problem, all denied wrongdoing and pressed the blame on each other.
It’s starting to look Halliburton played a key part. “The focus is increasingly shifting to the role of Halliburton, which poured the cement for the rig, as well as for another operation that spilled oil off the coast of Australia last August,” writes Kate Sheppard at Mother Jones. The company apparently did not place a cement plug that would have kept gas in the well before emptying it of the mud that was holding in the flammable gas.
Anyone living in a state that could have new drilling off their coast should keep this catastrophe in mind if their politicians are given the option of vetoing new projects.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
Image courtesy of Flickr user -Snugg-,... more
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Only diamond is harder than sapphire.That's why sapphire is being tested as a sensor that could relay critical information about extreme conditions present during gasification, the process of heating coal until it becomes a gas.
link :http://news.discovery.com/tech/sapphire-sensor.htmlOnly diamond is harder than sapphire.That's why sapphire is being tested as a... more
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NPR News reports that the FBI is investigating the possible bribery of federal officials overseeing mining industry regulation by Massey Energy, the owner of the Upper Big Branch mine that exploded three weeks ago, killing 29 miners.
"The Mine Safety and Health Administration is the target of a federal criminal investigation," NPR notes, and "FBI agents are also exploring potential criminal negligence on the part of Massey Energy."
The nation's top mine safety official told lawmakers earlier this week that the government will start going directly to federal court to shut down mines that make a habit of ignoring safety.
Joe Main, director of the Mine Safety and Health Administration, said his agency has had the power to seek federal injunctions for years, but has never tried to use it.
"I can't speak for past administrations," Main said during the Senate's first hearing on the accident that killed 29 men. "We're going to use it."
Main also called for a slew of other legal and regulatory reforms to beef up safety enforcement in the wake of this month's deadly explosion at a mine in West Virginia.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee convened the hearing to look at weaknesses in current laws that encourage mine operators and companies in other industries to challenge safety violations to delay stiffer penalties.NPR News reports that the FBI is investigating the possible bribery of federal... more
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"It's premature to say this is catastrophic." The words of Gulf Coast Coast Guard Commander Mary Landry about the BP oil spill Tuesday were spoken as the families of eleven rig workers were still waiting for word of their loved ones, now presumed dead. While Landry may have reviewed her assessment, the word still makes one think. How do we define catastrophe? By Iraq's uncounted dead? By the uncounted casualties of greed on Wall Street? By the 40,000 dead a year due to lack of health insurance? How about by the 5,000 workers who die every year on the job? April 28 marked Workers Memorial Day, when workers and their unions pause to remember those who die or are injured at work. This year’s toll already includes 29 men killed in a dangerous but money-making mine, 195 coalition forces in a couple of imperial wars. And how about the thousands in Haiti impoverished so we can have cheap shirts? Those eleven oil rig workers might have been saved by a safe-guard switch that other oil producing countries require but US regulators don't. And as I speak, two more miners are trapped beneath the rubble of a Kentucky coal mine's collapsed roof. Maybe at the end of Confederate History Month, it's time to admit that's it not just good ol' boy Southern governors who like to hush about slavery and loss. In an economic climate that prizes wealth over life, the erasure of pain in pursuit of profit is as American as mining or drilling. As American as making a killing. The F Word is a regular commentary by Laura Flanders, the host of GRITtv which broadcasts weekdays on satellite TV (Dish Network Ch. 9415 Free Speech TV) on cable, and online at GRITtv.org and TheNation.com."It's premature to say this is catastrophic." The words of Gulf Coast... more
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There are criminal sanctions available for negligent corporate officers, but this looks like a straight up case of negligent homicide:
Mine Workers (UMWA) President Cecil Roberts says that Massey Energy Co.’s continued inaction on safety violations at its Upper Big Branch Mine, where 29 West Virginia coal miners died in an April 5 explosion, should send Massey CEO Donald Blankenship to jail.
In a speech at the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO convention yesterday, Roberts said, “If there is any justice in America,”
U.S. Marshals should go to where he lives, get him, handcuff him, put him in chains, take him to jail, set his fine at $40 million.
He told the delegates the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) inspectors had “shut this mine down over and over and over again.”
They brought the men outside, they brought them to a safe place. But as soon as they left the same thing happened again and again. They didn’t correct the violations.
In 2009, MSHA proposed nearly $1 million in fines for more than 450 safety violations at the nonunion mine. Just last month, MSHA cited the mine for 57 safety violations that included repeatedly failing to develop and follow the ventilation plan. Ventilation is vital to prevent the build-up of highly explosive methane gas, which is most likely the cause of the April blast.
Roberts said the Massey mine was cited several times for “failure to abate.”
What does that mean? They were told to do something by the United States government. They said here’s a violation you are being cited for. I’ll be back in five days and this better be corrected. This inspector came back over and over again and they didn’t correct the violations.
Some people, Roberts said, say mining is inherently dangerous and these things will happen and “there’s nothing we can do about it.”
They are damn sure wrong. We need good laws, we need those laws to be obeyed and we need those laws to be enforced and those who fail to obey those laws should be punished.
One of the miners killed, 25-year-old Josh Napper, was concerned about safety, especially ventilation problems at the Upper Big Branch Mine, his mother told CNN reporters after the blast. Roberts said he left a letter for his family before he went to the mine April 5. Napper “left it with his mother and fiancé and his baby fearing he was not going to survive working in this coal mine.”
There is something wrong with this picture. When young men go off to war, they write these kinds of letters, saying how much we love our mothers, our fathers, our wives and our kids. But in America, you’re not supposed to write that letter when you’re going off to work.There are criminal sanctions available for negligent corporate officers, but this... more
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According to environmental group the Sierra Club, the state of North Carolina largely ignores millions of tons of ash from coal-fired power plants that threatens to contaminate N.C. groundwater, lakes and streams.According to environmental group the Sierra Club, the state of North Carolina largely... more
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The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration has ordered the evacuation of miners from parts of the Upper Big Branch coal mine 64 times since the beginning of 2009 because of safety violations.The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration has ordered the evacuation of miners... more
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The federal investigators probing into the massive explosion that killed 29 West Virginia coal miners last week might take note: According to a review of federal records by The Washington Independent, the dozens of other active tunnel mines owned by the same energy company have run up thousands of safety violations this year alone. Hundreds of those citations target the same problems with ventilation and methane buildup that many suspect sparked the West Virginia disaster.The federal investigators probing into the massive explosion that killed 29 West... more
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On April 13th, Chicago Alderman Joe Moore, ELPC and a coalition of business and community groups unveiled a City ordinance that would significantly reduce soot and greenhouse gas pollution from Chicago's coal plants. The Clean Power Ordinance would make Chicago the first city in the nation to regulate pollution from coal plants.
Keep reading: http://bit.ly/92ov6uOn April 13th, Chicago Alderman Joe Moore, ELPC and a coalition of business and... more
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The Captain and a senior officer of the Shen Neng 1, the ship that ripped a two mile gash into the Great Barrier Reef spilling oil have been arrested by Australian authorities.The Captain and a senior officer of the Shen Neng 1, the ship that ripped a two mile... more
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A Chinese ship that spent nine days stranded on the Great Barrier Reef gouged a three-kilometre (two-mile) scar in the coral that could take decades to recover, a top expert said on Tuesday.
David Wachenfeld, chief scientist at the body overseeing the heritage-listed marine park, said the Shen Neng 1 coal carrier had been grinding against and crushing the reef after it veered off course and smashed into it on April 3.
Officials have expressed anger over the incident and accused the crew of the ship, which was refloated late on Monday and towed away, of taking an illegal route.
"This is by far the largest ship grounding scar we have seen on the Great Barrier Reef to date," Wachenfeld told public broadcaster ABC.
"This vessel did not make an impact in one place and rest there and then was pulled off. This scar is more in the region of three kilometres long and up to 250 metres (yards) wide."
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called the accident, which also leaked about two tonnes of fuel oil into the pristine seas, an "absolute outrage".
"It is still an absolute outrage that this vessel could've landed on the Great Barrier Reef," he said. "We will leave no stone unturned when it comes to finding out how that happened."
An approaching storm hurried authorities into refloating the 230-metre (750 feet) ship -- the length of two football pitches -- after nightfall on Monday. They pumped compressed air into its bunkers and pulled it free using tugboats.
Officials said the rescue had been carried out without adding to the initial oil spill, which created a three-kilometre slick.
Divers were due to assess damage to the ship, still carrying 68,000 tonnes of China-bound coal, which has been towed to a nearby island.
But concern on Tuesday focused on the plight of the reef, which was also left plastered with toxic anti-fouling paint from the ship's hull.
Divers "have found significant scarring and coral damage. They've also found quite a lot of anti-fouling (paint) spread across the reef," Russell Reichelt, chairman of the marine park authority, told ABC radio.
"It is a concern because it's designed to be toxic and stop things growing on ships. We've already seen observations where anti-fouling paint that's been scraped off onto the reef is killing corals in its vicinity."
Officials have promised to investigate allegations that ships have been taking short-cuts through the world's biggest reef, which covers 344,000 square kilometres (137,600 square miles) off the east coast and is a major tourist draw.A Chinese ship that spent nine days stranded on the Great Barrier Reef gouged a... more
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Like everybody else in the country this week, I’ve been following the West Virginia mine tragedy, hoping against hope that the miners – some of them, any of them – would be found alive.Like everybody else in the country this week, I’ve been following the West... more
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By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
Coal consumption has costs — this week’s explosion at a West Virginia mine, which killed 25, made that clear. Those costs aren’t limited to human lives, either. Massey Energy Co., the owner of the West Virginia mine, has not just racked up safety violations but also consistently disregarded the environmental effects of its work.
Black marks on Massey’s record
This week’s explosion is far from the first debacle associated with a Massey project, and past incidents have had disastrous impacts on the environment. In 2000, a break in a Massey-owned reservoir, filled with coal waste, caused more damage than the Exxon Valdez spill, Steve Benen writes at The Washington Monthly. Clara Bingham described the flood of sludge for the magazine in 2005:
“The gooey mixture of black water and coal tailings traveled downstream through Coldwater and Wolf creeks, and later through the river’s main stem, Tug Fork. Ten days later, an inky plume appeared in the Ohio River. On its 75-mile path of destruction, the sludge obliterated wildlife, killed 1.6 million fish, ransacked property, washed away roads and bridges, and contaminated the water systems of 27,623 people.”
A year later, another 30,000 gallons of sludge poured into a river in Madison, WV, “with nary a peep from Massey,” Kevin Connor points out at AlterNet.
The company routinely scorns environmental regulations, too, as Andy Kroll reports for Mother Jones:
“Between 2000 and 2006, Massey violated the Clean Water Act more than 4,500 times by dumping sediment and leftover mining waste into rivers in Kentucky and West Virginia, the EPA said in 2008. (Environmental groups say the EPA’s tally is a lowball figure; they estimate that the true number of violations is more than 12,000.) As a result of these breaches of the law, the company agreed to pay the EPA a $20 million settlement.”
It appears that prior spills have not chastened Massey, either. Brooke Jarvis at Yes! Magazine notes that the company stores 8.2 billion gallons of coal sludge in the same West Virginia county suffering from this week’s explosion, and that two months ago, “West Virginia’s Department of Environmental Protection issued a notice of violation because the dam failed to meet safety requirements.”
Don Blankenship, denier!
Massey’s owner, Don Blankenship, has as dark a record as his company on environmental issues. Blankenship believes in the “survival of the most productive,” Mike Lillis writes at The Washington Independent, which means that safety and environmental concerns come second. He “loves to slam ‘greeniacs’ for believing in things like climate change,” says Nick Baumann at Mother Jones. The Colorado Independent’s David O. Williams calls Blankenship “a notorious right-wing climate change denier and outspoken critic of the policies of ‘Obama bin Laden,’” and notes that Blankenship is on the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has tried its hardest to squelch any climate legislation eking through Congress.
Methane and mountaintop removal
Although Massey and Blankenship stand out for their scorn of the environment, all coal production extracts a cost. Accidents and violations like Massey’s can devastate forests and streams, but coal’s biggest environmental impact comes when it is burned and pours tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As Yes! Magazine’s Jarvis puts it, “Coal may be cheap now, but that’s simply because we’re not counting—and don’t even know how to count—the long-term costs.”
The Obama administration has taken some steps towards limiting coal production. Last week the EPA announced restrictions that would limit mountaintop removal mining. But those regulations won’t ban the practice altogether. The Senate could, in theory, take up that task: Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) introduced a bill a year ago that would make mountaintop removal mining so expensive it would be economically infeasible, effectively banning the practice, Mike Lillis reports for The Washington Independent. Although the bill accrued a few more sponsors during 2009, mostly liberal Democrats like Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), it hasn’t attracted much attention and is still sitting in the Environment and Public Works Committee.
In the Mountain West, the Bureau of Land Management is opening up federal lands for coal mining and claiming it can’t require companies to flare off or capture methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, David O. Williams reports for The Colorado Independent. Without methane capture, the new mines would pour carbon pollution into the atmosphere. This BLM stance, Williams writes, has green advocates in Colorado “longingly reminiscing about the bygone days of the Bush administration,” which said it would require companies to manage methane.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
Coal consumption has costs — this... more
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"EPA announced Tuesday, April 6, 2010 that it is proposing to add to its Toxics Release Inventory list 16 new chemicals which 'can reasonably be anticipated to cause cancer in humans.' ”
Two excerpts:
"Listed below are the chemicals that EPA wants to add to the TRI list, and some of their common uses (why life may be inconceivable without them).
Isoprene. A compound involved in coal burning.
Glycidol. Used in the pharmaceutical industry and as a stabilizer of vinyl polymers, and as an additive to hydraulic fluids. Over a decade ago, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration set an exposure limit on glycidol, at 150 milligrams/cubic meter.
1-Amino-2,4-dibromoanthraquinone (ADBAQ). Textile dyes.
2,2-bis(Bromomethyl)-1,3-propanediol (BBMP). Various flame retardants.
Furan. Typically is derived from pine wood heated at high temperatures (1300 degrees F).
Methyl Eugenol. Pesticide products and flavoring in foods.
o-Nitroanisole. Pharmaceutical preparation.
Nitromethane. Cleaning solvents, industrial degreasers, and superglues.
Phenolphthalein. Long used in laxatives (and therefore practical jokes on roommates), as well as toys with disappearing inks.
Tetrafluoroethylene. Teflon and Fluon, when polymerized into polytetrafluoroethylene.
Tetranitromethane. Additive to diesel fuel.
Vinyl Fluoride. Weather-resistant surfaces for commercial and residential buildings.
1, 8 and 1,6-Dinitropyrene, 6-Nitrochrysene Found in diesel engine exhaust.
4-Nitropyrene. An environmental carcinogen."
"There will be a 60-day public comment period on EPA’s recent additions to the TRI list. Comments will be taken,
1. Online, http://www.regulations.gov
2. Email, oei.docket@ epa.gov
3. Mail, Office of Environmental Information (OEI) Docket, Environmental Protection Agency, Mail Code: 28221T, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20460.
4. Hand Delivery, EPA Docket Center (EPA/DC), EPA West, Room 3334, 1301 Constitution Ave., NW., Washington, DC 20460. Such deliveries are only accepted during the Center’s normal hours of operation.
Give them a piece of your mind.
The citizenry must ensure that EPA isn’t acting prejudicially, and unfairly crusading after the coal, pharmaceutical, construction, biomass, pesticide, textile, fire-fighting, food, diesel fuel, cleaning and adhesives products, non-stick cookwares, Hollywood Hair Barbie, and chemically-induced-bowel-movement industries."
http://tenthmil.com/campaigns/restore/epa_to_add_16_new_chemicals_to_toxic_release_inventory
Take action, let your voice be heard!
Join the Organic Movement:
http://current.com/groups/organicgreen/"EPA announced Tuesday, April 6, 2010 that it is proposing to add to its Toxics... more
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The owner of a West Virginia coal mine where 25 miners died in the industry’s deadliest U.S. disaster in a quarter century had been warned repeatedly of safety concerns there.
Federal records show that this year alone, investigators from the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) cited or issued safety orders for the Upper Big Branch mine 123 times. That followed 517 MSHA citations and safety orders for the same mine in 2009 that resulted in fines of close to $900,000 that year.
That’s just one Massey Energy coal mine, and the numbers aren’t unusual. ...
http://solveclimate.com/blog/20100406/coal-mine-where-25-died-had-been-fined-repeatedly-safety-violationsThe owner of a West Virginia coal mine where 25 miners died in the industry’s... more
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Salvagers were struggling to prevent the Shen Neng I breaking up in pristine waters off the country's northeastern coast, potentially spilling hundreds of tons of oil over the reef, which is one of Australia's top tourist attractions.
The ship slammed into Douglas Shoal on Saturday traveling at full speed and significantly away from normal shipping lanes.
"I think the book should be thrown at this organization," Queensland state Premier Anna Bligh told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
"This is a very delicate part of one of the most precious marine environments on earth and there are safe, authorized shipping channels and that's where this ship should have been."
A government said the vessel was owned by The Shenzhen Energy Group, part of the group of the China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company, better known by its acronym COSCO.
More-
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63302920100405?feedType=RSSSalvagers were struggling to prevent the Shen Neng I breaking up in pristine waters... more
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The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed an unprecedented veto to restrict or prohibit mining at a major proposed US mountaintop removal coal mining site.The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed an unprecedented veto to restrict or... more
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