NEW YORK CITY RESTAURANT ACROSS FROM GAS EXPLOSION ACCUSED OF SIPHONING NATURAL GAS, EVICTED BY PROPERTY OWNER.

APRIL 14, 2015

NEW YORK (MYFOXNY)

A restaurant across the street from a deadly gas explosion in the East Village has been evicted for allegedly illegally siphoning gas.

Icon Realty, the landlord for the property, has evicted the owners of the Stage Restaurant on Second Ave.

Roman Diakun and his family have operated Stage Restaurant in since 1980. He says the accusations are not true.

But attorneys for Icon realty say the the Ukrainian diner illegally and dangerously altered the piping.

Photos provided to Fox 5 News claim to show a device being used to connect to Con Ed's line and bypass the Stage's meter.

Investigators are seeing if a tapped gas line led to an explosion and collapse that killed 2 people last month.

In a statement issued to Fox 5 News the Dept. of Buildings stated: "Siphoning gas is illegal, very dangerous, and a violation of the building code. In addition to issuing violations, the Department will notify Con Edison if inspectors detect illegally tapped gas lines while conducting a site visit. If residents smell gas, or suspect tampering with gas lines, they should call Con Ed or 911 immediately."

Marathassa Bunker Fuel Oil Spill Response Operational Update

Marathassa Spill Operational Update – April 14, 2015

The following are current priorities of the Unified Command:

• Vessel cleaning
• Decontamination of equipment and vessels
• Wildlife rescue and rehabilitation
• Establishing animal care for any wildlife at HMCS DISCOVERY
• Environmental impact assessment and monitoring
• Long-term planning
• Ongoing shoreline assessment and clean-up activity, as required
• Keep stakeholders informed of response activities
• Keep the public informed

REPORT FROM THE INCIDENT COMMAND POST:

• There has been no indication of any impact to public health and safety.
• M/V Marathassa continues to be cleaned. Divers inspected the hull and clean-up work continues on the vessel; no chemical cleaners are being used.
• Divers discovered a patch of oil stuck to the bottom of the vessel.
• Other identified vessels have been cleaned – crews are double checking these vessels today.
• Estimated quantity of surface oil remains at approximately 0.2L.
• Shoreline Cleanup and Assessment Team (SCAT) has inspected an area of 64km and identified 6km that is being cleaned Tuesday.
• Approximately 150 personnel are involved with the response.
• A wildlife rehabilitation facility has been set up and is operational at HMCS DISCOVERY, Stanley Park.
• 1 oiled duck could not be saved; 2 oiled ducks are in care; there are up to 30 birds that are being monitored by wildlife specialists.
• Sediment sampling is ongoing and biological sampling begins today.
• Plan to monitor long-term impacts is being developed.

Communications Contacts: Incident Command Post: 778-991-0003 Information/report wildlife: 604-873-7000

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Marathassa Spill Operational Update – April 12, 2015

The following are current priorities of the Unified Command:

• Vessel cleaning
• Decontamination of equipment and vessels
• Wildlife rescue and rehabilitation
• Establish animal care processing at HMCS DISCOVERY in Stanley Park
• Environmental impact assessment and monitoring
• Long term recovery planning

REPORT FROM THE INCIDENT COMMAND POST:

• There has been no indication of any impact to public health and safety. 
• A Transport Canada surveillance flight today reported surface oil was estimated at less than .5 litres.
• Of the potential area of impact, we have surveyed 62 km.  No oil was observed on 90 per cent of surveyed area.
• Clean-up and assessment teams are cleaning the affected areas.
• Work has begun to set up a wildlife rehabilitation facility at HMCS DISCOVERY, Stanley Park.
• Three oiled birds remain in rehabilitation, approximately 20-30 others fowl (primarily ducks) are being monitored by wildlife specialists.
• M/V Marathassa continues to be cleaned. Divers are inspecting the hull and clean-up work continues on the vessel; no chemical cleaners are being used.
• Six vessels are scheduled for cleaning: one has been completed.
• The Canadian Coast Guard, Port Metro Vancouver and Western Canada Marine Response Corporation remain on-scene with multiple vessels patrolling the area.

Communications Contacts; Incident Command Post: 778-991-0003 Information/report wildlife: 604-873-7000

The City of Vancouver has hired an outside lawyer to pursue a possible lawsuit over the bunker-fuel spill in its harbour last week, to ensure it recovers the money it has had to spend.

And that’s apparently not the only lawsuit on the horizon.

“The lawyers are starting to arrive on the scene,” city manager Penny Ballem said, and agencies are doing as much as they can to collect the maximum amount of data before the fear of litigation stops the flow of information.

Ms. Ballem said the city is determined to get repayment for what it has spent on its own part of the response, as she briefed Vancouver city councillors Tuesday on the events since the freighter MV Marathassa began leaking oil in English Bay sometime last Wednesday. She did not have a figure for how much the incident has cost the city so far.

That leak has resulted in globules of the heavy bunker fuel washing up on beaches from the West End to the east side in Vancouver and along the shore in West Vancouver. About three dozen birds came into contact with oil, and no one knows yet what the fisheries impact might be.

Ms. Ballem noted that the Greek company managing the ship at the time of the mishap has a liability cap of $28-million. The Canadian Ship-source Oil Pollution Fund, created and maintained by the federal government, provides up to $162-million for damages caused by oil pollution from international shipping.

That promise of litigation comes as questions are still swirling in Vancouver about how much fuel was actually spilled, whether the response time was too slow, how much oil has been recovered, and what long-term impacts there will be.

The Canadian Coast Guard, the designated lead agency for incidents like this, has estimated 2,700 litres of fuel were spilled. But Ms. Ballem said that figure is likely low and that Transport Canada is trying to get a better estimate, possibly by looking at how much fuel the tanker was carrying before the spill started.

She said the kind of fuel that spilled doesn’t stay on the surface but sinks. As well, the estimates she has had from the agencies the city is working with indicate there is still 40 square metres of oil under the hull of the boat.

Deputy city manager Sadhu Johnston noted that San Francisco, another major West Coast port, has found pockets of oil “under rocks and in nooks and crannies” for years after spills.

B.C. Environment Minister Mary Polak again took issue with Coast Guard Commissioner Jody Thomas’s assertions that the federal agency assumed prompt control of the spill response. Ms. Polak said Monday it took more than 24 hours for the agency to take control; a day later, Ms. Thomas said that was “incorrect.”

“The Coast Guard was on the water, managing the spill, looking for the source, and working with [Western Canada Marine Response Corporation] and Port Metro Vancouver to skim the surface of the water. Thursday morning an incident command was set up and continued through the day into today,” Ms. Thomas said.

But in an interview in Victoria on Tuesday, Ms. Polak said there was a “high degree of frustration” that the Coast Guard was largely absent from the emergency operations centre until Friday morning.

The minister said while officials from dozens of agencies were gathered throughout Thursday to co-ordinate the response, a junior official from the Coast Guard was only intermittently present.

“That’s where we have concerns. Their view of what constituted running it was not satisfactory to us. They had deployed a person. In the view of our staff it was too junior a person, and in addition to that they were gone for significant amounts of time,” she said.

The spill was first reported through a 911 call around 5 p.m. last Wednesday.That was put through to the Coast Guard, and a Port Metro Vancouver boat appeared on scene around 6 p.m.

The Western Canada Marine Response Corporation, the private company responsible for handling any harbour spills, was notified around 8 p.m.
The Coast Guard has offered shifting timelines on its response. The spill was first reported by a person on a sailboat around 5 p.m. Wednesday. The Coast Guard initially said a boom was set up after 2 a.m. Thursday. It later said the boom was in place around midnight. It now says the boom was completely secured around the affected vessel at 5:53 a.m.

When asked about the discrepancy, a Department of Fisheries and Oceans spokesman in an e-mail said Coast Guard officials may not have had the most recent information when they initially spoke with reporters.

City officials were not notified of what had happened until around 5 a.m. On top of that, it took 48 hours for the spill to be identified as Bunker C, an extremely heavy, toxic and viscous form of fuel that most freighters use.

Commissioner Thomas said Tuesday that “90 per cent of the job is done.” She said crews were still cleaning the shoreline, as well as the bottom of the affected vessel. She said water-monitoring efforts were also continuing

Source: http://www.bnn.ca

MEXICO OIL SPILL FOLLOWING ILLEGAL PIPELINE TAPING AFFECTS DRINKING WATER FOR TABASCO CITY

APRIL 15, 2015 

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO

Mexico’s Gulf coast state of Tabasco has set up an emergency plan to supply drinking water to the capital of Villahermosa after oil thieves punctured a pipeline, contaminating rivers that normally supply the city.

The spill late last week sent workers with the state-owned oil company scrambling to limit damage, and four of Villahermosa’s water treatment plants were shut down as a precaution.

The Tabasco state government said Tuesday that it will temporarily supply water using 13 tanker trucks.

Workers for the Pemex oil company set out containment booms and were trying to scoop oil off the waterways.

Illegal pipeline taps have caused fires, explosions and spills in Mexico in the past. They became so frequent that Pemex no longer ships finished, usable fuels through pipelines.

Viva Mexico!

KCSO REPORTS SMALL PLANE CRASH NEAR LEBEC, CALIFORNIA. PILOT DEAD.

APRIL 15, 2015

LEBEC, CALIFORNIA

The FAA says the plane that crashed was a Pitts Biplane. The Mountain Enterprise newspaper reports the crash site is about 5 miles east of I-5. A ranch maintenance worker discovered the wreckage on Wednesday and reported it to his supervisor, who then reported it to authorities.
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The Kern county Sheriff's Office is reporting a small plane crash near Lebec.
The wreckage is in an area east of El Tejon School on Tejon Ranch, according to KCSO.
Kern County Fire is also responding to the scene. They say there was a report of a small plane that had been missing for several days. 
KCSO says the wreckage is spread over a wide area and it appears the pilot is dead.