Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Investigators won't be able to enter the site of last week's deadly BP refinery accident until at least Thursday due to a leak of benzene from a storage tank onsite...
Gas Leak Reported Near FM 1314 (Dallas, TX - Exxon Pipeline - 3/29/05)
By: Sue Thackeray 03/29/2005 EAST COUNTY - Kim Mussett noticed an odd but all-to-familiar smell Sunday night inside her Duncan Lane home near FM 1314.
She went outside Monday morning and found the oil-and-gas mixture that flows through the Exxon-owned pipeline in her backyard horse pasture bubbling up out of the ground. The mixture is reportedly not flammable but does have a strong smell that can cause lightheadedness, Mussett said. "My father has emphysema and other breathing problems, and you can smell this in the house," she said.
This isn't the first time the pipeline has broken in Mussett's pasture. Just three months ago, Exxon officials had to repair the line about 100 feet from Monday's leak. Mussett's property isn't the only place in the Duncan Lane area where the pipe has broken recently. There has been a break on her neighbor's property, one across the street and several on the utility easement on the opposite side of her property. Mussett estimates the line has broken about 10 times in the past six months in her immediate area.
Exxon officials did not return phone calls Monday to their Houston and Dallas offices seeking comment. While investigating the leak on her property Monday afternoon, Mussett noticed another leak on the line just across her property line on the utility easement. "I've lived out here 15 years, and we hadn't had any problems until the last six months or so," Mussett said.
The following story sounds extremely similar to the cabin explosion in a remote mountain area in Colorado last week...Electric Mountain Resort is the name of the place in CO IIRC.
Cabin Explodes In Big Cottonwood Canyon (Utah - 3/29/05)
LAST UPDATE: 3/27/2005 12:00:52 AM
(ABC 4 News)-- A cabin near the top of Big Cottonwood Canyon exploded early Saturday morning, completely destroying the structure. Authorities are pointing to a possible propane leak as the cause.
The blast happened around 4:00 a.m., sending huge pieces of debris into the air and leaving a massive crater where the cabin used to be. Authorities had a very difficult time reaching the explosion site, because the snow was too deep. Officials say it may be several weeks before they can recover all of the debris.
Despite the massive explosion, luckily no one was injured. There was nobody inside the cabin at the time of the blast.
ExxonMobil Takes Some Responsibility For MTBE Leak (Maryland - Water Well Contamination - 3/28/05)
Mar 28, 2005 6:07 pm US/Eastern (WJZ) The Exxon-Mobil Corporation says it may be responsible for up to half of the chemically contaminated drinking-water wells in Fallston, Harford County.
But the company says it needs to do additional tests to determine the extent of its culpability. The oil company has submitted a report to the Maryland Department of the Environment. The report says it needs to do additional tests on about 145 wells to the southwest of an Exxon station at routes 152 and 165 in the Upper Crossroads area.
http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=countries&Area=iraq&ID=IA21405
Inquiry and Analysis Series - No. 214
March 29, 2005
No.214
"Iraqi-Jordanian Tension Over the Most Lethal Suicide Bombing in Iraq
By Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli*"
"The Wedding of the Martyr"
ARTICLE SNIPPET: "This horrific act would have been simply charted in Iraqi terrorist statistics as another act of terrorism were it not for "a social event" that shed light on the perpetrator himself and on his family. On March 11, 2005, newspapers reported that the terrorist was Raid Mansour al-Banna from the City of al-Salt in Jordan. According to his father, Raid had studied and worked a number of years in the United States, "in one of the Californian airports, to be exact." [2] He was 32 when he blew himself up.
What riled the Iraqis the most was that al-Banna's family honored his act by holding a festive ceremony known as "the wedding of the martyr" [ 'irs al-shahid ] to symbolize his wedding in paradise with 72 virgins. At these events, the bereaved family receives guests who offer it condolences and congratulations for their son's martyrdom. A truck was seen on television bringing food to a special tent erected to receive the guests. [3] In justifying the celebration, the family argued that the victims were Americans. In fact, there was no American casualty in this operation."
BTTT for the follow-ups!