"With warming seas creating new opportunities at the top of the world, nations are scrambling over the Arctic — its territorial waters, transit routes and especially its natural resources — in a rivalry some already call a new Cold War."
A Maryland state judge this month ordered a state agency to give news media routing information about oil trains within Maryland — adding momentum to efforts to warn firefighters and communities about dangers they face. Photo: 2013 Lac Megantic, Quebec, disaster, by Elias Schewel/Flickr.
"Newly released documents show that firefighters responding to an oil train derailment and fire last year in Lynchburg, Va., waited more than two hours for critical details about the train and what was on it."
Chinese authorities have told news media not to report independently on the hazardous chemical explosion that killed more than a hundred people in Tianjin. No live broadcasting, interpretation, or social media reporting is allowed. Only state-controlled media can be used. Many of the dead were firefighters, who may not have known the hazard they were confronting. There are signs that the Chinese government has been suppressing information about firefighter deaths.
"A Baltimore City Circuit Court judge has ruled that the information railroads submit to the state about the volume and frequency of their crude oil shipments is public."
"In the last few years, doctors in the southern U.S. have seen some strange diseases: Chagas disease, parasitic infections of the brain known as neurocysticercosis, dengue, the virus chikungunya and more."
"The Federal Railroad Administration plans to impose big penalties on railroads that fail to meet a year-end deadline to install a new collision avoidance system, including more than 70 percent of the nation’s commuter railroads."
"The air in Newark, New Jersey’s largest city, is expected to clear up now that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has finalized agreements with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and port terminal operators that will cut air pollution caused by idling diesel trucks at the port."
"Over two years after a runaway freight train derailed, exploded and destroyed much of the small town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec, killing 47, the Obama administration has issued new rules governing breaking procedures for tanker cars carrying volatile cargo."
If you want to know whether an oil train is going by your community, just go down to the railroad tracks and watch for it. But don't ask the railroad or the state. In many cases, they don't think you can be trusted with this secret.
Advertisement 
