Pollution

One resident says the Little Pee Dee River is unsafe for swimming because of fecal coliform bacteria from hog farming.

"In rural west Michigan, food processors have sprayed so much wastewater onto fields that heavy metals seeped into groundwater, contaminating wells."

The Obama EPA, like the Bush EPA, is cleaning up fewer Superfund hazardous waste sites -- saying the remaining sites are getting harder to clean up. Unline Bush, however, Obama is seeking to reinstate the lapsed tax on petrochemical companies that originally funded the cleanup of abandoned sites.

"As it races to replenish phosphate supplies for its weed-killing cash machine Roundup, Monsanto Co. insists its history of polluting southeastern Idaho’s high country shouldn’t prevent it from digging fresh open pits here."

Methane problems in drinking water wells are more common than has been acknowledge by state regulators in Pennsylvania, which is one of the states experiencing a natural gas drilling boom.

A rash of headaches, coughing fits, red eyes, and other symptoms has closed Oak Ridge Elementary School in North Carolina while local, state, and federal officials figure out what is causing it.

"A measure approved by the House would require the EPA to develop a system that would allow the public to be made aware of contamination within hours of sampling."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is demanding answers to dozens of long-standing questions about the handling of wastes contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs, at U.S. Army ammunition production facilities nationwide."

"The 'dead zone' in the Gulf of Mexico, an area choked by low oxygen levels that threatens marine life, is smaller than expected this year but more deadly, the government said on Monday."