Under cover of Katrina...questionable oil storage plan pushed through

(PHOTO: TIM  ISBELL/SUN HERALD)

The Sun Herald has a series on a Dept. of Energy plan  to drain millions of gallons of water from a  river to dissolve the Richton Salt Dome for oil storage for expansion of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Today's article reports on the economic and environmental impact of the plan which has been "denounced by local officials, conservationists, scientists and recreational users as a potential environmental and economic catastrophe based on faulty science." Yesterday's article from the Sun Herald reported on how  the federal government pushed the plan through under the disarray of Katrina.

The federal government wants to drain 50 million gallons of water each day for five years from either the Leaf River or Pascagoula River to hollow out the Richton salt dome for underground oil storage. The plan has been criticized by local officials and conservationists, who say the government quietly pushed it through in the disarray after Katrina.

DoE announced "its intent to explore the environmental impact" for the project just 3 days after Katrina. "The agency cancelled public meetings in Hattiesburg and Pascagoula scheduled for early October 2005 because the meeting places had been damaged." They were re-scheduled  for 2 weeks later to be held in Jackson, MS. Conservationists and local officials claim they were left out of the process due to this...

• "Nobody had a TV or electricity," said Rebecca Stowe, director of the Nature Conservancy's office in Merrill. "It definitely seems to have flown under the radar." She said she had no knowledge of the announcement or subsequent public meetings, and she believes George County officials also knew nothing of the plan.

• The Jackson County Board of Supervisors was left out of the loop, said Supervisor Frank Leach at a recent Sierra Club meeting about the project.

• "You can't have a democratic and public process so soon after Katrina. It hasn't been an open process," said Jeff Grimes, assistant director of water resources for the Gulf Restoration Network, a New Orleans conservation group.

The Sun Herald  reports this on the environmental-impact report for the project --"Other than a general safety plan, little was said about the impact of hurricanes to coastal and offshore structures and pipes outlined in the project."

And who performed the environmental assessment report?

None other than ICF International, the company that has performed so poorly in handling Louisiana's Road Home program.

Comments

[virgotex]

holeeee shit.

[Jude]

This isn't the first fuckjob that the feds have pulled regarding a south Mississippi salt dome.

About 50 miles west-southwest of Richton, MS lies the similarly sleepy town of Baxterville, MS. In 1964, the AEC & the US Air Force chose the Tatum Salt Dome just outside of Baxterville (and less than 30 miles from Hattiesburg) to be the site of the only two nuclear detonations east of the Mississippi River. The resulting seismic shock waves scared the crap out of plenty of residents(and cracked windows as far away as Hattiesburg) who, of course, were not informed of the test beforehand.

So I guess it's just another "fuck you" to the poorest state in the Union.

[pansypoo]

um, why not put it in a ALREADY SPOILED SPOT? why do they have to take pristine????
FUCK. humans SUCK.

[MapleStreet]

There's a ranch in Crawford Texas that would be just perfect as a waste dump.

[mdhatter]

We don't need more strategic petroleum reserves, we need a more reserved petroleum strategy.

[pansypoo]

yes. put it in texass.