Illinois: "Toxic Sites Take Years, Decades To Clean Up"
When Ray Hott bought a strip of land in DeKalb, Illinois, he did not know that it had been contaminated by toxic chemicals from a gas plant a century before.
When Ray Hott bought a strip of land in DeKalb, Illinois, he did not know that it had been contaminated by toxic chemicals from a gas plant a century before.
"The use of roxarsone and other arsenic-based additives in poultry and swine feed is at the center of a national controversy."
"A coalition of environmental organizations sent President Obama a letter on Friday pleading for him to intervene in the stalled Senate negotiations on climate and energy legislation. The groups, which have been largely supportive of the president’s energy policies, expressed concern that time was running out for any action on climate change this year. Only the president’s personal and persistent attention can break the stalemate, they say."
"As the utility industry embarks on a potential $1 trillion-plus expansion in renewable energy transmission and energy-saving smart grid technologies over the next two decades, it must also confront a new and growing fragility while demands on the grid increase. It must be able to protect the grid against so-called "high-impact, low-frequency" threats to the power system."
"The Gulf of Mexico oil spill has sparked a lobbying rush as companies involved in drilling seek help navigating new policies and influencing ones under development."
"The nearest glob of leaked oil is more than 800 miles away from this spot, where low buildings and the tang of dead shellfish hug a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay. But for all the crying that BP's spill in the Gulf of Mexico has caused at W.E. Kellum seafood, it may as well be seeping under the door."
Proposals afloat in Congress would raise taxes on the oil industry to help pay for spill cleanup. The industry objects, claiming the burden would harm not only companies, but the country. But the oil industry already gets tens or hundreds of billions in tax breaks and outright subsidies from the federal government.
"In the 77 days since oil from the ruptured Deepwater Horizon began to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, BP has skimmed or burned about 60 percent of the amount it promised regulators it could remove in a single day."
"Concerns about large-scale marine pollution, fuelled by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, are set to be heightened by a new development in exploitation of the oceans: deep-sea mining." The Gulf spill has raised concern about other oil and gas operations as well.
"The Environmental Protection Agency proposed tough pollution caps for the Chesapeake Bay Thursday, requiring Maryland and other mid-Atlantic states to do more to clean up the troubled estuary than previously thought necessary."