"Natural-gas companies are taking concerns about looming Interior Department 'fracking' regulations to the White House with efforts that include a meeting between a major producer and the Obama administration’s top regulatory official."
"Eleven environmental organizations are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to force it to better regulate toxic coal ash and citing recent groundwater contamination at 29 coal ash dump sites in 16 states, including two in Western Pennsylvania."
EPA's upcoming rulings on confidentiality for data going into the companies' GHG calculations will be important. Those determinations may impact whether companies' reporting is accurate — and whether they can ever be held accountable for their emissions.
"The Ohio River again leads the nation in the amount of toxic chemicals dumped into it by industries, according to a new report by a Washington, D.C.- based environmental group."
"One of the most remarkable environmental messes in local history was triggered 41 years ago when a train derailment dumped 200 tons of toxic chemicals on the porous bedrock of rural Genesee County."
"Why does the town of Asbestos, Quebec want to reopen a mine that’s been giving its residents cancer for a hundred years?"
"If you are a fly-fisher, a rafter, or heck, just a person who drinks water, here is some troubling news: Our waterways are in rough shape. An eye-opening new report from Environment America Research and Policy Center finds that industry dishcarged 226 million pounds of toxic chemicals into America's rivers and streams in 2010."
"The Environmental Protection Agency has dropped its claim that an energy company contaminated drinking water in Texas, the third time in recent months that the agency has backtracked on high-profile local allegations linking natural-gas drilling and water pollution."
The Justice Department, Coast Guard, and EPA are trying to crack down on illegal ocean dumping of ship waste by stepping up prosecutions. They fight shipowners' "magic pipes" with cash rewards for whistleblowers who can take cell-phone photos. But the crackdown has not been fully successful.
"Kelp off Southern California was contaminated with short-lived radioisotopes a month after Japan’s Fukushima accident, a sign that the spilled radiation reached the state's coastline, according to a new scientific study."
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