"CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- West Virginians should have been given clearer information that the 1-part-per-million screening level for the toxic chemical "Crude MCHM" was not a "bright line" between what exposures are safe and unsafe, a top U.S. Centers for Disease Control scientist said Wednesday."
You read about the 300,000 West Virginians who don't know if they are drinking safe water — and ask "Could it happen here?" The answer is "You betcha!" Environmental journalists have many tools for discovering drinking-water disasters-waiting-to-happen in their own bailiwicks.
Reporters scrambling to inform the 300,000 citizens of Charleston, West Virginia, about why they could not drink their tap water, what health threats it presented, and who was responsible faced a stone wall from most of the responsible government agencies in the early days of the crisis.
"A propane shortage in the Midwest is raising concerns about residents who rely on the fuel for heating. The propane shortage has prompted a state of emergency in Ohio, as bitterly cold weather descends on the Midwest."
"A group of business leaders, energy experts and former government leaders believes that the Obama administration could tackle climate change by taking measures that do not require congressional approval, according to a report released on Tuesday."
"The construction of the Keystone XL, a pipeline intended to bring hundreds of thousands of barrels a day of oil from Canada’s controversial oil sands to the United States, has been mired in delays as regulators assess its environmental impact, and activists and landowners protest what they see as one of the nation’s largest environmental threats."
"A rapidly mutating virus has leaped from plants to honeybees, where it is reproducing and contributing to the collapse of colonies vital to the multibillion-dollar agricultural industry, according to a new study."
"Governor Christie declined to sign a bill that would have required public notification whenever sewer-outfall pipes dump raw sewage into local rivers and bays, legislation that had received overwhelming support by both parties in the state legislature."
"CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Federal and state investigators learned Tuesday that an additional chemical that wasn't previously identified was in the tank that leaked Jan. 9 at the Freedom Industries tank farm, just upstream from West Virginia American Water's regional drinking water intake."
"A federal appeals court today tossed out a U.S. EPA air pollution rule for some Native American territories."
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