Pollution

"The size of the annual summer "dead zone" of low-oxygen water in the Gulf of Mexico along Louisiana's coast will cover between 4,633 and 5,708 miles, about the size of the state of Connecticut, according to a Tuesday forecast announced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."

"According to the 24th annual report released by the Natural Resources Defense Council, one in 10 U.S. beaches are dangerously polluted -- so polluted, in fact, that they have been deemed unsafe for swimmers."

"U.S. EPA's nine-year effort to document air pollution at livestock operations is likely still many years from completion and unlikely to be as useful as industry and environmental groups had hoped."

"OLPE, Kan. — Kansas health officials on Monday were at the site of natural gas pipeline eruption in eastern Kansas, where crops and trees have withered since a dark, oily plume burst from the line while crews were trying to perform maintenance."

"Johnson County, Wyo., is the kind of remote, quiet Western community where life revolves around cattle—it was the site of an infamous 19th-century armed battle between cowboys and suspected cattle rustlers. The county ranks only 11th statewide for oil production, but it holds the number-one ranking nationwide for a more ignominious distinction: It has 249 new, high-risk oil and gas wells that the federal government has failed to inspect for compliance with safety and environmental standards."

"Duke Energy has signed an agreement with the US Environmental Protection Agency to have it oversee the cleanup of toxic coal ash that spilled into a North Carolina river earlier this year. For days this February, tens of thousands of tons of coal ash flooded into the Dan River, which flows between North Carolina and Virginia, from a reservoir beside an old Duke power plant. Duke has been cleaning it up in the time since, with the EPA monitoring its progress, and it's now agreed to compensate the EPA for all past and ongoing oversight costs."

"In a big win for environmentalists, the Supreme Court on Monday effectively endorsed the Obama administration’s efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from sources like power plants, even as it criticized what it called the administration’s overreaching."

"Florida taxpayers have been left shouldering most of the $2 billion Everglades water pollution cleanup cost, despite a constitutional amendment passed by nearly 70 percent of voters that calls for the sugar industry to pick up its share of the tab."

"In their refrigerators and kitchen cabinets, residents along Leonard Road strive to keep a steady supply of what has become a staple beverage in their community over the past few months."

"There’s no evidence in reports subpoenaed by a federal grand jury that Duke Energy ever performed a simple test engineers recommended, one that might have prevented the spill this winter at the utility’s power plant near Eden."