The Environment Chronicle

On October 4, 2010 at 12:30 the western dam of cassette X of the sludge reservoir, owned by Magyar Alumínium ZRt (Hungarian Aluminum Co), had ruptured. Due to the ruptured dam, a mixture of 600-700 thousand m3 of red sludge and water inundated the lower sections of the settlements of Kolontár, Devecser and Somlóvásárhely via the Torna creek.

Environmental authorities in northeastern China are monitoring chemical levels in a major river after floodwaters carried more than 3,000 barrels filled with toxic chemicals into it. State-run Xinhua news agency says the containers floated into the Songhua River in northeastern Jilin province Wednesday after flood waters swept through a chemical plant. Another 4,000 barrels that washed out of the factory were empty. Officials briefly cut off water to Jilin city, leaving its four million citizens dependent on bottled water for a day.

On 27 July 2010, a wellhead in southeastern Luisiana was sprewing a mist of oil and gas up to 100 feet into the air after being hit by a tugboat. The leak is about 65 miles south of New Orleans in the Baratavia Bay, which is surrounded by wildlife-rich wetlands and was a fertile area for fishermen, shrimpers and oystermen before the BP spill.

On 26 July 2010, a pipeline belonging to Enbridge Inc. burst in Marshall, Michigan, releasing more than 800,000 gallons of crude oil into Talmadge Creek, a waterway that feeds the Kalamazoo River. The spill has affected up to 25 miles of the Kalamazoo River. The spill site, located between Marshall and Battle Creek, includes marshlands, residential areas, farmland and businesses. While the oil leak has stopped, this incident is far from over. EPA believes over a million gallons of oil may have leaked into the river. The Kalamazoo River is a fast-moving river and EPA’s focus right now is on preventing oil from the Enbridge spill from affecting sensitive shorelines and, ultimately, keeping the oil out of Lake Michigan.

The spill in the north eastern port city of Dalian, happened after two pipelines exploded on 16 July 2010, spilling oil into the Bohai Gulf. The pipelines were transferring oil from a Liberian tanker ship to storage facilities in Dalian’s Xingang Port. One pipe exploded, triggering a series of explosions in another pipeline and breaking open a storage tank. An estimated 11,000 barrels (1,500 tons) of crude leaked into the ocean, creating an oil slick that has expanded over 435 square kilometres.

The Jebel al-Zayt oil spill was an oil spill off the Egyptian Red Sea Coast of Hurghada . The spill was caused by a leak from an offshore oil platform in Jebel al-Zayt north of Hurghada and has polluted about 160km of coastline, including tourist beach resorts. The platform began leaking on 16 June 2010, and the leak was sealed by 23 June 2010. The Northern Islands protected area is the most heavily impacted region. These islands are one of the few pristine areas in the northern Egyptian Red Sea, and are of high ecological value.

On 25 May 2010, the tanker Bunga Kelana 3 collided with the bulk freighter, MV Waily, in the Singapore Strait, 13 km southeast of Changi Air Base. An estimated 2,000 tonnes of crude oil may have spilled into the sea.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is the largest marine oil spill in history, and was caused by an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil platform about 80km off the coast of Louisiana on 20 April 2010. On 22 April 2010 the Deepwater Horizon sank in about 5,000 feet (1,500 m) of water. After a series of failed efforts to plug the leak, BP said on 15 July 2010 that it had capped the well, stopping the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for the first time in 86 days. Five million barrels of oil were released by the Macondo well, with roughly 4.2 million barrels pouring into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

On 3 April 2010 the Chinese-registered coal carrier Shen Neng 1 ran aground on a reef about 70km east of Great Keppel Island, Queensland Australia, and ruptured its fuel tanks. The Vessel, which was carrying about 65.000 tonnes of coal, has 950 tonnes of oil on board.

Diesel fuel and heating oil spilled into the Lambro river near Milan from a storage facility owned by Lombarda Petroli SpA in Monza, Italy. Italian officials said the spill was caused by intentional sabotage at the oil depot.

On 6 February 2010, while the Finnish-owned vessel Linda was travelling from Rotterdam (Netherlands) to St Petersburg (Russia), three freight containers were lost at sea south of the island of Gotland (Sweden). According to the ship's cargo declaration, one of the containers has dangerous chemicals, as classified by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO)