Concerns about San Francisco’s decaying light poles were ignited after one corroded by urine toppled onto a car, narrowly missing the driver.

Lamp post destroyed by urine falls in street, just misses driver

By Lizzie Johnson
Updated 8:21 am, Thursday, August 6, 2015




















KTVU - 





Concerns about San Francisco’s decaying light poles were ignited Monday night after one corroded by urine toppled onto a car, narrowly missing the driver.

The three-story-tall lamp post at Pine and Taylor streets snapped around 6:30 Monday and landed on a nearby car, almost crushing the driver. No one was injured. 


A perfect storm of conditions rusted out the base of the pole, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission officials say, and caused it to fall. At the time, the lamp post, which was already old, was damaged by urine and weighed down by an oversized banner.



“We believe there was some contribution of dog or human urine on the base of the pole,” PUC spokesman Tyrone Jue said. “It has actually been an issue for us in the past. We encourage people and dogs alike to do their business in other places, like a proper restroom or one of our fire hydrants, which are stronger and made out of cast iron.” 


Urine accelerates the corrosion of the metal base of street poles, he said. 


The PUC has long known that its light poles are aging and becoming dilapidated. Last year, the street light budget increased tenfold from $500,000 to $5 million for maintenance and replacement of the poles. 


The PUC recently launched an assessment program to visually check on every single light post — all 25,000 of them. So far, 100 street lights have been replaced along San Bruno Avenue. 


People can also report aging posts by calling 311 or downloading the app SFStreetlights.

Beware of the welding guys: Heat transfer from pipe soldering blamed for Ypsilanti Township house fire in Michigan

By Darcie Moran | dmoran@mlive.com

on August 06, 2015

Tom Perkins | For The Ann Arbor News

 

A fire caused about $10,00 to 15,000 in damage to an Ypsilanti Township home on Wednesday. 

Firefighters were called about 6:30 p.m. Aug. 5 to the 800 block of East Cross Street after a homeowner noticed smoke in the house, said Ypsilanti Township Fire Department Capt. Fred Anstead. 

Anstead said workers were soldering pipes to put in a new water line earlier in the day. It's believed that heat transferred to the floor joist, causing a fire to start. 

When firefighters arrived, they found light smoke in the home and discovered a fire had started in the floor joist between the basement and first floor and traveled into a wall of the home, Anstead said. 

Firefighters had to tear open the wall and floor, but quickly knocked down the fire, he said. 

Anstead said fires like this happen more commonly in the winter, but said the two-story, single-family home was older and likely had drier wood. 

He said it was lucky the homeowner was around to notice the fire and alert authorities to stop its spread. 

"If she would have been gone, it could have been really bad," he said.

Sandy Hook Families Settle Lawsuits Against Lanza Estate For $1.5M. Lawsuits against the gun manufacturer and the town are still pending

The two lawsuits made similar claims -- that Nancy Lanza purchased a Bushmaster AR-15 and kept it in her Yogananda Street home where her son had access to it.
(Stephen Dunn)

 

By Dave Altimari 

 

Sandy Hook victims settle lawsuits against the estate of Adam Lanza's mother.

The families of 16 victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting will receive about $94,000 each to settle two lawsuits against the estate of the shooter's mother, Nancy Lanza.

Documents filed Monday in Probate Court show that the families have agreed to equally divide a $1.5 million homeowner's insurance policy that Lanza had on the Newtown home she shared with her son, Adam Lanza. Each family will get $93,750, records show. The lawsuits were filed by the families of 16 of those who died in the massacre and two who survived.

On Dec. 14, 2012 , Adam Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School and gunned down 26 people, including 20 first graders, using a Bushmaster AR-15 assault weapon that his mother had purchased legally. He had already killed his mother before going to the school – shooting her several times with a rifle as she slept in her bed at their Yogananda Street home.

The lawsuits made essentially the same claim — that Nancy Lanza purchased the Bushmaster and kept it in her home, where her 20-year-old son had access to it. State police reports said the Bushmaster was kept in a gun safe that was in a room adjacent to Adam Lanza's bedroom and that he had unlimited access to it.

The lawsuits allege that Nancy Lanza "knew or should have known that [Adam Lanza's] mental and emotional condition made him a danger to others."
The claims were made in two separate lawsuits filed against the estate of Nancy Lanza, which is still open in Probate Court. Stamford attorney Samuel Starks is the estate's administrator.

The lead plaintiffs in the lawsuits, were the parents of James Mattioli and the estate of Rachel D'Avino. 

The settlements must be approved by Probate Judge Joseph Egan before they can be finalized in Superior Court, but lawyers familiar with the case said that should be completed by the end of this month. All the lawyers on the case worked pro bono so the families could get all the proceeds.

Two other lawsuits filed as a result of the shootings are still pending.

Many of the same families also are suing Remington Outdoor Co., the distributor of the Bushmaster, in federal court. That lawsuit claims that the Bushmaster, which can fire up to 30 rounds a minute and is capable of piercing body armor, shouldn't have been entrusted to the general public because it is a military assault weapon.

The other lawsuit is against the town of Newtown and alleges that the town did not take enough steps to secure the school. The lawsuit alleges that Lauren Rousseau, a substitute teacher killed, did not have a key to her room and was unable to lock the door before Lanza entered the classroom.

He killed 14 of the 15 people in that room. The rest were killed in an adjacent classroom. Lanza killed himself using one of the handguns that he had brought into the building. He fired 155 shots in less than five minutes.

The house on Yogananda Street where Nancy and Adam Lanza lived was torn down a few months ago. A bank purchased it for $1 from the estate and turned it over to the town.

You lie, you lose: Milton Russ Barnhill, 47, pleaded guilty to nearly 20 charges including conspiracy to defraud the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation and the Farm Service Agency, falsifying, and aiding and abetting others to falsify insurance claims, and mail fraud

Columbus Co. man pleads guilty to crop insurance fraud charges

Posted: August 04, 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By: WECT Staff Milton Russ Barnhill (Source: Columbus Co. Sheriff's Office)

 

COLUMBUS COUNTY, NC (WECT) - 

A Columbus County man pleaded guilty in federal court on multiple charges related to crop insurance fraud.

According to a news release, Milton Russ Barnhill, 47, pleaded guilty to nearly 20 charges including conspiracy to defraud the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation and the Farm Service Agency, falsifying, and aiding and abetting others to falsify insurance claims, and mail fraud.

Investigators say Barnhill produced crops, which he sold in the names of others, and he, along with others, filed claims that the crops were lost due to natural disasters. Barnhill also placed crops and insurance policies in the names of others to boost the amount of money he could collect, investigators say.

Barnhill allegedly received over $1 million due to the falsified claims.
Barnhill was also charged with mail fraud after collecting approximately $450,000 from Horry County State Bank in bogus loans.

Investigators say he supplied a fictitious tobacco sales contract as collateral for a farm operating loan. He then used the money to fund the ongoing production of crops in the names of his co-conspirators.

Barnhill faces a maximum of 355 years in prison.

UPS truck crash, fuel leak snarls traffic on I-71 in Gallatin County, KY for hours

 



August 06, 2015 
 VERONA, Ky. —

Interstate 71 was closed for several hours Thursday near the Gallatin/Boone county line after a truck crash Thursday.


Authorities said a UPS tractor-trailer was going northbound near the 69 mile marker when it ran into the median of the highway.

The truck took out a length of median cable barrier before coming to rest. One of its two trailers overturned.

For a time, the truck was leaking methane gas, forcing the closure of all lanes in both directions.

After the leak stopped, all but the left-hand northbound lane reopened. Traffic was still slow in the area at 11 a.m.

All lanes reopened around 2:30 p.m.

There were no injuries, authorities said.







    

Pickup Driver Killed In Lake Dallas Train Collision

(credit: CBSDFW.COM)

UPDATED: August 6,2015 | 4:00 p.m. August 6, 2015 4:05 PM

LAKE DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – A train with the Denton County Transportation Authority struck a pickup truck shortly before 8:45 a.m. on Thursday morning. It happened along Hundley Drive, just east of Interstate-35E in Lake Dallas.

The driver of the pickup died.  No one on the train was injured.

Nicole Recker with the DCTA said that the train was heading northbound from Highland Village to the Medical Center station in Denton when the crash took place. The train reportedly derailed after the crash with 23 people on board.
.

(credit: CBSDFW.COM)

DCTA reinstated full train operations at 1:15 p.m. As an additional safety measure near the crossing, the A-train will reduce its speed to 15 mph and utilize train horns as an added safety notification. The reduction in train speed may cause a delay of one to two minutes but should not impact passengers.

NTSB Statistics Show Slight Increase in Number of Fatal General Aviation Accidents

AUGUST 6, 2015

​ WASHINGTON, DC The National Transportation Safety Board released preliminary aviation accident statistics for 2014 today showing a slight increase in fatal general aviation accidents, which increased from 222 in 2013 to 253 in 2014. The overall number of general aviation accidents decreased slightly from 1,224 in 2013 to 1,221 in 2014. Despite reporting fewer accidents, the accident rate for general aviation aircraft increased from 6.26 per 100,000 flight hours in the previous year to 6.74 in 2014. There were 28 accidents involving Part 121 operations (commercial air transport). The number of accidents involving scheduled Part 135 (commuter) operations decreased from seven in 2013 to four in 2014. On-demand Part 135 operations, which include charter, air taxi, air tour, and air medical flights, reported 35 accidents in 2014, down from 44 in 2013. The accident rate decreased from 1.30 per 100,000 flight hours in 2013 to 1.02 in 2014. The 2014 statistical tables showing accidents, fatalities, and accident rates for major segments of U.S. civil aviation can be found at: http://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/data/Pages/Accident-data-review.aspx

We can sleep now: BSEE Inspectors Stay Vigilant over Shell Arctic Drilling Operations

AUGUST 6, 2015

ANCHORAGE, Alaska— 

Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) inspectors are overseeing Shell drilling operations 24/7 in the Chukchi Sea to ensure compliance with federal regulations and safety standards. As part of the bureau’s commitment to safe and responsible offshore energy exploration and development, there is a continuous presence of BSEE inspectors monitoring operations on the rigs throughout the drilling season.    

 A BSEE inspector boarded the semi-submersible drilling unit Transocean Polar Pioneer before it began drilling the top section of the well at Burger J on July 30 and a second BSEE inspector is on board the drillship Noble Discoverer at Burger V, even though the Discoverer is not permitted to conduct drilling operations while the Polar Pioneer is operating.    

In accordance with a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Letter of Authorization (LOA) issued June 30, Shell must maintain a minimum spacing of 15 miles between rigs to minimize the potential for impacts on walruses in the region. Shell intends to drill at Burger J with the Polar Pioneer and and Burger V with the Discoverer.  The two well sites are approximately nine miles apart.  The LOA prohibits Shell from conducting simultaneous drilling operations at the two approved locations.    

BSEE inspector’s presence on both drilling units ensures federal oversight of conditions set forth in Shell’s Applications for Permit to Drill (APD) approved by BSEE July 22. These conditions include a restriction from drilling into oil-bearing zones until the capping stack (a key piece of Arctic oil exploration response equipment designed to shut-in a well in the unlikely event of a loss of well control) is onsite and deployable within 24 hours.   
  
On July 3, damage to the M/V Fennica caused by striking an underwater object delayed the transport of the capping stack to the Chukchi Sea. 

 M/V Fennica underwent repairs in Portland, Ore., in late July and is currently enroute to the Chukchi Sea with the capping stack on the vessel.    
If Shell is able to transport the capping stack to the Chukchi Sea, it may submit an Application for Permit to Modify the APDs and request to have this restriction reconsidered.

Inside Royal Dutch Shell’s Disastrous Plan to Drill for Arctic Oil and Damage the Ocean

Published in Oil Industry News on Thursday, 6 August 2015

In a windowless conference room in Anchorage, a dozen Royal Dutch Shell employees report on the highest-profile oil project in the multinational’s vast global portfolio. 

Warmed by mid-July temperatures, Arctic ice in the Chukchi Sea, northwest of the Alaskan mainland, is receding. Storms are easing; helicopter flights will soon resume. 

Underwater volcanoes—yes, volcanoes—are dormant. “That’s good news for us,” Ann Pickard, Shell’s top executive for the Arctic, whispers to a visitor.

Overhead, a bank of video monitors displays blinking green radar images of an armada of Shell vessels converging on a prospect called Burger J. Company geologists believe that beneath Burger J—70 miles offshore and 800 miles from the Anchorage command center—lie up to 15 billion barrels of oil. An additional 11 billion barrels are thought to be buried due east under the Beaufort Sea. All told, Arctic waters cover about 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered petroleum, or enough to supply the U.S. for more than a decade, according to government estimates.

Despite the July 21 meeting’s military-like precision, peculiarities become evident. Radar shows an icebreaker called MSV Fennica heading in the wrong direction—south toward Portland. Three weeks earlier, the 380-foot vessel ripped open a 39-inch-by-2-inch gash in its hull, the result of scraping against a shallow-water hazard in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. 

Because the multipurpose ship also carries spill response gear, the accident caused federal regulators to restrict drilling to the topmost 3,000-foot section of Burger J—and not farther down into the oil-bearing zone—until the Fennica gets patched up in a Portland repair facility and travels 2,300 miles back north. The detour gave Greenpeace the chance to stage a social media-friendly “#ShellNo” photo op on July 30, with protesters in climbers’ slings hanging from a Portland bridge and temporarily inhibiting the Fennica’s movements, while “kayaktivists” heckled from the harbor. 

In another setback, U.S. wildlife officials concerned about noise-sensitive Arctic walruses have vetoed Shell’s original plan to drill two wells simultaneously. “That caught us by surprise,” Pickard concedes.

Surprise lurks in the Chukchi, whose frigid waters north of the Bering Strait span from Alaska to Siberia. Logistical and legal obstacles have repeatedly delayed the Arctic initiative, on which Shell is spending more than $1 billion a year—more than $7 billion so far and counting. The single well in the Chukchi Shell aims to excavate this summer could be the most expensive on earth, and it hasn’t yielded its first barrel of crude.

Activists have sued; judges have intervened. In 2010, work stopped when the Obama administration temporarily suspended offshore drilling throughout the U.S. after the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Back in action in 2012, Shell suffered a maritime fiasco with Keystone Kops undertones: Ship engines conked out, tow lines snapped, and a massive drill barge ran aground, requiring the U.S. Coast Guard to rescue storm-stranded workers. This July 16, former Vice President Al Gore called the Obama administration’s decision to approve Shell’s drilling “insane.”

Two weeks later, on July 30, Shell’s chief executive officer, Ben Van Beurden, announced that as a result of $50-a-barrel oil, a 55 percent decline since last year, the company’s profit fell by a third in the second quarter. Expecting prices to “remain low for some time,” Van Beurden announced plans to eliminate 6,500 jobs, part of a broader contraction in a reeling industry. 

Even against this challenging economic backdrop, Shell won’t postpone or downsize its Arctic dreams. The offshore Alaska field, Van Beurden said, “has the potential to be multiple times larger than the largest prospects in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, so it’s huge.”

This raises the question of why Shell is doubling down on the Arctic amid a worldwide supply glut, and at the same time that many politicians are vowing to address global warming. Among the major oil companies, it stands out for its frank discussion of the threat posed by its business to the world’s climate. Its top executives have even professed a desire to rethink fossil fuels and move toward renewable energy sources. And yet it’s assuming immense operational risks to drill in the Arctic.

Shell executives don’t deny the apparent contradiction. “We do believe in climate change,” says Pickard. Shell’s Scenarios group, an in-house think tank that management points to as an emblem of its open-mindedness, has done extensive work undergirding the company’s support for government policies encouraging development of renewable energy sources, she says. 

But the Scenarios research also justifies aggressive exploration for more crude. With the global population rising from 7 billion to more than 9 billion by 2050 and total energy demand nearly doubling, “hydrocarbons are going to be needed for an awfully long time,” Pickard says. “That’s where Alaska fits into the picture.”

One of the most powerful women executives in a decidedly masculine industry, Pickard, 59, meets a reporter visiting Anchorage in jeans and a blue button-down shirt. Her rise through the ranks, first at the pre-merger Mobil and since 2000 at Shell, is especially impressive as she lacks the engineering or geology pedigree normally required of senior oil industry management. She has a graduate degree in international relations and has overseen exploration and production in Africa, Australia, Latin America, and Russia. “Ann doesn’t suffer fools,” says a (male) subordinate who pleads for anonymity.

Most of the world’s “easy oil” has already been pumped or nationalized by resource-rich governments, Pickard says, leaving independent producers such as Shell no choice but to pursue “extreme oil” in dicey places. “I enjoy the challenge,” she says. That’s why in 2013, when she was planning to retire to spend more time with her husband, a retired Navy commander, and their two adopted children, she changed her mind and took over the troubled Arctic project.

Pickard emphasizes that she enjoys the outdoors as much as the next person, but she’s no purist. “You hear a lot that the Arctic is pristine,” she says, using air quotes. “Yeah, it’s pristine in parts, but there’s been oil and gas up here for a long time.” She points to maps showing the enormous Prudhoe Bay complex within the Arctic Circle on Alaska’s North Slope. 

Active since the 1960s and still one of North America’s largest oil fields, Prudhoe has provided more than 12 billion barrels of crude via the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. In 1989, it was Prudhoe oil that sullied Prince William Sound on Alaska’s south central coast after the grounding of the tanker Exxon Valdez.

Shell missed out on the Prudhoe Bay bonanza but later helped develop Cook Inlet near Anchorage. Even on the more temperate southern side of the state, conditions can get harrowing, says Robert Bea, a retired engineering risk professor at the University of California at Berkeley. While consulting for Shell in the late 1980s, he spent two months on a Cook Inlet drilling vessel. He recalls roiling seas, temperatures of -16F, and deck hands continuously chopping and hurling overboard two-foot-thick ice sheets that threatened to throw off the ship’s balance.

While producing in Cook Inlet, Shell also tentatively explored the Chukchi, identifying what looked like oil- and gas-bearing formations 8,000 feet beneath the ocean floor. The Chukchi posed greater engineering challenges than Cook Inlet because of its even more severe weather and sheer remoteness, Pickard says. By the early 1990s, Shell had shut down its Arctic exploration in favor of more readily available prospects in the Gulf of Mexico.

Within the industry, Shell has a reputation for caution associated with its stolid Dutch cultural roots, says Butler, the former BP executive. But 15 years ago, competitive pressure from bulked-up rivals, combined with the growing scarcity of easily produced oil, began weighing on the company. 

 In 2004, around the same time Bea was visiting The Hague, Shell admitted it had overstated its global proven oil reserves by 4.5 billion barrels, or 22 percent. The ensuing scandal led to government fines in the U.S. and U.K., settlement of investor lawsuits, the ouster of the company’s chairman, and consolidation of the Dutch and British branches of the corporation.

Beginning in 2005, Shell moved aggressively to snap up new drilling leases in U.S.-controlled portions of the Arctic Ocean. This process culminated near the end of the Bush administration in 2008, when Shell spent $2.1 billion at auction for rights to more than 2 million acres of subsea Arctic real estate. “Maybe in part to make up for the reserve scandal or maybe just because their [geologic] studies show more oil and gas than others see there, Shell got way out in front in the Arctic,” says Michael LeVine, Pacific senior counsel for Oceana, a Washington-based environmental group. 

Shell spokesman Curtis Smith says the 2004 reserve controversy had no bearing on the company’s aims in the Arctic.

Shell returned to the Arctic. “It’s just too big a prize,” Pickard says. “We can’t afford to leave it all there.”

That September, the test of a $400 million “containment dome” went seriously awry. A faulty electrical connection caused the gigantic dome, designed to limit the spread of oil in case of a blowout, to rise to the surface without warning—and not in the storm-tossed Arctic but in the relatively tame Puget Sound, off Seattle. The head of the Alaska office of the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement reported that the dome “breached like a whale,” sank again, and reemerged, its top “crushed like a beer can.”

Despite these forbidding omens, in September and October 2012, Shell went ahead and drilled two shallow “top holes,” one in the Chukchi and one in the adjacent Beaufort Sea. The U.S. Department of the Interior banned penetration of hydrocarbon-bearing zones because of the containment dome snafu. Operating in the Chukchi, the Discoverer, a converted log carrier built in 1966, had to detach prematurely from the ocean floor when wind pushed a 10-mile-wide ice floe directly at the vessel. 

The Discoverer then suffered an onboard fire and propeller shaft malfunction that required the crew to shut down its engines and accept a tow to Seward, Alaska, where the Coast Guard impounded the vessel. Ultimately, Noble Drilling, Shell’s contractor, pleaded guilty to eight federal felony counts related to pollution and safety infractions and paid penalties totaling $12.2 million. The Discoverer was loaded onto a heavy-lift ship and taken to South Korea for extensive repairs.

On Dec. 27, with gale-force winds and 25-foot swells buffeting both vessels, the 600-yard towline snapped, setting the Kulluk and its crew adrift. The Aiviq circled back and reconnected the ships with an emergency line. The next day, however, the Aiviq’s four main engines all failed, apparently a result of seawater flooding. 

On Dec. 29, hovering Coast Guard helicopters lowered baskets on ropes to scoop the 18 crew members from the Kulluk’s heaving deck. Just in time, as it turned out: The towline broke once again—and later, a third time. On New Year’s Eve, Shell executives gave up. Cut loose, the Kulluk beached itself near Kodiak Island. Declared a total loss, the barge was dry-hauled to Singapore and cut up for scrap.

Following the Kulluk mess, Shell executives at the highest levels describe a period of intense internal reflection on whether to persevere in the Arctic. “I had the opportunity very early on in my tenure to say, ‘That’s it, let’s pull the plug on it,’” Van Beurden, who was named CEO in 2013, told the Guardian in a May 2015 podcast. “I had to go through a personal journey on that.”

A dedicated Scenarios team of a half-dozen engineers, economists, and scientists working in The Hague, periodically supplemented by hundreds of experts from elsewhere around the company, compile monograph-length analyses with titles such as “Scramble,” “Oceans,” and “Mountains.” Pierre Wack, a Frenchman who headed Shell’s planning division in the 1970s, formalized the Scenarios process. 

“Wack was inspired by George Gurdjieff, a Greco-Roman guru who believed that most human beings who are awake act as if they are asleep,” according to 40 Years of Shell Scenarios, a coffee-table book the company published in 2012. Wack “opted for a confrontational approach, breaking down [top management’s] assumptions.” Arguing for greater reliance on human intuition, he anticipated the 1973 OPEC crisis, the 1979 Iranian oil shock, and the decline of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s—or so goes company lore. 

Wack died in 1997 at the age of 75, spending his final years in a 14th century château in the Dordogne, in southwestern France.” At the end of his personal journey, Van Beurden gave the Arctic project a green light.

First, she says, on closer inspection, 2012 really wasn’t all that bad: “A lot of things went right. They had a successful exploration season in terms of getting rigs up here, operating to top holes, and then getting back down to Alaska quite successfully.” (From Alaska south, of course, not so much.)

What of the spill containment system crushed like an empty beer can? “That didn’t go well,” she admits. Also, “the Kulluk ended up on the beach. That’s not anything anyone wants to see in pictures.”

But past failure doesn’t guarantee future failure, Pickard points out. “The perception was that the weather is far worse [in the Arctic] than anywhere else we operate,” she continues. Not so. Off the U.K., she says, “North Sea conditions are actually worse.” Before taking over in Anchorage, she oversaw the construction of Prelude, a mammoth floating liquefied natural gas plant off northwestern Australia. 

It’s designed to withstand Category 5 cyclones, she explains, and those don’t happen in the Arctic. “We know how to operate in places where there’s challenging weather,” she says. “Alaska is no worse, and in many ways better than some other places.”

Continuing to accentuate the positive, Pickard says the Burger J prospect lies beneath only 140 feet of water, and its crude oil reservoir is under relatively low pressure as these things go. In contrast, BP’s ill-fated Macondo well lay beneath a mile of ocean and was under extremely high pressure. “The blowout scenario is quite different than the case of BP’s Macondo,” Pickard says. Burger J “is the kind of thing we’ve done all over the world for decades.”

Not to say there will be a blowout. “It’s not going to happen on my watch,” Pickard maintains. She has hired new talent, including a retired Navy admiral and several ex-Coast Guard officers. She’s “flattened the organization a lot.” Her predecessor and his inner circle in Anchorage perched several floors above the operations people; Pickard and her aides-de-camp mingle with the rank and file.
Ninety percent of the hands-on crew on an offshore project work for contractors. Pickard acknowledges that in 2012, Shell didn’t supervise the hired help adequately. 

“The contract management side has entirely changed,” she says. She has designated senior Shell employees as “contract holders” who each supervise one or two outside companies to the exclusion of other duties. “I expect our contract holder to know what the captain of the Aiviq had for breakfast yesterday.”

Yes, she confirms, that’s the same Aiviq that was part of the misadventure three years ago. It’s been repaired and returned to action; same with the rehabilitated Noble Discoverer and containment dome. The wrecked Kulluk has been replaced by the Polar Pioneer, a rectangular eight-leg drilling unit 279 feet long and 233 feet wide. Built in 1985, the Pioneer is owned and operated by Transocean, the same Switzerland-based drilling contractor responsible for the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded while working for BP in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, killing 11 men. 

Thirty vessels are expected to be in the vicinity of the Burger J prospect, about the same as in 2012, with the Discoverer backing up the Pioneer and available to drill a relief well in the event of the blowout Pickard guarantees won’t occur.
The National Research Council, the working arm of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, has a more pessimistic view. 

“Coast Guard personnel, equipment, transportation, communication, navigation, and safety resources needed for oil spill response are not adequate for overseeing oil spill response in the Arctic,” the council concluded in a report last year.

Pickard disagrees. She says she can get all of her gear—capping stack, containment dome, surface booms, skimmer boats, tankers—in position within 60 minutes of an accident.

As she sees it, the damaged Fennica’s detour to Portland proves her point. Yes, the icebreaker suffered a puncture wound in Alaska. But rather than attempt a quick fix, she sent it to Portland for a more thorough repair in dry dock. The Fennica also happens to carry the capping stack, a massive piece of spill response equipment that would come into play to plug an out-of-control well if another device, the blowout preventer, failed to do the job. 

Pickard left the capping stack on the Fennica, even though that decision prompted the Department of Interior to ban Shell from penetrating Burger J’s oil zone until the Fennica returned to the vicinity of the well.

Pickard calls the management of the Fennica “a perfect example of operating exceptionally well.” On July 30, the ship maneuvered past nine remaining protesters hanging from Portland’s St. Johns Bridge and headed out to the Pacific on its way to the Chukchi. 

Anticipating the Fennica’s return, the Polar Pioneer’s drill bit began spinning into the seafloor to carve a “mud-line cellar,” a 20-by-40-foot space that will house the blowout preventer (BOP). In most offshore projects, the BOP projects above the seabed. Shell is burying the device to minimize potential damage from any large, unseasonal underwater ice floes of the sort that forced the Discoverer to detach and retreat from its top hole in 2012.

If all goes well (a near impossibility), Shell will drill through in late September, at which point Pickard says she’ll order the fleet to move south for the cold months. Shell will have to come back for 15 summers before “first oil” flows through an as-yet-unconstructed 70-mile seafloor pipeline to the Alaska coast and then a 350-mile overland connector (also yet to be built) to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.

Pickard acknowledges that if 2030 oil prices are no higher than today’s, all the effort will have been for naught. If prices are 40 percent higher, or $70 a barrel, Chukchi oil would be “competitive,” she says. At $110, which the company sees as a realistic possibility, it would be a smashing success. 

The vicissitudes of petroleum pricing aren’t Pickard’s concern right now. A Norwegian oil regulator she’s friendly with reminded her recently that if Shell makes progress, other companies and nations will be emboldened to try the Arctic. “A lot’s riding on your performance,” the Norwegian told her. “The world’s watching you.”
Source: www.bloomberg.com

Pallet Recycle of Alabama Inc., a Florida pallet recycling company, exposes temporary and full-time workers to deadly safety hazards following OSHA inspection. Employer cited for 17 serious safety violations with more than $70K in proposed penalties

U.S. Department of Labor

Aug. 4, 2015

Pallet Recycle of Alabama Inc., a Florida pallet recycling company,  exposes temporary and full-time workers to deadly safety hazards following OSHA inspection.

  Employer cited for 17 serious safety violations with more than $70K in proposed penalties.

Employer name: Pallet Recycle of Alabama Inc.

Inspection site: 2424 Lasso Ave., Lakeland, Florida 30801 

Date citations issued: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued 29 citations to the employer on Aug. 3. The safety inspection was initiated in March 2015, as part of the agency’s National Emphasis Program on Amputations. A health inspection related to excessive noise was initiated in April.

Inspection findings: OSHA issued the employer 17 serious and 12 other-than-serious safety violations for failure to develop and implement a monitoring plan for workers exposed to high noise levels; develop  procedures to prevent machinery from starting up unexpectedly during maintenance and servicing; provide personal protective equipment to workers; and train employees who operate forklifts. The employer was also cited for exposing workers to fall hazards and moving parts on equipment that was missing safety guards.

Quote: “Pallet Recycle failed to protect its full-time and temporary workers from a wide range of safety and health hazards that could result in serious injury or death,” said Les Grove, OSHA’s director of the Tampa Area Office. “Employers cannot wait for an OSHA inspection to identify these hazards. It’s good business to implement preventative programs and systems to identify and correct such hazards as part of day-to-day operations.” 

Proposed penalties: $71,400

The citations can be viewed at: http://www.osha.gov/ooc/citations/PalletRecycleofAlabamaInc_1057195.pdf* http://www.osha.gov/ooc/citations/PalletRecycleofAlabamaInc_1047229.pdf*

Pallet Recycling refurbishes wood pallets used in many industries. The company has 15 business days from receipt of its citations and proposed penalties to comply, request a conference with OSHA’s area director or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.
To ask questions; obtain compliance assistance; file a complaint; or report amputations, losses of an eye, workplace hospitalizations, fatalities or situations posing imminent danger to workers, the public should call OSHA's toll-free hotline at 800-321-OSHA (6742) or the agency’s Tampa Area Office at 813-626-1177.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution cited for repeatedly exposing workers to amputation, electrocution and other workplace hazards. Newspaper previously cited in 2011; more than $65K in penalties proposed

U.S. Department of Labor 

Aug. 5, 2015

The Atlanta Journal Constitution cited for repeatedly exposing workers to amputation, electrocution and other workplace hazards.

  Newspaper previously cited in 2011; more than $65K in penalties proposed

Employer name: Cox Enterprises Inc. doing business as The Atlanta Journal Constitution

Inspection site: 6455 Best Friend Road, Norcross, Georgia 30071
Date citations issued: The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued citations to the employer on July 30. The inspection was initiated on March 12, 2015, as part of the agency’s National Emphasis Program on Amputations.


Inspection findings: OSHA cited the employer for one repeated and five serious safety violations. The repeated citation was issued for exposing workers to amputations and being entangled in machinery that lacked safety guards. The serious violations involve failing to develop and utilize procedures to prevent machinery from starting up during maintenance and servicing and exposing workers to live electrical wiring. The newspaper company was previously cited for a similar violation in 2011.



Quote: “A lack of safety mechanisms continues to be one of the most frequently cited violations and that is unacceptable,” said William Fulcher, OSHA’s director of the Atlanta-East Area Office. “Management needs to take immediate action to remove these hazards from the workplace.”

Proposed penalties: $65,550

The citations can be viewed at:  http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/osha/OSHA20151446fs.pdf*

Cox Enterprises prints, processes and distributes The Atlanta Journal Constitution. The company has 15 business days from receipt of its citations and proposed penalties to comply, request a conference with OSHA’s area director or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.
To ask questions; obtain compliance assistance; file a complaint or report amputations, losses of an eye, workplace hospitalizations, fatalities or situations posing imminent danger to workers, the public should call OSHA's toll-free hotline at 800-321-OSHA (6742) or the agency's Atlanta-East Area Office at 770-493-6644.

Workers exposed to multiple safety and health hazards at Superior Holding, Inc., operating as Superior Boiler Works Inc., Hutchinson, Kansas, a boiler manufacturer

U.S. Department of Labor 

Aug. 5, 2015

Workers exposed to multiple safety and health hazards at Superior Holding, Inc., operating as Superior Boiler Works Inc., Hutchinson, Kansas, a boiler manufacturer

Employer name: Superior Holding, Inc., operating as Superior Boiler Works Inc., Hutchinson, Kansas

Citations issued: Aug. 4, 2015.

Investigation findings: The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Wichita area office issued one repeat and 16 serious safety violations to the industrial boiler manufacturer. The violations include:

• Not providing machine guarding to protect workers from moving machinery. The company was previously cited for this violation in 2012 at the same facility.
• Exposing workers to falls of up to 13 feet due to unguarded open-sided floors or platforms.
• Struck-by hazards from overhead cranes.
• Lack of personal protective equipment.
• Electrical safety hazards.
• Failing to implement a written program for respiratory protection.
• Fire hazards
• Failing to implement a program for permit required confined spaces

Proposed penalties: $60,060

Quote: “OSHA found workers at Superior Holding were exposed to various hazards including amputation and falls. The company needs to evaluate its safety and health programs and make immediate improvements to protect workers on the job,” said Judy Freeman, OSHA’s area director in Wichita. 

Link to citations: http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/osha/OSHA20151532afs.pdf* http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/osha/OSHA20151532bfs.pdf*
To ask questions; obtain compliance assistance; file a complaint or report amputations, eye loss, workplace hospitalizations, fatalities or situations posing imminent danger to workers, the public should call OSHA's toll-free hotline at 800-321-OSHA (6742) or the agency’s Wichita Area Office at 316-269-6644.