Latest Pollution Headlines
All the headlines from our Pollution Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Supreme Court Accepts 3 Cases Seeking to Limit Lawsuits Against Businesses
Jun 11 2019 // The U.S. Supreme Court bolstered its next term with three new business cases, agreeing to consider curbing lawsuits over environmental cleanups, employee retirement plans and allegations of racial bias. The justices said...
Supreme Court to Hear BP Unit’s Montana Superfund Site Dispute
Jun 10 2019 // The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to a hear a bid by a unit of British oil major BP to avoid a lawsuit by private landowners in Montana seeking to force the company to pay for a more extensive cleanup of a Superfund...
Aging Oil Pipelines Operated by Canada’s Enbridge Raise Fears over Great Lakes Spills
Jun 10 2019 // Fears about oil spills into the Great Lakes from two aging U.S. pipelines have flared, raising doubts about their future and creating fresh headaches for operator Enbridge Inc and the Canadian energy sector. Canada has...
Illinois Silicone Plant Sued by State, County After Fatal Blast
Jun 6 2019 // Illinois and Lake County are suing the owner of a Chicago-area silicone factory that exploded last month, seeking to force the company to identify the nature and extent of chemical pollution in the area and limit the...
Maine Bill Aims to Ban Certain Food Packaging Chemicals
Jun 6 2019 // The Maine Legislature has passed a bill aimed at prohibiting the sale of food packaging with certain potentially toxic chemicals. The Senate on Tuesday sent the bill to Governor Janet Mills, who has pushed to explore...
Study: Extensive Coal Ash Detected at Bottom of North Carolina Lake
Jun 6 2019 // A toxic stew of coal ash has spilled repeatedly and apparently unnoticed from storage pits at a Wilmington power plant into an adjoining lake, according to a Duke University scientist who said Monday that flooding last...
West Virginia Coal Industry Data Shows Mines Releasing Excessive Pollution
Jun 5 2019 // Several West Virginia coal mines, including some owned by the governor’s family, have released many times the allowable amounts of pollutants into nearby waterways in recent years without being penalized by...
Declarations
Jun 3 2019 // Poor Compliance Record “Valero’s Port Arthur refinery has a poor compliance record even when compared to other Texas oil refineries, spewing out millions of pounds of dangerous pollution into surrounding...
New Hampshire Sues 3M, DuPont, Other Chemical Companies
May 31 2019 // New Hampshire has sued eight companies including 3M and the DuPont Co. for damage it says has been caused by a class of potentially toxic chemicals found in pizza boxes, fast-food wrappers and drinking water. The...
4 Months of Mississippi Delta Flooding Taking a Toll on Farmers, Residents
May 31 2019 // Larry Walls should have been out working in his fields last week. Instead, his John Deere tractor is parked on high ground, just beyond the reach of the ever-encroaching floodwaters in the southern Mississippi Delta. Four...
Texas Environmentalists Plan Pollution Lawsuit Against Valero
May 23 2019 // Three Texas environmental groups have notified Valero Energy Corp. of plans to file a lawsuit under the U.S. Clean Air Act for pollution at the company’s Port Arthur, Texas, refinery, the organizations...
EPA Begins Rewrite of Rules on Costs, Benefits of Environmental Regulations
May 23 2019 // The Trump administration is planning to write new rules for how it weighs the human costs and benefits of environmental regulations, a move that could make it harder for future presidents to stiffen limits on pollution and...
Sand-Bag Barrier in Mississippi Overwhelmed by River Flooding
May 23 2019 // Floodwaters overwhelmed a miles-long sandbag barrier over the weekend, drenching another community in the southern end of the Mississippi Delta. Volunteers, prisoners and others had stacked 100,000 sandbags and more than...
AGCS Offers Crisis Management Response Services with Its Pollution Liability Cover
May 22 2019 // Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS) announced it is offering expanded emergency response services as part of its Environmental Impairment Liability (EIL) coverage when pollution and/or contamination events...
Chemical Multinationals Must Stop Cutting Corners in Sourcing: Report on China Blast
May 22 2019 // A prominent Chinese environmental group has called on chemicals multinationals to stop “cutting corners” by outsourcing business to Chinese suppliers that violate safety regulations after an investigation into...
West Virginia Fines Pipeline Builder $266K for Environmental Violations
May 21 2019 // The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and Mountain Valley Pipeline have agreed the latter will pay $266,000 for environmental violations dating back to April 2018. The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports the...
WCD’s Spessard Joins Beazley to Head Expanded Environmental Claims Team
May 20 2019 // Specialist insurer Beazley has hired Cal Spessard to head the team responsible for handling claims arising from the company’s environmental liability business. Spessard joins Beazley from environmental risk...
Violations of IMO 2020 Emissions Rules for Shipping Could Hit Insurance Cover
May 20 2019 // Tougher rules on sulfur emissions from ships will come into effect next year in the biggest shake-up for the oil and shipping industries for decades. United Nations shipping agency the International Maritime Organization...
Bayer’s Strategy on Roundup Litigation Rests on EPA Glyphosate Finding
May 17 2019 // Bayer AG plans to argue that a $2 billion jury award and thousands of U.S. lawsuits claiming its glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup causes cancer should be tossed because a U.S. regulatory agency said the herbicide is...
California Jury Blames Roundup for Couple’s Cancer, Awards $2 Billion
May 13 2019 // A California jury on Monday awarded more than $2 billion to a couple who claimed Bayer AG’s glyphosate-based Roundup weed killer caused their cancer, in the largest U.S. jury verdict to date against the company in...
