A Louisiana appellate court has ordered the state Department of Environmental Quality to analyze the potential harmful effects of a practice that, surprisingly, hasn’t been widely publicized in the wake of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf and decades of coastal land loss: the dumping of waste water that’s used in offshore drilling operations.
According to an Associated Press report published on Forbes’ website, the state’s top environmental watchdog group contends that waste waters from drilling platforms contain radioactive materials, which, over time, seep into marine wildlife and eventually enter the food chain. The Louisiana Environmental Action Network sued DEQ in 2009 when it issued waste water permits to offshore drilling companies without first testing the waste water product for contaminants.
The “produced water,” as termed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, must be treated before its dumped into state sea waters along the coast, according to DEQ. But a 1st Circuit Court of Appeals judge has ruled that DEQ “abused its discretion” when it issued the permits in 2009 without further studying what exactly’s being tossed off of the 98 drilling operations that will be impacted by the ruling:
There are 98 drilling operations located between Louisiana’s coast and 3 miles offshore that are affected by the ruling, said Rodney Mallett, a spokesman for the department.
Mallett said there was no evidence that dumping produced waters in the open sea is harmful. He said the fluids get churned up by the winds, currents and water depths.
The environmental group says the waste water from oil drilling can contain at least 50 chemical and radioactive compounds. It also says some drillers have been known to take waste from drilling operations in federal waters, which lie even farther offshore, and dump them in state waters.
In federal waters, drillers face tough restrictions on produced waters, said Eric Smith of the Tulane Energy Institute. They must treat the waste thoroughly, sometime inject it deep underground or even ship it ashore, he said.
The quality department said it was reviewing the court decision and that it had not decided whether to appeal to the Louisiana Supreme Court.
Read more on the court’s decision here.
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
Most Read
in case you missed it
Subscribe to this comment's feed