Sign warning of shoreline closure due to oil spill contamination, photo courtesy of Wikipedia user Benefactor123, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Here are some of the stories we’ve been following this week.
- June 8 was the deadline to file a claim in the Economic and Property Damages Settlement for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
- The cost of the oil spill that hit California beaches in May has now reached $69 million. With costs around $3 million a day, officials have not announced when they expect to finish the cleanup.
- Paying to keep people in their homes saves a city money, and New York City is doubling the budget of one homelessness prevention program to $42 million to help keep residents in their homes.
- A Pennsylvania senator has proposed a bill to encourage the use of treated mine water rather than fresh water for fracking by clarifying liability issues. Fracking uses a lot of water, and reducing the use of fresh water could be very beneficial when so many areas are struggling with water shortages and conflicts over water rights.
- Enbridge has reached a $4 million settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice to cover Natural Resource Damage Assessment claims from the company’s 2010 Kalamazoo River oil spill. The cleanup effort lasted 5 years and has cost the company $1 billion.
- Apparently the oil boom in the Bakken has led to problems with organized crime, “including human trafficking, drug and weapons trafficking, as well as white collar crimes.” A federal task force has been created to deal with the problem.
- The Appraisal Institute has joined the U.S. Department of Energy’s new Better Buildings Home Energy Information Accelerator, a partnership of 31 public and private-sector organizations to help consumers improve the energy efficiency of their homes.
- Georgetown, Texas is the second-fastest-growing city in the United States. The city will also soon be powered completely by renewable energy resources, a plan that was made partly as a smart business decision, according to the mayor.
- United Launch Alliance is appealing a $3.25 billion property value assessment and $300 million tax bill resulting from a series of escape assessments on properties the assessor claims weren’t previously assessed. The company said it believes the property it owns is worth only $619 million.
- Lancaster County, Nebraska expects to see thousands of residents protest their property value assessments; protests are common after the assessor conducts a countywide review once every 3 years.
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