Pollution

"A Manhattan-sized plume of oil spewed deep into the Gulf of Mexico by BP's broken Macondo well has been consumed by a newly discovered fast-eating species of microbes, scientists reported on Tuesday."

"Chemtura Corp, a producer of specialty chemicals, will pay $26 million to clean up 17 contaminated sites located in 14 U.S. states, under an agreement announced Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Justice."

"Cruise ships and large commercial ships will be banned from dumping any kind of sewage -- even highly filtered wastewater -- along California's coast out to three miles from shore, under new rules from the Obama administration."

"A 22-mile-long invisible mist of oil is meandering far below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, where it will probably loiter for months or more, scientists reported Thursday in the first conclusive evidence of an underwater plume from the BP spill."

"For 40 days, flares burned 500,000 pounds of toxic chemicals over BP's Texas City refinery. Yet residents didn't know until weeks later that the flare released 17,000 pounds of cancer-causing benzene."

"Researchers at the University of Georgia said Monday that more than three-quarters of the oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon drilling-rig explosion could still be in the Gulf threatening fisheries and marine life, disputing government statements that much of the oil had been safely dispersed."

"A soil and groundwater cleanup at the site of a 30-year-old jet fuel spill in south Bibb County has alerted neighbors for the first time to the water contamination in their community."

"Romeo Michaud looked at the Androscoggin River on Friday, remembering how he fished for hornpout as a boy. Over time, he and others stopped eating the fish they caught as the river became among the most polluted in the country."

"Recently retired Environmental Protection Agency environmental engineer Weston Wilson is best known for criticizing his employer’s 2004 finding that hydraulic fracturing poses little or no risk to domestic groundwater. Now, the Denver EPA whistleblower is encouraged by the agency’s interest in studying the natural gas development procedure’s potential impacts on air quality as well."

While cruise ships can be a boon to local economies, they also produce huge amounts of waste and pollution.