text: Environmental Must-Reads – October 12, 2012 | Stuart H. Smith
  Environmental Must-Reads – October 12, 2012
  A New Jersey firm has plans to build a 900 megawatt, $750 million natural gas-fired power plant in western Pennsylvania.
  This week a consultant's report basically stated that hydraulic fracturing in one of the country's largest urban oilfields is not harmful. The study will arouse lots of comment by proponents and opponents of "fracking," but both sides will find limited support for their arguments.
  Officials blame salt cavern
  The Louisiana Office of Conservation on Thursday night placed the blame for a 4.2-acre sinkhole, gas trapped in an underground aquifer and other events in northern Assumption Parish on the owner of a failed salt cavern inside the Napoleonville Dome.
  Niger Delta oil spills: Nigerian villagers sue Shell over pollution
  Shell was in court on Thursday to face claims that its oil has poisoned the Niger Delta and destroyed residents' livelihoods, in what's been hailed as a landmark pollution case.
  Just after mainstream financial news outlets reported that BP p.l.c. is close to a settlement for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 workers and caused the worst oil spill U.S. history, there is more bad news for BP that could cause its fine to soar tens of billions of dollars.
  Federal officials at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have pulled the curtain behind Enbridge's effort to greenwash its tar sands pipeline spill into Michigan's Kalamazoo River. On the same day that Enbridge told its investors that its tar sands spill and cleanup had made the Kalamazoo River cleaner, EPA ordered the Canadian tar sands pipeline company to resume its cleanup of the Kalamazoo River after finding that submerged oil "exists throughout approximately 38 miles of the Kalamazoo." EPA's findings, based on technical analysis from prominent scientists from the international oil spill response and recovery community, stand in stark contrast with the alternate reality that Enbridge is selling to investors and the public. Enbridge's legacy in Kalamazoo was outlined by federal investigators as a company whose poor safety practices and failures to learn from past mistakes which resulted in the most expensive onshore pipeline disaster in U.S. history. The Canadian tar sands company's recent attempt to gloss over this reality with a public relations campaign reveals the company has yet to learn this basic truth — simply saying something doesn't make it so.
  Judge upholds Nov. 1 deadline to opt out of oil-spill settlement
  Chevron Corp. has paid a multimillion-dollar fine for several "irregularities" in connection with last year's oil spill off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil's National Petroleum Agency said.
  In New Orleans yesterday, the federal on-scene coordinator for the BP oil spill issued a Notice of Federal Interest to BP and Transocean. Coast Guard Capt. Duke Walker issued the NOFI following sample results from an oil sheen located in the vicinity of where the Deepwater Horizon drill rig exploded and sank in 2010.
  BP Can't Plug Claims of Stealing Oil Spill Fix
  TAMPA, Fla. (CN) – A federal judge refused to dismiss claims that BP stole a Clearwater man's invention to clean up the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill that contaminated the Gulf Coast.
  Alabama political leaders today vowed to fight any deal between the U.S. Department of Justice and BP that would shift control of fine money from the 2010 oil spill to the federal government, away from the Gulf Coast states harmed by the catastrophe.
  Oil sheen near BP Gulf spill site from Macondo well
  An oil sheen spotted on the Gulf of Mexico near the site of the sunken Deepwater Horizon rig matches samples from BP Plc's ill-fated Macondo well, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
  The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is causing new headaches for BP and has prompted coastal communities and members of Congress to call for more oversight from the U.S. government