"A state appeals court has upheld California’s cleanup standards for a cancer-causing chemical that was added to pesticides and has polluted groundwater in the Central Valley, rejecting challenges by manufacturers that may have to pay the costs."
"After years of urging state and federal authorities to reduce harmful chemical emissions from the Denka Performance Elastomer manufacturing plant in Reserve [La.], a St. John the Baptist Parish group is seeking help from an international human rights commission."
"In an expansion of the U.N.’s 1989 Basel Convention, amendments to the international protocol on the shipment of hazardous waste were revised to include plastics in 2021, with nations currently figuring out how to implement the agreement."
"Chemical giants DuPont and Daikin knew the dangers of a PFAS compound widely used in food packaging since 2010, but hid them from the public and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), company studies obtained by the Guardian reveal."
"N.C. State researchers tested for PFAS in 31 dogs and 35 horses living near the chemical plant. They found at least one measurable type of PFAS in every dog tested and all but one horse. Some of the levels were staggering."
"Warmer temperatures would boost pest populations, causing farmers to use more insecticides that, with more frequent and severe storms, turn into toxic runoff."
"An environmental group is demanding that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency take emergency actions to reduce chloroprene emissions at the Denka Performance Elastomer manufacturing plant in LaPlace and ethylene oxide emissions at two nearby chemical plants, charging that EPA’s own data show nearby minority and low-income residents of St. John the Baptist Parish face the highest risk of cancer in the country."
The climate change gas methane, relatively little controlled but with a global warming potential many times that of carbon dioxide, has been much in the news recently and promises to remain there. The latest Backgrounder helps environmental journalists track the problem by detailing methane’s sources — from oil and gas production, agriculture and landfills — and the politics surrounding its regulation.
"The Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday that it was weighing whether a controversial refinery on St. Croix posed “an imminent risk to people’s health” after a third accident in the span of three months sickened local residents and forced three schools to close."
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