European Union Moves to Ban Most Plastics By 2020

January 18, 2014

European Union Moves to Ban Most Plastics By 2020 Article from European Parliament, EcoWatch.org, January 15, 2014  The most hazardous plastics and certain plastic bags should be banned by 2020, as part of an EU strategy to reduce plastic waste in the environment, says the European Parliament in a resolution voted yesterday. The EU Parliment may also introduce [...]

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Major Antarctic Glacier Melting Irreversibly, Reaching Tipping Point

January 17, 2014

Major Antarctic Glacier Melting Irreversibly, Reaching Tipping Point From Yale Environment 360,  January 14, 2014 A major Antarctic ice mass, the Pine Island Glacier, is melting irreversibly and could add as much as a centimeter to global sea level rise over the next 20 years alone, according to new research published in Nature Climate Change. Ice flow [...]

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Shale Industry Ramping Up Spending Rapidly for Oil & Gas

January 16, 2014

Local Shale Industry Spending Ramping Up Rapidly  >> Construction expenditures for the area take a huge jump from 2012 From an Article By Casey Junkins, Wheeling Intelligencer, 01/14/14  WHEELING – Powered by extensive Marcellus and Utica shale processing and pipelining infrastructure, the Wheeling Metropolitan Statistical Area saw construction investments grow from $60.3 million in 2012 [...]

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Exxon Starts World’s First “Crude-Cracking” Petrochemical Unit

January 15, 2014

Exxon uses crude oil instead of refined naphtha oil to make petrochemicals  From Article by Florence Tan and Seng Li Peng, Reuters, January 8, 2014 SINGAPORE – – ExxonMobil officially launched the world’s first chemical unit that processes crude oil in Singapore, aiming to lower costs to better compete with rivals in a market saddled with excess [...]

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Pennsylvania PA-DEP Holding Hearings on Revisions to Oil & Gas Regulations

January 14, 2014

Attend a January Hearing on PA Oil and Gas Regs From Matt Walker, Clean Air Council, www.cleanair.org The Department of Environmental Protection (PA-DEP) and the PA Environmental Quality Board recently announced that a public comment period is open for the long-awaited proposed revisions to oil and gas regulations that include performance standards for oil and [...]

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Spill Lesson: “Protecting Clean Water Is Not a Luxury”

January 13, 2014

Spill Lesson: “Protecting Clean Water Is Not a Luxury” From the Article by Dan Heyman, WV Public News Service, January 13, 2014 CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Many West Virginians have decided that the lesson from the Freedom Industries chemical spill is to better protect their water from pollution. For years, the state has seen legal and [...]

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Shale Drilling Affects Real Property Values

January 12, 2014

Fracking adversely impacts our proud land Letter to the Editor by S. Tom Bond, Charleston Gazette, January 5, 2014 A lot of land is used for shale drilling, perhaps 14 to 18 acres per well pad. Go to Google Earth and “fly around over” Doddridge or Wetzel counties at about 2500 feet. You can now see [...]

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WV Legislature Could Improve our Economics & Environment?

January 11, 2014

Marcellus reforms not on W.Va. Democrats’ agenda From the Article by Ken Ward Jr., Charleston Gazette, January 8, 2014 When West Virginia lawmakers more than two years ago approved Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s Horizontal Drilling Act, they included requirements for a wide variety of studies. Follow-up reports were to look at water pollution, impoundment safety, [...]

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Adverse Fracking Impacts, and Blaming the Environmentalists?

January 10, 2014

Why  . . . environmentalists get the blame . . . Commentary by S. Tom Bond, Retired Chemistry Professor and Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV” Establishment” articles do not do justice to the nature and extent of local complaints at the point of extraction of shale gas and oil.  Although they range from property devaluation [...]

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WV-DEP Issues Stop Work Order at Jay-Bee Gas Well Pad

January 9, 2014

WV-DEP News: Cease Operations Order Issued for Lisby Well Pad in Tyler County ============================ Wednesday, January 8, 2014 @ 1:30 PM ============================ The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s Office of Oil and Gas (OOG) has issued a Notice of Violation, as well as a Cease Operations Order, to Jay Bee Oil & Gas in [...]

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