Latest Hazards Stories

NEW ORLEANS, May 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Research indicates that significant public health impact is not unprecedented from a major oil spill on the water. Commercial fishermen and shrimpers have filed a class-action lawsuit against BP and owners of the oil rig for economic losses stemming from the disaster. The lawsuit will also seek requisite protective equipment, training and air monitoring for response workers. Mr. Smith released the following statement: "Reports of chemical exposures have...

HOUSTON, May 3 /PRNewswire/ -- TTI Exploration, a privately held geosciences technology company based in Houston, is beginning operations to support environmental surveillance efforts in response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that followed the explosion of Transocean's Deepwater Horizon drilling unit operated by BP and supported by Halliburton and Cameron International. TTI has begun deploying its proprietary Natural Resource Mapping (NRM(TM)) technology to establish a pre-spill...

Strong winds and rough seas hampered efforts to contain a vast spreading oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday. The explosion that sunk the Deepwater Horizons rig and claimed the lives of 11 workers has now evolved into a significant environmental crisis that is on the verge of threatening the Gulf fishing industry and already fragile marshlands that are home to numerous wildlife species. President Obama plans on visiting the Gulf region on Sunday after officials from his administration...

The oil slick that resulted from a sunken rig has now reached the shores of Louisiana, and with as much as 200,000 gallons of crude being added to the Gulf of Mexico daily, the accident could wind up becoming the worst such disaster in United States history.According to Allen Johnson of the AFP, "Strong southeast winds blew the first oily strands of the 600-mile- (1,550-kilometer-) circumference slick directly onto the coastal wetlands of South Pass near the mouth of the Mississippi...

PENSACOLA, Fla., April 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Yesterday in the Northern District of Florida Federal Court, Brad Bradford of Aylstock, Witkin, Kreis & Overholtz along with Mat Richardson of Jackson, Foster, & Richardson filed suit on behalf of John T. Harris, a commercial fisherman from Panama City. Following the explosion of the oil drilling platform Deepwater Horizon, John T. Harris has brought a class action lawsuit against BP, Transocean, Cameron International Corporation, and...

The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is five times larger than originally thought, the Coast Guard reported on Thursday, and it could spell disaster for the fragile wetlands along the U.S. coast.During a Wednesday evening press conference, Rear Admiral Mary Landry told reporters the drilling rig that had exploded and sank in the waters near Louisiana on April 20 was leaking 5,000 barrels of crude oil a day, not the 1,000 barrels that Coast Guard officials had previously thought. She...

Texas State Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson said crews worked Sunday to protect two sensitive wildlife areas after a crude oil spill shut down parts of a major southeast Texas port, The Washington Post said.Patterson said clean-up crews set up plastic walls, known as booms, and oil-sucking skimmer boats to safeguard a lake that is a crucial breeding ground and a wildlife management area that lost its protective gates when Hurricane Ike roared ashore a year and a half ago.Around 462,000...

Company has also agreed to upgrade spill prevention and response plans WASHINGTON, May 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Anadarko Petroleum Co., and two related oil production companies have agreed to pay a civil penalty of more than $1 million and implement injunctive relief, develop facility response plans, and revise spill prevention as well as containment plans at a cost of more than $8 million during the term of the settlement in order to resolve violations of the Clean Water Act, the...

A new Queen's University study shows that detergents used to clean up spills of diesel oil actually increase its toxicity to fish, making it more harmful."The detergents may be the best way to treat spills in the long term because the dispersed oil is diluted and degraded," says Biology professor Peter Hodson. "But in the short term, they increase the bioavailability and toxicity of the fuel to rainbow trout by 100-fold."The detergents are oil dispersants that decrease the...

Two women were hurt during a frantic stampede at a New York casting call for America's Next Top Model, authorities say. The New York Daily News said Sunday that, according to witnesses, the riot was the result of tension among hundreds of Model hopefuls, a nearby overheating car and several people in the casting call crowd shouting out There's a bomb. The girls were running like it was 9/11 (Sept. 11, 2001) part two, Jennifer Brown, a 27-year-old involved in Saturday's incident, said. I...