Pollution

"Trib Investigation Reveals Gaping Holes in Water Oversight"

"A chemical plant holding a 'minor' stormwater discharge permit caused a major drinking water disaster in Charleston, W.Va., in February. That incident raises questions about risks from thousands of industrial chemicals used daily along waterways such as the Ohio River — the source of drinking water for more than 5 million people from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Ill."

Source: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 04/07/2014

Monitoring in Fracking Areas Fails To Detect Air Toxic Spikes: Study

"People in natural gas drilling areas who complain about nauseating odors, nosebleeds and other symptoms they fear could be caused by shale development usually get the same response from state regulators: monitoring data show the air quality is fine. A new study helps explain this discrepancy. The most commonly used air monitoring techniques often underestimate public health threats because they don’t catch toxic emissions that spike at various points during gas production, researchers reported Tuesday in the peer-reviewed journal Reviews on Environmental Health. The study was conducted by the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project, a nonprofit based near Pittsburgh."

Source: InsideClimate & Others, 04/04/2014

"Weak Records Cited on Pa. Shale Pollution"

"Even when pollution discharges from shale gas well pads and impoundments contaminate private water supplies, those violations often go unrecorded or publicly reported by state environmental regulators, according to documents filed in the Pennsylvania Superior Court case challenging the constitutionality of the state's oil and gas law, Act 13."

Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 04/03/2014

"Emanuel Ordinance Grants Exemption for Petcoke"

"Faced with public outrage about gritty black dust blowing through Chicago’s Southeast Side, Mayor Rahm Emanuel talked of forcing towering mounds of petroleum coke out of Chicago and outlawing new piles with costly regulations. But the fine print of a zoning ordinance unveiled Tuesday by the Emanuel administration opens the door for greater use of the high-sulfur, high-carbon refinery byproduct in the city."

Source: Chicago Tribune, 04/02/2014

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