Pollution

"Federal pollution authorities have quietly stepped in to help Minnesota force a huge sugar beet processor near Renville to end its long history of fouling streams that lead to the state's most troubled river."

"Washington has become the first state to ban pavement sealants that contain coal tar. The state made the move in response to recent studies that show runoff from macadam treated with these products can pollute lakes and streams."

"The Ohio and Mississippi River levels were falling Wednesday at the site where engineers blasted holes in a Missouri levee to relieve pressure. But unleashing torrents of water across 35 miles of farmland in what has already been a terrible flooding season could carry other consequences. One risk, scientists cautioned, is fertilizer runoff from the flooded farm country along the Mississippi."

"The potential for public exposure to dangerous levels of asbestos in the contaminated mining town of Libby [Mont.] remains a concern to federal health officials, according to preliminary results of a risk-assessment study announced Tuesday, more than a decade after cleanup operations began."

"A coalition of conservation groups has made good on its threat to take the owners of Chicago's sewage treatment plants to court over the foul stuff they have been discharging into the Chicago River for more than a century."

"Los Alamos National Laboratory must capture and eliminate toxic runoff from over 400 waste dump sites that discharge pollutants to the Rio Grande, a source of drinking water for Santa Fe, under a settlement agreement reached Thursday with community groups."

"The Obama administration announced Wednesday that it will impose stricter pollution controls on millions of acres of wetlands and tens of thousands of miles of streams."

"Aiming a legal shot directly across the bow of Gov. Rick Scott’s anti-regulation agenda, a Miami federal judge on Tuesday cleared the way for the federal government to do something he contends the state has failed to do for decades: Enforce water pollution standards tough enough to protect the Everglades."

"When Chesapeake Energy lost control of a Marcellus Shale gas well in Pennsylvania on April 19, an emergency response team from Texas was called in to stop the leak. By the time the team arrived more than 13 hours later, brine water and hydraulic fracturing fluids from the well had spewed across nearby fields and into a creek."