EPA's official investigation of a massive 2009 fish kill in West Virginia's Dunkard Creek ended by blaming the pollution squarely on Consol Energy's Blacksville No. 2 mine. But an EPA biologist said that coal mine drainage alone was not enough to explain the problem -- and that contamination of mine pools by methane and water from the Marcellus Shale formation was possibly an additional cause.
"LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. -- An Amish farmer examines young trees and shrubs he planted last fall along the stream running through his farm. A few trees are starting to peak from shelters built to protect them from pests and 'green death,' when new trees are swallowed up by old growth. When the trees and shrubs are fully grown, they'll form a buffer to keep grazing animals and stormwater carrying manure fertilizers out of the water."
"FREDERICK -- Randy White had just buried a daughter, dead at 30 with a brain tumor. Now his other daughter had been diagnosed with growths in her abdomen. When doctors told White in 2009 that their conditions were likely caused by something in their environment, the Frederick native thought of Fort Detrick. His children had grown up near the Army base."
The session, before an audience of journalists at the Press Club and another audience online, included representatives of the Columbia Journalism Review, the Associated Press, Politico, the Society of Environmental Journalists, the Association of Health Care Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, and the National Association of Science Writers. The EPA declined to attend.
"WAYNESBURG, Pa. -- A surge in mining damage to waterways, houses and roads has sparked a fierce debate in southwestern Pennsylvania's coal region about whether regulations are strong enough to protect property and natural resources."
Despite confident assurances from leaders in the go-go shale gas industry that pollution problems don't exist, records from Pennsylvania's environmental agency show that faulty casings and cement do indeed cause pollution of drinking water.
"At the recent Shale Gas Insight conference in Philadelphia, the CEO of one of the largest Marcellus Shale drilling companies in Pennsylvania was unequivocal in his message that methane contamination of drinking water supplies from faulty gas wells is at an end.
"The Housing Authority of Baltimore City often cites a lack of funds to explain its refusal to pay nearly $12 million in court-ordered judgments to former public housing residents who suffered permanent lead-paint poisoning as children. But the city's public housing agency has paid private lawyers about $4 million since 2005 to defend against those lead-paint claims. In May and June alone it spent $228,000 on legal fees, a total that works out to more than $5,000 per day, including expenses."
"In a class action lawsuit filed Thursday, Kennedy Krieger Institute is accused of exposing poor black children to 'dangerous levels' of lead as part of a housing experiment in the 1990s."
"Alexandria's controversial coal-burning power plant, once considered one of the largest single sources of air pollution in the Washington area, will probably close by October 2012, its owner and the city announced Tuesday.
The surprise announcement culminates a 12-year battle to close the six-decade-old Potomac River plant, which local activists and environmentalists blame for causing or contributing to dozens of cases of serious illness each year.
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