Pollution And Waste

Sustainababy

Growing up green: Breathing for two 1
Posted 4 days, 2 hours ago Anna Fahey explores what energy and climate policy has to do with her baby's IQ.
Lawsuit accuses Virginia power company of poisoning Dominican community with toxic coal ash 0
Posted 1 week, 3 days ago A civil lawsuit in state court in Delaware charges AES Corp. -- one of the world's largest power companies -- with illegally dumping 160 million pounds of toxic coal ash waste onto beaches in the Caribbean nation of the Dominican Republic, leading to serious health problems for nearby residents.
weeding out weed killer

Water utilities lack proper filters for weed-killer 2
Posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago
Results from a federal drinking water monitoring program show that many public water companies are ineffective at removing a widely used weed-killer from their water supplies.
the perils of mixing oil and water

Sen. Landrieu’s plan to export Louisiana’s coastal destruction to Florida 2
Posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago
While Louisiana struggles to restore coastal wetlands ravaged in large part by decades of oil and gas drilling, its senior senator is leading the effort to lift the ban on drilling off Florida's Panhandle.
Politics Gone Hog Wild

Boss Hog’s attempted regulatory coup in North Carolina 1
Posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago
For the past two years, the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission has been crafting new rules to require water monitoring at factory hog farms, a significant source of pollution in the state. But last week, even with concerns growing over the environmental impacts of hog farms, the North Carolina Senate unanimously passed a bill that puts the rules process on hold until 2011 -- a display of the mighty political power Boss Hog holds in the state.
Radiant Cities: Drive Through This

Can we really make the drive-thru a source of power? 3
Posted 3 months, 4 weeks ago
Drivers drooling as they wait for Big Macs and Whoppers could be a promising energy source, if one company has its way. Find out whether the latest scheme will work -- and who's trying to stand in its path.
a dirty, hermaphrodite-fish-filled river runs through it

Help for the hurting Potomac 2
Posted 4 months ago
Washington, D.C. residents are currently banned from swimming in the Potomac, the river that cradles the nation's capital and feeds into the Chesapeake Bay.
Murder by breath

Goodbye to Cancer Valley: In remembrance of my friend John Soley 0
Posted 5 months ago
After a long struggle with cancer, my friend Mr. John Soley died at his home in Carbon County, Pa. on Saturday, June 20. He was only 62, which is too young to die of natural causes. But then, neither John nor I believe he got sick from natural causes. We believe he and many of his neighbors were poisoned by pollution, and that the perpetrators should be held to account.
Reality bites

UPDATED: Never mind! Lead levels in White House soil “ridiculously low” for an urban garden 0
Posted 5 months ago
Back when First Lady Michelle Obama planted her garden, the soil tested for slightly elevated lead levels -- not necessarily dangerous, but quite a bit higher than the amount considered the "normal" background soil lead level of 10 parts per million.
Do dirty coal plants make us more vulnerable to swine flu? 3
Posted 5 months, 1 week ago
Scientists have discovered that exposure to a common pollutant may make people more likely to experience severe symptoms from swine flu -- and it's a pollutant emitted in large quantities by coal-burning power plants and other industrial facilities.
FRAC Act

Congress introduces twin bills to control drilling and protect drinking water 1
Posted 5 months, 2 weeks ago
In a widely expected move that is sure to draw the ire of the oil and gas industry, Democratic members of Congress on Tuesday introduced twin bills to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act and give the Environmental Protection Agency authority over the controversial drilling process called hydraulic fracturing.
KBR, Halliburton sued over war-zone’s toxic burn pits 2
Posted 5 months, 2 weeks ago
Confronted with the need to dispose of enormous quantities of war-related trash, private contractors working for the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan came up with a simple solution: They burned the trash in big, open pits. Now soldiers, contractors, and civilians have filed a series of class-action lawsuits against the companies behind the burning, saying the smoke from the pits contained toxic chemicals that have left them with severe respiratory problems, chronic infections, and even cancer.
a watery end

Oceans’ alarm: what the sea is trying to tell us 0
Posted 5 months, 3 weeks ago
Whether you believe in end times or not, the oceans are sending clear signals that they are in distress.
Dirty South

Climate Central takes on Georgia, coal, and carbon 0
Posted 6 months ago
This week brought a new piece of journalism from the crack staff of scientists and reporters at Climate Central. It's called "Georgia: Coal and Carbon."
DUMPING IN DIXIE

Toxic waste from New York river cleanup headed to Texas 0
Posted 6 months ago
Work got underway this week to clean up hazardous PCB pollution that General Electric dumped into New York's Upper Hudson River. But the toxic waste is being sent to a landfill that sits atop the Ogallala Aquifer, a key drinking-water source for West Texas.
Hot potato

Pennsylvania rejected TVA coal ash that’s going to poor communities in Alabama and Georgia 2
Posted 6 months ago
Some of the more than 1 billion gallons of toxic coal ash that spilled from an impoundment at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston power plant in eastern Tennessee last December is making its way to landfills in poor and black communities in Alabama and Georgia, as we reported last week at Facing South.

It turns out that TVA also looked into sending the waste to Pennsylvania for dumping into abandoned mines -- but that state's Department of Environmental Protection rejected the ash as substandard.
Runaway Joe

Debate: Roberts v. ‘clean coal’ flack Joe Lucas 0
Posted 6 months, 1 week ago
Here's an online debate between me and clean coal spokesflack Joe Lucas, originally run by the PBS show NOW.
The myth of the universal market ... debunked! 6
Posted 8 months, 3 weeks ago
CO2 and the Clean Air Act 15
Posted 9 months, 2 weeks ago
Ka-Boom

Umbra on fireworks 11
Posted 2 years, 4 months ago