Heavy metal-laden coal ash currently can escape EPA regulation if it goes to some "beneficial use." But residents of LaBelle, Pa., are finding that what may be beneficial for utility and mining companies may be harmful to the townspeople's health and environment.
"A black sealant sprayed on parking lots, driveways and playgrounds turns out to be the largest contributor to the rise of a toxic pollutant in urban lakes and reservoirs across America, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey study."
"The Obama administration on Wednesday reversed its plans to expand offshore drilling along the Atlantic coast and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico in a retreat prompted by last summer's oil spill."
"The New York State Assembly voted 93 to 43 Monday night to place a temporary moratorium on a controversial type of natural gas exploration that combines hydraulic fracturing with horizontal drilling."
"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday levied a $300,000 fine against a toxic waste dump near a Central California farming community plagued by birth defects for failing to properly manage carcinogenic polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs."
"It took a little muscle flexing, tough talk and a few threats, but the Environmental Protection Agency got what it wanted Monday: Most states in the Chesapeake Bay region submitted detailed plans to reduce the bay's pollution diet as part of a more aggressive effort to nurse its sickly waters back to good health."
This guidance would provide insights and reduce threats when competing forces — such as land availability, cost, timing, vehicle and utility access, zoning, and developer cooperation — drive decision makers to build a school at a site that may pose a toxic threat to the children and staff.
Thanks to money and loopholes, gas drillers can dump radioactive waste from their Pennsylvania operations in a New York landfill.
"In 2008, [some North Carolina residents] discovered what the state had known for several years: Groundwater near their neighborhood had been contaminated with trichloroethylene, a chemical compound often used as an industrial solvent and suspected to cause cancer."
Following a December 2008 USA Today report on outdoor air pollution at hundreds of schools, EPA began a monitoring process. Final reports for 21 (of the small number of schools selected) have now been released; the results are mixed.
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