Chemicals

"Warmer temperatures may be catalyzing a climb in vaporized chemical contaminants across Los Angeles, a new study has found."

"Roughly one in four U.S. households have soil exceeding the new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's lead screening levels of 200 parts per million (ppm), halved from the previous level of 400 ppm, a new study found. For households with exposure from multiple sources, the EPA lowered the guidance to 100 ppm; nearly 40% of households exceed that level, the study also found."

"The chemical plume from the February 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, spread air pollutants to at least 16 states, according to research published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Research Letters."

"U.S. farms are covered in plastic, from the sides of greenhouses to plastic mulch, hoop houses, irrigation tubes, and more. As it degrades, plastic accumulates in soil and in plants, with potential threats to food safety."

"In the final days of the Trump administration, a political appointee at the EPA ordered a last-minute review of the hazards of a “forever chemical,” triggering delay, confusion, and significant changes to a nearly final work product, the agency’s inspector general found in a Friday report."

"More than seven years after Congress mandated that EPA swiftly alert the public to surges in lead contamination in drinking water, EPA’s inspector general has found the agency still isn’t ready to roll out an action plan."

"The number of companies weighing possible PFAS settlements in a nationwide case is likely to grow as a federal court moves into the next phases of litigation."

"Researchers using high-tech air monitoring equipment rolled through an industrialized stretch of southeast Louisiana in mobile labs and found levels of a carcinogen in concentrations as much as 20 times higher than previously estimated, according to a paper published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Science & Technology."

"City officials are taking their first public step toward cleaning up hazardous waste in a popular park after a local graduate student last year called out a 45-year comedy of errors by federal, state and local agencies that allowed the dumped drums and chemicals to escape remediation."

"Every time you take a breath, you could be inhaling microplastics."