"Flaring of natural gas from wells is on the upswing in Texas and North Dakota as oil and gas producers rush to develop new shale plays, and critics are not happy about it."
"A new report says groundwater contamination from coal ash has been found at Gallatin and eight of the nine other Tennessee Valley Authority fossil power plant sites where testing is being done."
"A giant underwater 'dead zone'in the Chesapeake Bay is growing at an alarming rate because of unusually high nutrient pollution levels this year, according to Virginia and Maryland officials. They said the expanding area of oxygen-starved water is on track to become the bay’s largest ever."
"Two months before completion of a health risk study on Velsicol pollution in South Chattanooga, state regulators say the company doesn't need to do any more cleanup but should put a deeper layer of dirt on its former pesticide and herbicide manufacturing site on Central Avenue."
"The rivers that run into New York Harbor will be unfit for recreational activities at least through Sunday because of a catastrophic fire that shut down one of the city’s largest sewage treatment plants, the city’s health department said Thursday."
"Despite strong pressure from the coal industry and its political allies, the Obama administration on Thursday finalized new guidance aimed at reducing the environmental and public health impacts of mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia."
"An Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis study has found mercury contamination in soil downwind from a coal-fired power plant in Indianapolis, supporting the notion of localized mercury hot spots."
"Federal regulators knew potentially contaminated bark and wood chips were being sold from a Superfund site in the asbestos-tainted town of Libby, Mont., for three years before they stopped the practice, according to a letter from the Environmental Protection Agency to U.S. Sen. Max Baucus."
"Documents and interviews reveal that one Pa. water utility has already leased its watershed to gas drillers — and many others are being courted."
The standards were initially scheduled to be released in August 2010, then October 2010, after EPA determined that the ones approved during the George W. Bush administration weren't grounded in science, didn't protect public health with an adequate margin of safety, and didn't protect the environment.
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