"Gary Southern, the last of six former Freedom Industries officials to face sentencing, will spend 30 days in jail and pay a $20,000 fine for his role in pollution crimes that caused the January 2014 Elk River chemical spill that contaminated the drinking water supply for hundreds of thousands of people in the Kanawha Valley and surrounding area."
The reports aren't released to the taxpayers who funded them but the Federation of American Scientists' Government Secrecy Project publishes leaked copies. Here are 17 of the latest, from air to water, food to fuel, and much more.
Bad as it is, the Flint drinking water disaster is hardly uncommon. Even though the law requires authorities to tell the public of dangerous levels of lead in drinking water, they often don't.
"About four billion people, or two-thirds of the world’s population, face severe water shortages during at least one month every year, far more than was previously thought, according to Arjen Y. Hoekstra, a professor of water management at the University of Twente in the Netherlands."
"Residents of Flint, Michigan, one of the poorest cities in the United States, paid some of the nation's highest water bills even as the city failed to treat drinking water properly, leading to lead contamination, according to a report released on Tuesday."
"Researchers led by Florida State scientist counter widely quoted 2007 study linking shark declines to an explosion in rays, which then devoured oysters, clams and scallops."
"Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh’s office said Monday that it plans to fight a plan by the Dominion Virginia Power company to release about 215 million gallons of treated coal-ash water into a creek that connects to the Potomac River."
"A man-made chemical used in the manufacture of stain-resistant carpets, waterproof clothing, non-stick cooking pans and other products that make life less messy has spread so far through the environment that it can be found everywhere from the fish in the Delaware River to polar bears in the Arctic — and even some drinking water in North Jersey."
"The Elwha watershed is booming with new life, after the world’s largest dam removal."
"Residents of Flint, Michigan, began getting gravely ill and in some cases dying in summer 2014 in one of the worst outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease in U.S. history, and a county health director says attempts to find the source were hampered when the state wouldn't request federal assistance."
Advertisement 
