A fatal November 30, 2012, collapse of part of a coal-slurry impoundment in West Virginia served as a reminder of safety issues that may not be adequately regulated in some states and localities. You can locate local coal-slurry impoundments and information on their status with an online public database.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was joined by the Washington (PA) Observer-Reporter in a suit to unseal records of the July 2011 settlement of a case in which a family had sued four natural gas companies over damages they claimed were caused by hydraulic fracturing. The appeals court said a lower court had erred in throwing out the newspapers' case.
"Contractors worked throughout the night to remove and replace an 800-foot swath of Interstate 77 that turned from asphalt to cinder in a massive natural gas line explosion that also flattened four homes and damaged five more but caused no deaths."
"CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Details began to emerge Wednesday of previous problems at a Harrison County coal-slurry impoundment, as CONSOL Energy continued its efforts to locate a coal miner missing and presumed dead following last week's collapse of an embankment at the facility."
"Salty bromide concentrations in the Monongahela River, which had risen in 2009 and 2010 due, at least in part, to discharges of Marcellus Shale gas drilling wastewater by sewage treatment plants, returned to normal levels in 2011 and this year, according to a Carnegie Mellon University river monitoring study."
"An anonymous donor is giving Georgetown University $20 million to support a major initiative for the study of the environment, school officials say."
"PHILADELPHIA -- Pennsylvania officials reported incomplete test results that omitted data on some toxic metals that were found in drinking water taken from a private well near a natural gas drilling site, according to legal documents released this week."
"The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has created incomplete lab reports and used them to dismiss complaints that Marcellus Shale gas development operations have contaminated residential water supplies and made people sick, according to court documents and other sources."
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