USA
As reported in Courthous News Service on February 16th, on February 9th the Chevron refinery in the East Bay city of Richmond, California, discovered a pipeline leak that oozed about 700 gallons of a substance described by Chevron as ‘a mixture of recovered oil and gasoline’, ‘petroleum and water mixture’ and ‘hydrocarbons.’
The refinery processes about 240,000 barrels of oil daily. A barrel is 42 US Gallons. So that equates to 10,080,000 gallons per day. So 700 gallons seems just a drop in the ocean. But that ‘drop’ is killing the herring and ruining the environment in the Bay. A class action lawsuit claims that Chevron did not have booms in place to prevent the spread of spills, were slow to respond when the spill happened, and took action that worsened the spill by concentrating the oil in the most ecologically sensitive area of the Bay.
Israel
On the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean in Israel, an as yet unnamed ship has discharged tons of toxic tar in what Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority had called one of the most serious ecological disasters in the country’s history.
In The Apple Tree 