Environmental Watchdog News

A section of the oil pipeline that burst off the Southern California coast was displaced 105 feet (32 meters) across the ocean floor, officials said on Tuesday, fueling speculation that a ship's anchor may have caused the environmental disaster.The revelation came as the U.S. Coast Guard and drilling company Amplify Energy Corp came under further scrutiny about the time it took to respond to the spill, amid reports that mariners first reported seeing oil in the water on Friday night…

An oil spill off Russia's Black Sea coast over the weekend spread over an area of nearly 80 square kilometers and was much larger than initially thought, scientists at Russia's Academy of Sciences (RAN) said on Wednesday citing satellite imaging.A leak occurred as the Greek-flagged Minerva Symphony tanker took on oil at the Yuzhno-Ozereyevka sea terminal near Novorossiysk in southern Russia, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium that owns the terminal said on Monday.The consortium, which transports oil from Kazakhstan, said on Monday the spill had spread over 200 square meters and involved 12 cubic meters of oil. It said the spill was quickly contained and posed no threat to people or wildlife.But on Wednesday…

Brazilian authorities plan to implement legislation to help prevent that vessels owned by exporters such as Petrobras and Vale wind up on South Asia's beaching yards, Bloomberg reported. The report said that earlier this month, authorities decided to develop a legal framework to ensure former Brazilian ships don’t end up with recyclers notorious for using dirty and dangerous methods, federal environmental watchdog Ibama said by email. Brazilian companies could face fines of as much as 10 million reais ($3.2 million) if Ibama finds they violate international standards by letting their vessels end up in substandard shipbreaking facilities in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Italy went to the polls on Sunday for a referendum on off-shore oil and gas drilling rights, a complex issue that the government hopes voters will shun. For the ballot to be valid, more than 50 percent of the Italian electorate must vote and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has urged people to stay away, saying that the referendum is unnecessary and might end up hurting the economy. It would be a blow to Renzi if substantial numbers did turn out, suggesting voters were ready to snub him just weeks before major local elections. But opinion polls have indicated that a quorum will not be reached. The referendum focuses on whether Italy should stop renewing offshore drilling licenses within 12 miles (20 km) of the coast.

Global warming could make life in the oil-rich, desert kingdoms of the Gulf "intolerable," with summer temperatures exceeding 60 degrees Celsius (140 F) by 2100 if action is not taken to curb fossil fuel emissions, a study warned on Monday. Using climate models and other scientific data, researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Loyola Marymount University found five of the region's major cities, including Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, would exceed the limit of human habitability in summer months. "If greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current trajectory, then temperatures in that region will reach levels intolerable to humans," Elfatih A.B. Eltahir, an MIT engineering professor and the study's co-author, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Canada is set to badly miss a 2020 target for cutting emissions of greenhouse gases, in part because of its failure to regulate the booming oil and gas sector, Parliament's environmental watchdog said on Tuesday. The scathing report by Environment Commissioner Julie Gelfand will add to the political challenges faced by the right-leaning Conservative government, which polls show could lose power in an election set for 2015. The government has deep political roots in energy-rich Western Canada - home to the Alberta tar sands - and says it will do nothing to harm economic development. Gelfand found Ottawa did not even have a plan for how it would meet a commitment under the 2009 Copenhagen Accord to cut emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

Canada will have trouble ensuring marine safety in the Arctic as climate change melts the sea ice and shipping increases, Parliament's environmental watchdog said on Tuesday. Canada, said Environment Commissioner Julie Gelfand, had "no long-term national vision" to cope with more shipping in the region, where firms are trying to exploit reserves of oil, gold, diamonds, iron ore, zinc and other commodities. Gelfand said many high-risk areas in the Arctic had been inadequately surveyed.

According to a September 10 report from Bloomberg, an environmental watchdog group said in a lawsuit that BP Plc’s Atlantis oil and gas production platform in the Gulf of Mexico should be shut until the company can prove it meets U.S. safety and engineering standards. Food & Water Watch sued BP in federal court in Houston on Sept. 10. The group revised a lawsuit that it filed against U.S. regulators in May, accusing them of failing to investigate Atlantis after a whistleblower warned that the platform lacks critical safety documentation. The group withdrew the initial lawsuit in June, after London-based BP won court permission to intervene in the case. (Source: Bloomberg)

Petron Corp. is negotiating with a Singaporean company to bring in advanced technology that would determine the exact location of the oil tanker that sank off Guimaras island and siphon off the remaining bunker oil still in the vessel. Lori Tan of the World Wide Fund said Petron, which chartered the ill-fated M/T Solar I, will bring in deep-sea contractors who will use a side scan zoner to determine the wreck’s actual location on the seabed, a remotely piloted submersible to find the leak, and hot tap to siphon the oil that is still contained in the tanker’s hold. Environment Secretary Angelo Reyes and Tan believe the cleanup might take two years if all the needed technology and assistance arrive soon.