The Environment Chronicle

About 150,000 litres of diesel poured into the Wei river in Shaanxi province after a construction accident on 30 Dezember 2009. Pollution has been reported up to 33km (21 miles) downstream. Locals have been warned not to use water from the river. The leak occurred on the fuel pipeline operated by the state-run China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) that connects Lanzhou in the north-west province of Gansu with Zhengzhou in central Henan province. The diesel first went into the Chishui river, a tributary of the Wei. Around 700 emergency workers are said to be labouring round the clock, using floating dams and solidifying agents to contain the spill. The Yellow River is a source of drinking water for millions of people.

In consequence to recent incident, environmentalists demanded an immediate shutdown of France's oldest nuclear power plant. According to French Safety Authority (ASN), problems appeared in the cooling circuit of Fessenheim's second reactor. The reactor was planned to go on line again on 27 December 2009 after maintenance work but after problems in a cooling circuit the restarting was delayed.

Two decades after the Exxon Valdez disaster, a tugboat working to prevent another oil spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound ran aground on the same reef and left a three-mile sheen of fuel oil on the water. The 136-foot tug Pathfinder had just finished checking for dangerous ice and was heading back to port in Valdez when it hit Bligh Reef. The boat is part of the Ship Escort Response Vessel System that was created after the Exxon Valdez ran aground in 1989 and spilled nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil - the worst ever U.S. spill. The Coast Guard said Thursday that two of its tanks - containing an estimated 33,500 gallons of diesel fuel - were damaged and there was a fuel sheen on the water about 3 miles long and 30 yards wide.

One of the reactors at the Cruas nuclear power station in Ardèche, southern France was shut down late on 1 December 2009 after a problem with the cooling system. EDF, the French energy company, reported the incident just before midnight local time and shut down the reactor. Water from the Rhone river is used to cool the nuclear plant, and the French Nuclear Safety authority (ASN) said vegetation had blocked the intake. The accident was classified as a level two situation on the seven point scale of international nuclear incidents.

Londonderry Township, Pa. (Nov. 21, 2009) About 150 employees working inside the shutdown Three Mile Island Unit 1 containment building were sent home about 4:00 p.m. EST Saturday after an airborne radiological contamination alarm inside the reactor building sounded. The unit has been shut down since Oct. 26 for refueling, maintenance and steam generator replacement. No contamination was found outside of the containment building. Radiological surveys showed that the contamination was confined to surfaces inside the containment building. The event posed no threat to public health and safety.

A huge fire raged at an oil depot near the northern India city of Jaipur. The blaze at the state-run Indian Oil Corp depot on the outskirts of Jaipur started on 29 Oktober 2009 and engulfed at least 11 tanks containing 8 million litres of oil.

On the morning of 23 October 2009, an explosion rocked fuel storage tank facilities near San Juan, Puerto Rico with the same force as a 2.8-magnitude earthquake, according to the authorities. The fire that burned for several days, spewing thick, toxic smoke across the region and forcing hundreds of people to evacuate.

The Turkish-flagged bulk carrier Gulser Ana run aground off the coast of Madagascar (Faux Cap/ Cap Sainte Marie). The MS Gulser Ana, which was bound for India with a cargo of 39,000 tonnes of phosphates, has leaked several hundred cubic metres of diesel and oil, as well as its cargo, since running into trouble on 26 August, 2009. The fuel spill polluted several kilometres of coastline in an area renowned for its biodiversity and rich coral reefs.

On 21 August 2009, the Montara offshore oil platform in the Timor Sea (a large sea bordering the Indian Ocean, to the northeast of Australia) started leaking oil. Over a period of ten weeks, more than two million litres of oil were lost into the sea, forming a 2000 square kilometre slick. The oil well was closed at the beginning of November, stopping the flow of oil into the sea.

The French government has declared an "ecological disaster" in one of Europe's most unique and beautiful nature reserves after an oil spill from an underground pipeline spread over acres of pristine habitat. More than 4,000 cubic metres of crude burst into the Coussouls de Crau in southern France on 7 August 2009. The broken pipe is operated by the European company SPSE. Situated on the edge of the Camargue national park, the Coussouls de Crau has a reputation for being as important a refuge for the rare birds of Europe and northern Africa as its celebrated neighbour is for the region's wild bulls and horses.

The vessel Full City was leaking diesel oil into the surrounding coastal areas. The spill is threatening the southern Norwegian coast, home to protected seabird colonies. According to the WWF, the accident took place close to the Lille Sastein bird sanctuary.

A Panama-registered cargo ship was leaking oil after running aground off Norway's south coast on 31 July 2009. The Full City was carrying 1100 tonnes of oil. Regional authorities in the southern province of Telemark said diesel spilling from the Full City was approaching the town of Langesund.

On 24 July 2009 the Emsland reactor in northwest Germany underwent an automatic shutdown at 3:08 a.m. (0100 GMT).

The nuclear power plant at Kruemmel, near Hamburg, shut down automatically on 4 July 2009 following a short-circuit in a transformer. The plant had reopened only last month after a two-year closure that followed a fire in another transformer in 2007.

A fire on an uninhabited North Sea island and national park has destroyed thousands of bird nests. The fire started on 17 June 2009 on the island of Mellum in Lower Saxony's Wattenmeer national park. Mellum was home to colonies of herring gulls and oystercatchers, but both were reportedly completely destroyed by the flames.

The Russian fishery vessel the Petrozavodsk grounded by the coast of the Bear Island in the Barents Sea on 11 May, 2009. The ship grounded in an area with big cliffs and with major sea bird populations. Norwegian authorities fear that oil will leak from the vessel and harm the rich sea bird populations in the area. Bear Island with the adjacent waters is a nature reserve.

The amphibious USS New Orleans and the submarine USS Hartford collided in the Straight of Hormuz, between Iran and Arabian peninsula, on Friday 20 March 2009. There was no damage to the submarine's nuclear propulsion system. The amphibious ship suffered a ruptured fuel tank, which resulted in an oil spill of apprximately 25,000 gallons of diesel.

The cargo ship Pacific Adventurer carrying 60 containers of ammonium nitrate, used for making fertilizer and explosives, lost an estimated 31 containers overboard on 11 March 2009 in rough seas off Australia's northeast coast. One of the containers pierced the ship’s hull, allowing about 20 tonnes of fuel to leak out.

A fire has broken out aboard an oil tanker after it was in collision with a container ship off the coast of Dubai. The accident happened in a shipping channel near Jebel Ali Port. The tanker was named Kashmir and was carrying about 30,000 tons of oil condensate. The Maltese-flagged vessel was heading to the UAE from Iran.

A rupture in Ecuador's second largest oil pipeline has polluted the Santa Rosa river in the lush Amazon jungle. 14,000 barrels of crude has polluted the river.

On 14 February 2009, an oil spill was detected approximately 50 miles (80 km) southeast of Fastnet Rock off the West Cork coast of Ireland. It has been reported that there were Russian vessels in the area. The spill is estimated to be 400-500 tonnes of oil. The spill was originally spread over an area encompassing four miles by five miles. The alert was provided by the CleanSeaNet European oil spill detection service of EMSA.

According to the US Coast Guard, the collision on 23 January 2010 between the tanker Eagle Otome and a barge caused some 450,000 gallons of crude oil to spill into port waters. The spillage happened at Port Arthur, south-east Texas.