If your local utility burns coal, there is likely an environmental story about coal ash to be reported near you. A FOIA request by the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice has produced the identities of another 451 coal ash dumps (than previously listed by EPA), raising the total to at least 1161.
A large and diverse array of businesses have an interest in the environmental and energy laws that state legislatures consider: including coal, oil, plastics, chemicals, mining, forest products, and others. The possible financial stake lawmakers may have in the bills before them is fertile ground for investigation. Here's help in finding story ideas.
Under FOIA, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility requested FDA documents justifying its use of categorical exclusions to avoid assessing the environmental impact of not regulating livestock antibiotics. After FDA failed to provide any, PEER filed a lawsuit in federal district court.
A new OMB Watch report calls full advance disclosure of fracking fluid ingredients "the necessary first step" to protecting people's drinking water and concluded "no state has yet established all of the elements of a chemical disclosure policy strong enough to ensure the quality of the water and the health of communities near gas wells."
"The first signs of bipartisan support for overhauling the nation's chemical safety law emerged Monday, as three Republicans joined 23 other senators calling for tough restrictions on toxic flame retardants."
"AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Department of Environmental Protection has published a list of 49 chemicals whose everyday use it deems dangerous to the health of Maine children, but an environmental policy group is urging stronger action."
"The discovery of persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic flame-retardant chemicals everywhere from animals north of the Arctic Circle to the breast milk of California women has been a cause for considerable concern. Alternative flame retardants were introduced to replace these chemicals, but investigators had not even produced the first empirical data on the substitutes’ metabolic fate and toxicity before emerging evidence indicated they, like their predecessors, were accumulating rapidly in the environment. As the postmarket research continues, one wonders: Who, exactly, decides on the replacements for toxic chemicals, and on the basis of what criteria? And why does finding truly safer alternatives seem so difficult?"
About two dozen chemicals in the 8.3 million gallons of fluid used to fracture a gas-bearing Marcellus Shale formation near Canton, Ohio were disclosed on a public website — but the identities of another four chemical ingredients were withheld on the claim that they were trade secrets. EnergyWire's Peter Behr takes a look at the controversy.
"The news just keeps getting worse for bisphenol A. Lab and animal research has linked it to reproductive disorders, obesity, diabetes, and cancers sensitive to hormonal activity, like those of the breast and prostate. Studies show that more than the vast majority of Americans have measurable levels of BPA in their urine (though as Sydney Brownstone wrote on this blog yesterday, Old Order Mennonites seem to have less)—not surprising given that the chemical is used in thousands of consumer products, including cans and plastic packaging for food and beverages. Now a new study from China has found an association, for the first time, between human exposure to BPA and brain tumors."
"NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Laboring in the blackberry fields of central Arkansas, the 18-year-old Mexican immigrant suddenly turned ill. Her nose began to bleed, her skin developed a rash, and she vomited."
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