CHEMICAL SPILL FROM A FRACKING SITE KILLS FISH, TURTLES IN VIENNA POND LOCATED IN A WETLAND AREA

APRIL 2, 2015

VIENNA, OHIO (WKBN) 

A chemical spill cleanup is taking place in Trumbull County.

WKBN got a tip in the newsroom around 8 p.m. Thursday about a spill at 884 Sodom Hutchings Road near old Route 82 (Warren Sharon Road). When our news crew went out to investigate, there were crews from Kleese Development Associates cleaning up some type of a spill in a wetlands area near one of their fracking wells.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources is overseeing the cleanup.

The chemical did seep into a nearby pond and killed the wildlife, which included fish and turtles. The owner of that pond said he noticed the dead fish on Monday and called the Ohio EPA.

The ODNR came to the site on Thursday.

RIP little creatures.  You paid the price of our sins.

Source: http://wkbn.com

Pemex Identifies Workers Killed in Platform Fire Search Continues for Missing

Published in Oil Industry News on Friday, 3 April 2015

Pemex has identified four workers killed in the Abkatun Alpha platform fire outbreak on in Mexico’s Campeche Bay on Wednesday, April 1, 2015.

In a statement issued yesterday, Mexico’s national oil company said that three of the deceased worked for Cotemar, and the fourth worker was a Pemex employee.

Three workers are still missing; two employed by Cotemar and one by Pemex.

Also, three of the seven workers who were admitted to the General Hospital of Pemex in Ciudad del Carmen were yesterday released. In total, around 45 workers have received some kind of medical care.

As for the fire, it was extinguished yesterday and no oil spill has been reported.
Source: www.offshoreenergytoday.com

Russia Drilling on Weak Ruble Leads to Oil Output Gain

Published in Oil Industry News on Friday, 3 April 2015

Russian oil producers benefiting from last year’s ruble collapse used relatively cheaper service costs to increase drilling and boost crude output in March, according to Sberbank CIB.

Development drilling jumped 23 percent in the first two months of the year, helping push oil output to 10.71 million barrels a day, Sberbank CIB analysts Alex Fak and Valery Nesterov wrote in a research note Friday. That matched the post-Soviet record level of production in January.

“Oil companies benefited from relatively low drilling fees paid to service contractors under old contracts,” the analysts said. Tax changes lowering export duties provided further stimulus.

Russia has increased output in the face of slumping prices for Brent crude, which trades now at less than half of the peak price in 2014. Under Russia’s tax system, the state bears most of the price risk, while the currency collapse benefits exporters, which earn in dollars and pay for services in rubles.

OAO Surgutneftegas raised drilling volumes 9 percent, while OAO Rosneft increased them 30 percent and OAO Bashneft 160 percent. OAO Gazprom Neft increased output even as the volume of drilling declined slightly due to wider use of new technology, according to the note.
Source: www.bloomberg.com

Million Barrels of Oil per day Riding U.S. Rails

Published in Oil Industry News on Friday, 3 April 2015

More than 1 million barrels of crude oil move by train across the United States every day, according to data published for the first time by the government on Tuesday.

The volume of crude shipped by rail has increased more than 50-fold in five years, from just 630,000 barrels in January 2010 to 33.7 million barrels in January 2015, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) revealed in its first monthly report on movements of oil by rail (link.reuters.com/vyt44w).

Until now, information on oil shipments has been incomplete, partly confidential and scattered across a number of sources. The Association of American Railroads, individual railroad companies, and the federal government's Surface Transportation Board, which regulates freight rates, have all published limited data on shipments.

The EIA has now brought together the confidential data from the U.S. Surface Transportation Board and Canada's National Energy Board as well as its own information on production and stocks in each part of the United States, to produce the first comprehensive picture of crude-by-rail movements.
The data underscore how rapidly the modern oil-by-rail business has grown. 

Shipments rose from almost zero in 2008 to hit 1 million barrels per day (bpd) for the first time in the current boom in April 2014.

Rail shipments are running at the highest level since the Second World War, when oil was shifted from tankers to railcars to avoid being sunk by submarines ("Fightin' Oil", 1943).

Railroads have become an essential part of the American energy revolution. Without the massive unit trains hauling 100 tank cars or more loaded with crude from the shale fields to refineries, U.S. crude production could not have grown so quickly over the last five years.

According to the EIA, railroads moved 10 percent of all U.S. oil production in January 2015, and 40 percent of production from states in the Midwest such as North Dakota, Colorado and Wyoming.

The main consumers were refineries in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, which accounted for almost half of the oil shipped by rail at the start of this year.

Crude-by-rail has become essential to East Coast refiners. Railroads delivered almost half the crude processed by East Coast refineries at the start of 2015, according to an analysis of EIA data.

Smaller quantities of oil were delivered to refineries in California and on the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana, where crude-by-rail is more marginal to refinery operations (link.reuters.com/fav44w).

The surge in crude-by-rail explains why both the railroads and oil shippers were slow to appreciate the risks involved in carrying large volumes of oil in unit trains. Because so little oil was transported by rail prior to 2011 or even 2012, there was not much statistical information on the risks involved in carrying oil in unit trains.

The risk of derailments and train fires was always present but hidden and not appreciated because there were so few crude carrying trains.

The danger has only become apparent when the size of the business was scaled up by more than an order of magnitude. It is a familiar problem with new technologies or technologies which undergo rapid growth ("Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies" 1999).

But crude-by-rail has become so central to the U.S. oil business that the industry has struggled to formulate an appropriate safety response -- even as the risks have become increasingly evident following a string of devastating train fires.

The industry is torn between fear of a catastrophic train fire in a major urban area that could cause mass casualties and cost billions of dollars in compensation and clean up, and the need to fight or delay tougher safety standards which could restrict the availability of tank cars and disrupt the increasingly vital flow of oil by tank car.

Negotiations between the railroads, oil producers, refiners and the U.S. government about new crude-by-rail regulations and tank car safety standards boil down to the question of how to balance the safety imperative of withdrawing older and less secure tank cars as soon as possible against the commercial imperative of keeping them in service for longer to maintain tank car availability and keep the oil flowing.
Source: www.reuters.com

OSHA ADDRESSES VIOLENCE IN HEALTH CARE, SOCIAL SERVICE INDUSTRIES IN NEW GUIDANCE

APRIL 2, 2015

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration has updated its guide for protecting health care and social service workers from workplace violence, the agency said Thursday.

The revised publication, “Guidelines for Preventing Workplace Violence for Healthcare and Social Service Workers,” updates OSHA's 1996 and 2004 guides with recent data and suggestions for implementing a written program for workplace violence prevention, the agency said in a statement. 

According to the updated guidelines, a written program for workplace violence prevention “offers an effective approach to reduce or eliminate the risk of violence in the workplace.” Such a program should include management commitment and employee participation; a worksite analysis; hazard prevention and control; safety and health training; and recordkeeping as well as a program evaluation.

“Cooperation between workers and employers in identifying and assessing hazards is the foundation of a successful violence prevention program,” the guide states. 

More than 70% of assaults on workers that resulted in injuries in 2013 occurred in health care and social service settings, OSHA's statement says, citing the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Health care and social service workers are nearly four times more likely to be injured as a result of violence than the average private sector worker, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

“It is unacceptable that the people who dedicate their lives to caring for our loved ones often work in fear of injury or death,” Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Dr. David Michaels said in the statement. 

“This updated booklet will help employers implement effective measures to reduce or eliminate workplace violence hazards.”


//-------------------------//

April 2, 2015

OSHA updates guidance for protecting healthcare
and social service workers from workplace violence

WASHINGTON — In 2013, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported more than 23,000 significant injuries due to assault at work. More than 70 percent of these assaults were in healthcare and social service settings. Health care and social service workers are almost four times as likely to be injured as a result of violence than the average private sector worker. To reduce the risk, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration today released an update to its Guidelines for Preventing Workplace Violence for Healthcare and Social Service Workers*. The publication includes industry best practices and highlights the most effective ways to reduce the risk of violence in various healthcare and social service settings.

"It is unacceptable that the people who dedicate their lives to caring for our loved ones often work in fear of injury or death," said Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Dr. David Michaels. "This updated booklet will help employers implement effective measures to reduce or eliminate workplace violence hazards."

The revised guidelines - which update OSHA's 1996 and 2004 guidelines - incorporate research in the last decade into the causes of workplace violence on healthcare and social service settings, risk factors that accompany working with patients or clients who display violent behavior, and the appropriate preventive measures that can be taken, amid the variety of settings in which health care and social service employees work. The guidelines also stress the importance of developing a written workplace violence prevention program. The program should include management commitment and employee participation, worksite analysis, hazard prevention and control, safety and health training, and recordkeeping and program evaluation.

More information on violence prevention in all workplace settings is available on OSHA's Workplace Violence Web page.

Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees. OSHA's role is to ensure these conditions for America's working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education and assistance. For more information, visit www.osha.gov

NORTH DAKOTA BROTHERS CONVICTED OF POTATO CROP INSURANCE FRAUD IN SPOILED SPUDS CASE

Aaron Johnson and Derek Johnson, both of Cooperstown, N.D., were accused of adding spoiled and frozen potatoes to the stored crop and using portable heaters to warm the warehouse above 80 degrees, in attempt to make the potatoes deteriorate faster. 

Two North Dakota brothers were convicted Thursday of intentionally destroying potatoes to collect crop insurance payments in a scheme that prosecutors said defrauded the federal government of about $2 million.

Jurors found Aaron Johnson, 50, and Derek Johnson, 47, of the Cooperstown area, guilty of conspiring to receive illegal payments and giving false statements.

Prosecutors said the brothers exploited the federal government's crop insurance program, meant to help farmers recover from losses due to naturally occurring events, including bad weather and the wet breakdown of inner potatoes after harvest. Prosecutors said that among other things, the brothers used chemicals to accelerate deterioration.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nick Chase said that the crop insurance program is based on trust. "The fact that they so blatantly violated that trust makes me very pleased about the verdict," he said in a telephone interview after the verdict was announced.

Defense attorneys had argued that prosecutors have no hard evidence against their clients.

Defense attorneys in their closing arguments hammered away at the credibility of witness Leo Borgen, a former farmhand for the brothers who outlined what Chase had called the "criminal circle" in the case that included Borgen and the two Johnsons. Borgen is serving prison time for sexually assaulting another man in 2009 and was also charged with lying to police.

Ben Thomas, Derek Johnson's attorney, said Borgen "leveraged money and favors from the government," including $1,200 for his testimony and a transfer from the state penitentiary in Bismarck to a jail in Jamestown.

"Does a convicted rapist deserve that kind of treatment?" Thomas asked.

Prosecutors said his testimony was backed up by other witnesses, some of whom heard Aaron Johnson brag about the alleged scheme. Defense attorneys said the claim that many people knew about the scam was typical small-town gossip with no truth.

The brothers were accused of adding spoiled and frozen potatoes to the stored crop and using portable heaters to warm the warehouse above 80 degrees, in attempt to make the potatoes deteriorate faster. The defendants, prosecutors said, found that the best way to wreck the crop was using Rid-X, a chemical that's designed to dissolve solid materials in septic systems.

Richard Henderson, Aaron Johnson's attorney, pointed out that authorities did no sampling or testing for Rid-X.

Chase said he was pleased that several farmers in the community testified at the brothers' trial about the status of their own potato crops around the time the Johnsons were being reimbursed for bad potatoes.

Neil Fulton, who leads the public defender's office and is a spokesman for Aaron Johnson, said in an email late Thursday that he was disappointed and would discuss options with him before sentencing.

Each brother faces up to 20 years in prison at sentencing.

MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE FRAUD BUT ARSON CHARGES DISMISSED IN WISCASSET, MAINE

APRIL 03, 2015

WISCASSET, MAINE

A Dresden man has been sentenced to 90 days in jail and two years of probation and must pay the state $6,662.61 in restitution for fraudulently collecting unemployment benefits. Meanwhile, the state dismissed two arson charges against him in connection with a 2013 fire at his home.

Robert Armstrong, 43, pleaded guilty March 27 in Lincoln County Superior Court to theft by unauthorized taking or transfer, a Class C felony, for collecting unemployment benefits while employed. He pleaded no contest to theft by insurance deception for filing a claim for a May 7, 2013, fire at his Dresden home, which the state fire marshal’s office classified as arson.

One of the two arson charges alleged that Armstrong caused the fire at his home with the intent to collect insurance proceeds, according to his indictment. The other arson charge alleged the fire recklessly endangered a person or property.

Armstrong will pay the restitution to the Maine Department of Labor. Because of a pending civil claim against Armstrong by State Farm Insurance, no restitution was ordered for the theft by insurance deception conviction.

Armstrong was indicted in September 2013 on the two Class A felony arson charges. On May 7, 2013, seven area fire departments went to Armstrong’s home for a report of a fire, according to The Lincoln County News archives.

A burst water pipe helped contain the fire to the basement, and the fire was quickly extinguished. It was the second fire to occur at Armstrong’s home within a year. The first was in November 2012. The state fire marshal’s office later ruled the May 2013 fire to be arson.

Because of the conflicting opinions of expert witnesses to be called during trial, the expected length of the trial, and the uncertainty on the part of the state in its ability to prove the arson charges, both arson charges were dismissed in favor of a new theft by insurance deception charge, Assistant District Attorney Andrew Wright said.

Armstrong, represented by defense attorney Vanessa Bartlett, pleaded no contest to the theft by insurance deception charge. By entering a no contest plea, Armstrong neither admitted to nor disputed the charge.

According to Cornell University’s Legal Information Institute, judges are able to sentence defendants who enter a no contest plea as if they entered a guilty plea. No contest pleas are often entered when there is an associated civil lawsuit because the plea cannot be used against the defendant in a civil proceeding.