"Bee-Harming Pesticides Banned in Europe"
"EU member states vote in favour of continent-wide suspension of neonicotinoid pesticides."
Source: Guardian, 04/29/2013
Chemicals
USDA Poised to OK Chicken-Plant Speedups Increasing Risky Chemicals
The Agriculture Department is poised to approve an increase in line speeds at poultry processing plants. That is likely to mean increased use of toxic, bacteria-killing chemicals which have harmed some workers.
Source: Wash Post, 04/26/2013
Voluntary Fracking Disclosure Database Gets 'F' from Harvard Study
We told you so. But now a Harvard study also says it: the FracFocus registry designed and operated by the drilling industry (and its close friends) fails to meet the public's right to accountability and complete disclosure of chemicals pumped into underground formations that may impact people's drinking-water wells.
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Texas Fertilizer Explosion Re-Raises Buried Hazmat Disclosure Issues
News stories about the April 17, 2013, explosion of a fertilizer storage plant in the town of West, Texas that killed 15 people have so far focused on the plant operator's risk-disclosure failure, instead of the likely fact that government agencies knew the nature and magnitude of the hazard — or should have known. The bigger story is the regulatory failure — and industry's decades-long campaign to keep the public ignorant of the threats they face. Photo: AP/LM Otero/Available through Creative Commons.
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"Watchdogs Warned of Chemical-Plant Oversight Before Blast"
"In the months before last week's deadly fertilizer plant explosion in Texas, U.S. government watchdogs criticized federal oversight of facilities that make or store dangerous chemicals."
Source: Bloomberg, 04/24/2013
800 Love Canals: "Toxic Legacy's Time Bomb"
"Nearly 800 hazardous waste sites are located in Erie, Niagara and Cattaraugus counties, and the majority of them are a threat to the largest source of fresh water in the world – the Great Lakes."
Source: Buffalo News, 04/23/2013
"EPA Probes Flame Retardants But Lacks Power To Ban"
"As the Obama administration launches a broad investigation of flame retardants used in furniture and other household goods, the nation's top environmental regulators are running into the limitations of a federal law that makes it practically impossible to ban hazardous chemicals."
Source: Chicago Tribune, 04/23/2013
Watchdog Reports Health Problems From Dispersant Use During BP Spill
"WASHINGTON -- Cleanup workers, doctors, divers and Gulf Coast residents interviewed by a Washington watchdog group have reported health problems from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, including blood in the urine, heart palpitations, kidney and liver damage, migraines, memory loss and reduced IQ."
Source: New Orleans Times-Picayune, 04/22/2013
"Beekeeping -- Rural Greece Does It Best"
Beekeepers in the remote hills of southern Greece are not seeing colony collapse disorder in their hives. The reason may be that the bees are not exposed to pesticides.
Source: AFP, 04/22/2013
"Investigators Search for Clues at West Fertilizer Co. Blast Epicenter"
"State and federal investigators on Sunday began their first in-depth look at the cratered epicenter of a fertilizer plant explosion that killed at least 14 people, including about 10 volunteer firefighters and the residents who tried to help them extinguish a fire at the site."
Source: Dallas Morning News, 04/22/2013
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