Chemicals

"Procter & Gamble is phasing out the use of two chemicals by 2014 from its beauty and personal care products. Activist groups have targeted P&G and other manufacturers of consumer products to end the use of phthalates and triclosan, chemicals that advocates say have been linked to birth defects and infertility."

"Oil industry lobbyists sought to gain an exemption from the leading California environmental law as they pushed back against legislation mandating oversight of hydraulic fracturing, multiple people familiar with the activities said."

"Arsenic in rice occurs at such low levels that it poses no short-term health threat, Food and Drug Administration says, although it is still studying long-term effects. The arsenic in rice is thought to come from water on the ground, which is where rice is grown."

"WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency this week quietly withdrew two draft rules dealing with the regulation of chemicals. The potential rules were in limbo at the Office of Management for several years."

"Emissions from battery recycler Exide pose a 'chronic hazard' to more than 250,000 people in surrounding areas, air district officials say. Risks include neurological changes in children."

"Prescription drugs are contaminating Lake Michigan two miles from Milwaukee’s sewage outfalls, suggesting that the lake is not diluting the compounds as most scientists expected, according to new research."

"Fearing the city's primary drinking water source could be at risk of contamination in the years ahead, Ann Arbor officials took action Tuesday night to send a message to the state."

"SAN FRANCISCO -- The use of pesticides and the planting of genetically engineered crops on U.S. national wildlife refuges are illegal and damaging to the environment, say four advocacy groups who have filed a federal lawsuit to halt these practices on national wildlife refuges across the Midwest."

"NORTH GRAFTON, Mass. -- A loon was beached on Cobbossee Lake in Winthrop, Maine, a maggot-filled wing wound keeping it from flying or resisting capture from a game warden."

The small Michigan town of Mancelona is the site of one of the nation's largest underground plumes of the toxic industrial solvent trichloroethylene. Wells dug to supply uncontaminated water are now themselves threatened.