Pollution

"A year and a half after a catastrophic Norfolk Southern train derailment and chemical fire in East Palestine, Ohio, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has announced plans to monitor private drinking water wells for Pennsylvania residents living within one mile of the accident site for the next decade."

"Fertilizer made from city sewage has been spread on millions of acres of farmland for decades. Scientists say it can contain high levels of the toxic substance."

"Yemen’s Houthi rebels released footage on Thursday showing their fighters boarded and placed explosives on a Greek-flagged tanker, setting off blasts that put the Red Sea at risk of a major oil spill. The vessel was abandoned earlier, after the Houthis repeatedly attacked it."

"The plastics industry uses a controversial accounting method to inflate the recycled content it advertises in products. A new EPA policy won’t allow it for any products it endorses as a “Safer Choice.”"

"The unprecedented move highlights regulatory tensions between Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, and an environmental rule-making commission controlled by appointees of Republican state legislative leaders."

"Barb Boustead remembers learning about corn sweat when she moved to Nebraska about 20 years ago to work for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and found herself plunked down in an ocean of corn. The term for the late-summer spike in humidity from corn plants cooling themselves was “something that locals very much know about,” Boustead, a meteorologist and climatologist, recalled."

"An internal watchdog criticized the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) top air official for participating in the development of a rule that regulates an industry in which he reportedly had financial holdings."

"Last year’s Canadian wildfires, which blanketed much of the eastern U.S. in smog, released more carbon emissions than all but three countries worldwide, according to research published Wednesday."

"New studies suggest global warming boosts natural methane releases, which could undermine efforts to cut emissions of the greenhouse gas from fossil fuels and agriculture."

"Soil, plants and water along popular recreation spots near Los Alamos, New Mexico, the birthplace of the atomic bomb, are contaminated with “extreme concentrations” of plutonium, a new study has found, but calls for the federal government to act have been dismissed."