1 killed, 1 injured in Clark County, Ohio car-pickup truck crash. Elderly Drivers Cause a Large Number of Traffic Accidents.

MAY 7, 2015

BETHEL TWP., CLARK COUNTY, OHIO

UPDATE@8:16 p.m.: The collision on Medway New Carlisle Road that left a 28-year-old Fairborn man dead and sent an 80-year-old Medway woman to a hospital is being called an unfortunate accident, said Sgt. Jason Cadle, Ohio Highway Patrol Springfield post.

The man, who was not wearing his seat belt, died at the scene when he was partially ejected in the crash that toppled his Ford pickup truck.

The accident occurred when the woman, headed north on Medway New Carlisle Road, failed to yield and turned left to enter the Country Haven Mobile Home Park where she lives, Cadle said. She turned into the path of the truck, he said.

She was taken to Miami Valley Hospital and troopers will attempt to interview her yet tonight, Cadle said. Her condition was not immediately known.

The Fairborn man tried but could not avoid the collision, which sent the truck rolling until it came to rest on its side, Cadle said.

Trailing the truck were family members of the Fairborn man, Cadle said, and they were on scene shortly after the accident. Troopers and Bethel Twp. fire/rescue workers don’t believe any of the family members saw the collision, he said.

Medway New Carlisle Road will remain shut down until further notice because of the accident investigation.

Unfortunately,  elderly drivers cause a large number of traffic accidents.   Their reflexes are very slow, some of their senses do not function properly and have placed a lot of people in harms way.  With the growing aging population, something has to give.

UPDATE @ 6:55 p.m.: The driver of a gold car, headed north on Midway New Carlisle Road, is believed to have turned into the path of an oncoming truck and the truck driver was partially ejected in the collision and killed, a preliminary investigation by the Ohio Highway Patrol suggests.

The driver of the car has been taken to a hospital. Her condition is not known.

FIRST REPORT
Police, fire/medic personnel and the state patrol are on the scene of a fatal accident in the 1800 block of Medway New Carlisle Road.

The accident involving a car and a pickup truck occurred near the Country Haven Mobile Home Park, at Schiller Road.

We’re told the victim is a male who was partially ejected.

Crews were dispatched to the accident just before 6 p.m.

We have a crew on scene and we’ll update this report as we get information.

Source: WHIO-TV

Sixth Season of Hudson River Dredging Begins; Historic Dredging Project Draws to a Close; Next Up: Cleaning Up Floodplains

Release Date: 05/07/2015

Contact Information: Larisa Romanowski, 518-407-0400, romanowski.larisa@epa.gov


(Albany, NY) Today, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regional Administrator Judith A. Enck announced the start of the sixth, and final, season of dredging of PCB-contaminated sediments from the bottom of the Hudson River. The historic dredging project – one of the largest and most complex cleanups in Superfund history – began in 2009. The EPA is overseeing the dredging project that is being conducted by General Electric Company (GE) under the terms of a 2006 legal agreement. According to GE, the company has invested more than $1 billion on the cleanup project to date. 

The EPA-mandated cleanup called for the removal of an estimated 2.65 million cubic yards of PCB-contaminated sediment from a 40-mile stretch of the upper Hudson River between Fort Edward and Troy, New York. To date, approximately 2.5 million cubic yards of PCB-contaminated sediment have been removed. The dredging work is expected to be wrapped up this year, with habitat restoration to continue into 2016. 
 
“The Hudson River has been damaged by a toxic legacy that this federal Superfund cleanup is addressing,” said Regional Administrator Judith A. Enck. 

“The massive amount of PCBs that have finally been removed from this treasured river is a tremendous accomplishment that will benefit the communities along the Hudson River for generations to come.” 
 
Several logistically challenging areas remain to be dredged this year, including those near dams and shallow waters around islands. Dredging will also continue in a two-mile section of river near Fort Miller, located between the Thompson Island Dam and Fort Miller Dam, which is inaccessible by boat. Approximately 250,000 cubic yards of PCB-contaminated sediment is targeted for removal in 2015. 
 
The Superfund cleanup has created up to 500 jobs annually. More than 280 area contractors, subcontractors, vendors and suppliers have provided a variety of services or materials to support the work.
 
Between 1947 and 1977, an estimated 1.3 million pounds of PCBs were discharged into the river from two GE capacitor manufacturing plants located in Fort Edward and Hudson Falls. PCBs are potentially cancer-causing in people and build up in the fat of fish and wildlife, increasing in concentration as they move up the food chain. The primary risk to humans is the accumulation of PCBs in the body from eating contaminated fish or wildlife, where PCBs build up.

 PCBs are neurotoxins, which means they affect people’s brains and nervous systems, they also impact the reproductive and endocrine systems and are likely to cause cancer.
 
Dredging is conducted when the Champlain Canal is open for the season, typically between May and November. Dredging occurs 24 hours a day, six days a week. Three to five mechanical dredges remove contaminated sediment from the river bottom. The dredges are mounted on deck barges and use environmental clamshell buckets to place the dredged sediment into separate barges. 
 
In the land-locked section of river, where direct water-transport of loaded barges to the processing facility isn’t possible due to the presence of dams at its north and south end, loaded barges will be pushed by tugboat to a loading station on a narrow section of land on the east shoreline of the river, south of the Thompson Island Dam. Once there, the material in the barge will be off-loaded into a bin on land and then re-loaded into another barge in the Champlain Canal channel. From there the barges will be pushed by tugboat upriver to GE’s sediment dewatering and processing facility located on the Champlain Canal in Fort Edward, New York. 


Once the barges filled with dredged sediment arrive at the processing facility, the most contaminated sediment is first processed. Debris is removed and sediment is mechanically dewatered; the water is treated on-site and then returned to the Champlain Canal. The dewatered sediment and debris are loaded into railcars for transport to approved out-of-state disposal facilities. 
 
During dredging operations, an extensive water quality monitoring program is in place to measure PCB levels at several downstream locations and to track the movement of dredged material downriver. Air quality is also measured around the dredge areas and near the processing facility while work is underway. Additional monitoring is required by the EPA to reduce the impacts of dredging and dewatering operations on surrounding communities. 
 
After dredging is completed and the last of the dredged material at GE’s sediment processing facility has been transported off-site, the facility will be decommissioned in accordance with a decommissioning plan that is subject to approval by EPA. 
 
In October 2014 the EPA announced that GE has agreed to conduct a comprehensive study of contamination in the shoreline areas of the upper Hudson River that are subject to flooding, called floodplains. Under the agreement GE will investigate the PCB contamination in a 40-mile stretch of the Hudson River floodplain from Hudson Falls to Troy, New York and will develop cleanup options. This investigation is expected to cost about $20 million. The project area covers 6,000 acres of floodplain. Over 7,000 soil samples have already been collected.
 
People seeking information about the project can contact Larisa Romanowski at (518) 407-0400; romanowski.larisa@epa.gov. Residents with specific concerns related to dredging activities when work is being performed should call GE’s dedicated 24-hour phone line at (518) 792-4087 or 1-888-596-3655.
For more information about the Hudson River dredging project, visit http://www.epa.gov/hudson.

Coast Guard, Dominican Republic Navy rescue 46 Dominican migrants in the Atlantic Ocean

May 7, 2015

 

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico

A Coast Guard HC-144 Ocean Sentry maritime patrol aircraft assisted a Dominican Republic Navy patrol boat in locating a disabled migrant yola (boat) in the Atlantic Ocean Monday night through Tuesday morning off the coast of Cabrera, Dominican Republic.

The migrant boat reportedly was transiting with 46 people onboard who were traveling illegally to Puerto Rico.

“The prompt communication and swift response between the Coast Guard and Dominican Republic Navy rescue crews allowed for a quick detection and the lives of the people onboard to be saved,” said Lt. Cmdr. Christopher Douglas, Sector San Juan chief of law enforcement. “For those considering the perilous voyage aboard a makeshift vessel across the Mona Passage, do not take to the sea, you risk losing your life or the life of a loved one.”

Coast Guard watchtanders in Sector San Juan were contacted Monday night by Dominican naval authorities, through the Coast Guard Liaison Officer in the Dominican Republic, requesting assistance in locating the missing vessel.

The Coast Guard aircraft launched for the search arrived on scene at approximately 11p.m. Monday and the aircrew located the migrant boat as they observed the people onboard waving their arms for assistance, approximately three nautical miles off the coast of Cabrera. 

The crew of the Coast Guard aircraft relayed the information to the Dominican Republic Navy patrol boat Proción, which was then diverted and vectored-in to the vessel’s position for the rescue by the Coast Guard aircrew.

The crew of the Proción rescued the migrants from the disabled vessel early Tuesday morning and transported them to the Dominican Republic, where they will attempt a second time to reach illegally Puerto Rico.  Then they will be saved again at taxpayers' expense.

Coast Guard rescues 2 from storm-tossed sailboat. All boaters must check weather conditions before they cast off lines

May 7, 2015

A sailboat continues to be buffeted by the wind and sea state after Coast Guard members successfully rescued the two people aboard.

CHARLESTON, S.C.

A man and a woman were rescued off the Charleston jetties when their sailboat ran aground and began to take on water, Thursday.

Watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector Charleston received the initial report at approximately 9:50 a.m., from the captain of the 36-foot sailing vessel Sunshine stating that foul weather had pushed his boat up on the rocks of the Charleston jetties, puncturing the hull.

A small boat crew from Coast Guard Station Charleston and an aircrew from Coast Guard Air Facility Charleston were launched to assist.

Due to the depth of water, the boatcrew couldn’t get close enough to take the two people directly aboard. With both people in life jackets, the crew threw them a heaving line and pulled them to the boat.

The boatcrew brought the two people to the Charleston Maritime Center. No injuries were reported.

“The outcome of this case is what our crews train for,” said Mr. Sean Shrum, command duty officer for the Sector Charleston command center. “We strive for a positive outcome whenever we deploy our crew, but we ask that boaters do their part too. Weather can dramatically complicate any outing on the water. We urge all boaters to check weather conditions before they cast off lines.”

For more information on life jackets and safe boating practices, visit www.uscgboating.org/.

Biggest Oil Rig Ever: 200k-ton Sakhalin Giant Begins Production in Harsh Arctic Conditions

Published in Oil Industry News on Thursday, 7 May 2015

The world’s biggest oil platform has begun commercial production at the Sakhalin-1 offshore project in Russia’s Far East. The Berkut oil rig is expected to extract 4.5 million tons of oil annually.

The Sakhalin-1 Consortium was formed in 1996 is the first major shelf project in Russia created under terms of a Product Sharing Agreement (PSA). The international consortium is made up of the US major ExxonMobil (30 percent), Japan's Sodeco (30 percent), Russia’s Rosneft (20 percent) and India's ONGC Videsh (20 percent).

The total cost of the project is estimated to be $10-12 billion, making it the largest direct foreign investment in Russia.

The Berkut platform is expected to produce 12,000 tons of oil daily or about 4.5 million tons annually, raising the total output of the Sakhalin-1 Consortium to 27,000 tons a day.

Oil from the Arkutun-Dagi oil field will be processed at the Chaivo onshore treatment facility and then delivered by a pipeline to the DeKastri oil export terminal.

The tax revenues from oil produced by the Berkut platform will provide Russia’s regional and federal budgets with no less than $9 billion over the next ten years.

The Berkut rig is designed to work in harsh Arctic conditions, and has an autonomous power supply and can work even when temperatures go down to minus 44 degrees Celsius. Floating ice up to two meters thick cannot damage its substructure.

The drilling platform can withstand a 9 magnitude earthquake, and waves up to 18 meters high.

The field which spreads 60 kilometers offshore holds 72 million tons of recoverable oil, is also being developed by another oil rig specially built for the task.

The US and the EU sanctions are targeting Russia’s big Arctic and Siberia shale oil ambitions by barring foreign oil companies from supplying any technology or equipment for joint ventures in deep water, offshore, or shale projects.

Drilling will continue even if sanctions prevent foreign companies from participating in Russia’s Arctic, Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin said in September in an interview with Bloomberg News.

“Of course we’ll do it on our own and attract the necessary technology and different partners who don’t have limitations on cooperation,” the Rosneft CEO said.
Source: rt.com

Unite Demands Industry Halts Job Cuts

Published in Oil Industry News on Thursday, 7 May 2015

The recovering price of oil should bring an immediate end to the oil and gas industry’s opportunistic campaign of job cuts and impositions to working conditions, Unite, a workers’ union in the UK has said today.

The call comes after talks with Offshore Contractors Association (OCA) employers convened yesterday in the wake of a consultative ballot which showed over 93 per cent support for industrial action among Unite members in the OCA.

Unite says that over 10,000 offshore jobs have been cut since prices plunged to $50 per barrel at the turn of the year. The union accuses the the industry of moving rapidly to impose a regressive three weeks on, three weeks off shift pattern (three and three) and cuts to pay and holiday entitlement without consultation.

However, Unite now says that with the price of Brent crude trading around $68 USD per barrel this week and forecast to hit $70 USD, the union believes the time for the industry to step-back and negotiate with its workers over the future of the North Sea is now.

Unite Scottish Secretary Pat Rafferty said, “The recovering oil price should put an immediate stop to the decimation of crucial jobs and the imposition of regressive working practices across the North Sea.

“Our members have been very clear that the industry’s actions will not only compromise the sustainability of jobs and skills for the next generation of oil recovery, it could also have catastrophic consequences for offshore safety too.

“OCA employers have taken this first step but the industry majors must also stop exerting commercial pressure on its contractors, allowing some breathing space to negotiate a sustainable future between workers and employers.

“What we cannot accept however is the industry continuing to run roughshod over its workers’ livelihoods, pay and working arrangements – particularly the three and three imposition on shift patterns.

“This race to the bottom must stop and we will know in the coming weeks when the OCA talks reconvene if the industry is serious about ending its campaign of aggression.”
Source: www.offshoreenergytoday.com

TWO TRACTOR TRAILER AND CAR CRASH ON ROUTE 1 NORTH IN NEW JERSEY CAUSES LARGE FUEL SPILL, DELAYS

MAY 7, 2015 

Just after 5 a.m. today, May 7, South Brunswick Police responded to a motor vehicle crash on Route 1 northbound at New Road. The crash involved two tractor trailers and a car. There was one non-life threatening injury. The crash created a large fuel spill.

The crash was the result of one truck driver failing to stop and rear ending a second tractor trailer and a car that were stopped at the traffic light for New Road, police said.

The crash ruptured the gas tank of one of the tractor trailers creating extensive clean up.

Police said the truck driver who failed to stop was the only injury in the crash. He was taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick for treatment of non-life threatening injuries.

The crash clean up is causing traffic delays in the area. Only one north lane is open, and the highway is being closed at times for clean up work. Police said the clean up work will last at least until about 11 a.m.

The Monmouth Junction Fire Department, Monmouth Junction First Aid, and Middlesex County Hazmat along with New Jersey DOT are on location. Police are directing traffic at the location. 

Roads that are affected in addition to Route 1 are New Road and Route 522, police said. Readers also report that Route 27 is backed up

DOWN WITH THE TAR SANDS: BOMBSHELL IN CANADA AS THE TAR SANDS DOWNTURN TOOK THE GOVERNMENT DOWN, REALLY DOWN

The fortunes of Canadian tar sands oil changed overnight this week. After almost 50 years in power, the Progressive Conservative Party in Alberta lost big. As in losing 60 seats. Out of 87 total.  I guess people had enough with this party.  Canadians deserve more, much more than they have been getting.  We do not blame them for revolting.

On the other side, the social-democrats of the New Democratic Party gained 49 seats to take the majority. Liberals lost 4 seats and the reform-minded conservative Wildrose party gained 16.

It was as hard to imagine as Democrats taking over the Texas Statehouse and the Governors Mansion.

The new Alberta Premier is New Democratic Party’s Rachel Notley. She has a different view of tar sands oil and climate change than the previous Progressive Conservative’s Premier, and certainly different from Canada’s Prime Minister. 

Premier Notley has vowed to negotiate new climate policies, increase oil and gas royalties, and quit lobbying President Obama about approving the Keystone XL pipeline.

The economic base of Alberta, and its PC Party, was always tar sands oil. But over the years, the PC government slashed corporate taxes, cut government jobs and found itself severely in the red. Its economic future was tied irrevocably with development of tar sands oil and continued high global oil prices.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper congratulated Premier Notley, but must be seething at the results. His conservative power base has always been Alberta, and his vision for Canada, since becoming Prime Minister in 2006, has been to develop tar sands oil to the fullest, to see Canada pass China in oil production, and to have Canada enter the top tier producers along with Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United States.

Which seemed to be a good idea at the time with oilmen Bush and Cheney to the south and high oil prices globally. Harper bowed Canada out of the Kyoto Protocol, and buried the country’s targets for cutting carbon emissions. His vision included a huge invasion of tar sands crude into the United States via several routes – pipelines, rail and boat (see figure below from the NRDC).

Then President Obama took office, the Keystone hit a political wall, the United States became the largest oil-producing nation on Earth, and oil prices plummeted.

Now Alberta has gone democrat and Harper’s economy is on shaky ground.

The problem for the new government in Alberta, however, is that tar sands are integral to the Province’s economy. Alberta produces about 80% of the oil in Canada, and Canada is the fifth largest producer of oil in the world:

United States –  12.4 million barrels/day

Saudi Arabia –   11.6  million barrels/day

Russia  –              10.6  million barrels/day

China –                  4.4  million barrels/day

Canada –               4.3 million barrels/day

So any serious reduction of tar sands production would hit the economy quite hard. Even so, increasing petroleum royalties and corporate tax rates a bit, as suggested by the new government, could increase revenue while slowing any new tar sands operations.

This week’s election in Alberta, Canada replaced the conservative majority with a social-democratic majority, dealing a major blow to tar sands oil production and its planned invasion into the United States. Reprinted with permission from the Natural Resources Defense Council.

But it might be easier for Notley to aggressively pursue phasing out coal-fired power plants as her initial climate policy change since coal produces almost half of the Province’s electricity and produces even more carbon emissions than tar sands oil. She would need to replace coal with a combination of natural gas, nuclear and renewables, but that would fit in with Canada’s overall energy goals.

These election results are abuzz in the United States because of the Keystone Pipeline debate, but they may have little real impact on it. As described in Vox, Canada’s political pressure has meant little to the U.S. in this debate and the new Premier is not actually against pipelines in general.

Notley supports the proposed TransMountain pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia as well as the proposed Energy East pipeline to the Atlantic coast. Both avoid U.S. approval, but still have the oil end up at U.S. refineries. The Energy East line would be even bigger than the Keystone.

But both projects face fierce opposition by First Nations tribes to the west, and liberal Quebecers to the east. It is not certain at all that Alberta tars sands oil can ever expand to the levels envisioned by the previous government, so the new one may be better in line with the future.

In the end, however, the biggest hit to tar sands oil in Alberta comes from the huge increase in U.S. oil production and the low price of oil globally.

Elections won’t change that at all.

As the old saying goes, never put all your eggs in one basket.  That was the big mistake of the prior government, along of course with corruption, misguided tax cuts, lack of diversification, and so on.  People spoke, but if the new government does not deliver, they will speak again.

Source: http://www.forbes.com

YOU LIE, YOU LOSE: FORMER GEORGIA INSURANCE BROKER PLEADS GUILTY TO NATIONAL TRUCKING CARGO INSURANCE FRAUD SCHEME

MAY 7, 2015

John Paul Kill, the former operator of Appeal Insurance Agency LLC has pleaded guilty to a charge of insurance fraud.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Kill collected more than $3.7 million from nearly 800 trucking companies nationwide for fraudulent cargo insurance policies.

The DOJ alleges Kill operated an insurance brokerage firm, Appeal Insurance Agency in Norcross, Ga. and began offering cargo insurance policies to trucking companies in 2013. Kill falsely represented to clients that he would bind cargo insurance policies through Lloyd’s of London. In the insurance industry, binding coverage serves as an agreement between the insurance provider and insured parties to provide insurance coverage. In reality, Kill did not bind any policies with Lloyd’s and instead pocketed the premium payments.

For a small portion of victims, Kill bound cargo insurance policies through a different company that offered less extensive coverage than what the trucking companies thought they purchased through Kill. Most of the victims received no insurance policies at all, and Kill instead attempted to pay claims for losses out of the premium payments he collected for new policies.

In total, nearly 800 trucking companies located in Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Virginia paid about $3.75 million in premiums for these fraudulent insurance policies from 2013 through mid-2014.

Sentencing for Kill, 63, of Norcross, is scheduled for July 10 at 10:00 a.m.