Articles by Janet McConnaughey

Report: Oil Spills Dropped Dramatically Last Decade

Oil and natural gas spills from tankers and pipelines in U.S. waters dropped dramatically from the last decade of the 1990s to the one from 2010 through 2019, according to a federal report. The amounts spilled and dumped in wastewater …

Louisiana Men Survive 28 Hours at Sea After Boat Sinks

Two anglers whose boat sank over the weekend the Gulf of Mexico clung to an improvised float and fought off sharks while the third, Phong Le, swam several miles to search for help. Le managed to find a cellphone signal, …

Report: Oil Spills Dropped Dramatically Last Decade

Oil and natural gas spills from tankers and pipelines in U.S. waters dropped dramatically from the last decade of the 1990s to the one from 2010 through 2019, according to a federal report Wednesday. The amounts spilled and dumped in …

US Aims to Reverse Some Trump Offshore Safety Rule Rollbacks

The U.S. Department of the Interior said Monday that it wants to reverse some Trump administration rollbacks of offshore safety rules to prevent blowouts like the BP catastrophe that killed 11 people and fouled the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. …

Louisiana Completes Major Coastal Restoration Project

Louisiana has completed one of its biggest coastal restoration projects yet, and is at work on even bigger ones. The dredge used to suck up sediment from the Gulf of Mexico to add 1,000 acres (405 hectares) of habitat to …

Abandoned Louisiana Oil Wells to Receive Clean Up in Infrastructure Bill

About $33 million of the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan recently signed into law by President Joe Biden will go toward cleaning up 277 of an estimated 15,000 abandoned oil and gas wells on federal land, the nation’s interior secretary …

Abandoned Louisiana Oil Wells Slated to Receive Clean Up in Infrastructure Bill

About $33 million of the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan recently signed into law by President Joe Biden will go toward cleaning up 277 of an estimated 15,000 abandoned oil and gas wells on federal land, the nation’s interior secretary …

Power Outages Increase as Extreme Weather Inflicts Toll on Aging Grid, Vulnerable Citizens

Power outages from severe weather have doubled over the past two decades across the U.S., as a warming climate stirs more destructive storms that cripple broad segments of the nation’s aging electrical grid, according to an Associated Press analysis of …

3 in Louisiana’s Camp Minden Explosion Case Owe $140K to $34.8 Million Restitution

Three of the men who pleaded guilty in connection with what a prosecutor called the nation’s worst dumping of explosives still owe substantial restitution _ one for nearly all of the $34.8 million he was ordered to pay, federal prosecutors …

Pipeline’s Safeguards Malfunctioned in Louisiana Diesel Spill

A corroded pipeline that ruptured and spilled 350,000 gallons (1.6 million liters) of diesel fuel into a New Orleans-area wetland did not have a fully functioning leak detection system at the time, according to federal records, which also show the …