Latest Pollution Headlines
All the headlines from our Pollution Topic Page, ordered by recency.
UPenn’s Interdisciplinary Research Seeks to Track Ambler’s Asbestos Legacy
Oct 22 2014 // Joe Amento, a lifelong resident of Ambler, Pennsylvania, was 53 when he died of a rare cancer with one main cause — exposure to asbestos. He was fine at Christmas 2002. In January, a pain in his side kept him awake...
Landslide Cleanup Deal Reached in Oregon, Insurers to Pay
Oct 22 2014 // A legal path has been cleared for hundreds of tons of debris to be removed from a waterway south of Coos Bay, Ore. that’s home to federally protected coho salmon and green sturgeon. In April 2012, a massive...
Officials: Caddo Lake Not Threatened by Louisiana Oil Spill
Oct 21 2014 // Cleanup crews continue to mop up a 4,000-barrell oil spill into a four-mile stretch of Tete Bayou northwest of Shreveport, La. Officials said that the oil has been contained without reaching Caddo Lake, which straddles the...
Methane Emissions Becoming an Issue for North Dakota Oil Industry
Oct 21 2014 // Methane emissions will likely be the next big environmental issue to face North Dakota’s booming oil industry according to a top official at the state’s Department of Health. Dave Glatt, chief of the Department...
U.S. Hospitals Face Risks in Ebola Virus Waste Disposal
Sep 29 2014 // U.S. hospitals may be unprepared to safely dispose of the infectious waste generated by any Ebola virus disease patient to arrive unannounced in the country, potentially putting the wider community at risk, biosafety...
Neighbor’s Toxic Spill in Leads to Home Evacuations in North Little Rock
Sep 26 2014 // Some families in North Little Rock, Ark., have been forced to evacuate their homes after a hazardous chemical spill in a neighbor’s backyard. Fire Chief Jim Murphy tells KATV-TV the homes were evacuated after a...
Canada Eyes Insurance Pollution Fund for Oil-By-Rail Risks
Sep 23 2014 // The Canadian government is looking at extending the insurance burden for crude-by-rail disasters beyond just railways and is weighing the idea of a special fund similar to one once set up for maritime oil spills, a...
Judge Approves $2.9 Million West Virginia Chemical Spill Deal
Sep 19 2014 // A federal bankruptcy judge has approved a $2.9 million settlement that would benefit 300,000 people whose water was contaminated in a January chemical spill. Judge Ronald Pearson filed the order this past Tuesday in U.S....
Cleaning Up China’s Contaminated Soil: Who Pays?
Sep 17 2014 // Nearly four years after a massive state-run steel mill on the outskirts of Beijing was closed to help cut smog in the Chinese capital, little has been done to clean up the contaminated site. The factory’s idled...
Occidental to Pay $190M in New Jersey River Pollution Case
Sep 16 2014 // Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s chemical unit agreed to pay $190 million to cover its liability for the cleanup of the Passaic River in northern New Jersey, state officials said. Occidental Chemical is the legal...
BP Hopes Missing Comma Triggers $750 Million Transocean Spill Insurance
Sep 16 2014 // BP Plc, which already has paid more than $28 billion for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, seeks to get a $750 million chunk of that back by convincing a Texas court that a missing comma may give the oil company access to...
Judge Worried Freedom Industries to Abandon Chemical Spill Cleanup
Sep 10 2014 // A bankruptcy judge is concerned that a chemical company may abandon the site of a massive January spill without cleaning it up. Judge Ronald Pearson expressed the concern in an order filed last Friday in U.S. Bankruptcy...
Communities at Risk in Wake of Failure to Address Rising Seas
Sep 8 2014 // Missions flown from the NASA base here have documented some of the most dramatic evidence of a warming planet over the past 20 years: the melting of polar ice, a force contributing to a global rise in ocean levels. The...
BP Gross Negligence Ruling a Warning to Big Oil and Partners
Sep 5 2014 // A U.S. judge’s watershed ruling means the final cost to BP Plc for the 2010 Gulf oil spill may eclipse $50 billion, wiping out years of profits and highlighting the risks of drilling as the industry pushes into more...
West Virginia Water Utility Balks at $2.9M Chemical Spill Proposal
Sep 4 2014 // A utility is opposing a $2.9 million bankruptcy settlement that would fund projects to benefit 300,000 people whose water was contaminated in January. West Virginia American Water says Freedom Industries shouldn’t...
DuPont Hit with $1.3 Million Penalty for Multiple West Virginia Chemical Leaks
Aug 29 2014 // DuPont will pay a fine of $1.275 million to settle a federal complaint over eight chemical releases from a Kanawha County production facility, one of which killed a worker. The Department of Justice and U.S. Environmental...
FEMA Reimburses West Virginia Entities for Chemical Spill Costs
Aug 27 2014 // The Federal Emergency Management Agency has reimbursed $1.4 million to local and state governments, hospitals and some non-profit groups for costs related to January’s chemical spill in Charleston, West Virginia. The...
A Fracking Compromise for Colorado
Aug 26 2014 // On the second day of his vacation, surrounded by science fiction and comic book fans at Comic Con, Alan Salazar looked around the San Diego Convention Center for a quiet place so he could take a phone call from his...
Court Asked to Dimiss Spill Claims Against West Virginia Airport, Chemical Producer
Aug 25 2014 // An airport and a chemical producer want claims dismissed in a lawsuit partly targeting them over a January chemical spill. In U.S. District Court in Charleston, Yeager Airport filed a motion last week to dismiss claims in...
North Carolina Lawmakers Approve Law Regulating Duke’s Coal Ash Dumps
Aug 21 2014 // State House and Senate leaders said this week that they have reached a compromise on legislation to make Duke Energy curb pollution from its 33 coal ash dumps across North Carolina. House Speaker Thom Tillis and Senate...
