Pollution

"Wastewater from natural gas drilling in New York state is radioactive, as high as 267 times the limit safe for discharge into the environment and thousands of times the limit safe for people to drink."

"Environmentalists are beefing up efforts to increase regulation of a controversial oil and gas drilling technique as interest grows in tapping vast natural gas fields across the country."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Inspector General has decided to review the appropriateness of the EPA's program to promote 'beneficial uses' of coal combustion waste with the industries it regulates."

"The Environmental Protection Agency is working to clear contaminated soils from a former recycling business site in Wayland [MI]."

"The Interior Department will leave in place George W. Bush-era changes to a rule designed to protect streams from mountaintop-removal coal mining until 2011, according to court documents filed by the Obama administration Friday."

"More than 60 years after scientists assembled the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, lethal waste is seeping from mountain burial sites and moving toward aquifers, springs and streams that provide water to 250,000 residents of northern New Mexico."

"In Atlanta, Ga., you'll find southern gentility, a world-class music scene--and 21,000 pounds of environmental waste. In spite of its charms, the city's combination of air pollution, contaminated land and atmospheric chemicals makes it the most toxic city in the country."

"Congress authorized buying out the residents of the contaminated community of Treece [Kansas] on Thursday, and the Environmental Protection Agency signaled it's ready to move forward with emptying the town of people."

"Idling school buses spew tons of exhaust into the air, putting children at risk when they leave school at the end of each day. In New York City alone, idling vehicles emit as much pollution as nine million diesel trucks driving from the Bronx to Staten Island. But the city's laws requiring them to shut down their engines in school zones are poorly enforced."