Chemicals

The Environmental Protection Agency looks determined to keep the public from knowing whether a pesticide on which it has waived safety rules may be a factor in the worldwide bee die-off known as "colony collapse disorder."

The December 2008 coal-ash spill at a Tennessee power plant has been making headlines for two weeks — but few journalists realize there are coal-ash stories to be unearthed in many communities. Here are some clues for finding them.

Concerns over emissions from formaldehyde in pressed-wood products have been building for many years. California's new rules addressing the problem went into effect Jan. 1, 2009. Now EPA is looking at following suit.

An EPA database that has not been made public shows alarming levels of the pesticide atrazine are showing up in water bodies around the U.S.

A series of drinking-water contamination incidents have raised doubts about EPA's safety claims regarding hydraulic fracturing in domestic gas wells. And it's hard for people to get to the bottom of those claims when the identity of the chemicals injected during the process is protected as a "trade secret."

Twelve states sued EPA Oct. 28, 2007, over the agency's cutbacks in data available to communities about the toxic threats presented to them by nearby industrial plants.

There are at least 61 sites in CO, ID, MT, NM, and WY that naturally contain some form of asbestos, according to a report released July 9, 2007,by the US Geological Survey.

Preliminary results from a Montana air quality study suggest that replacing older wood-burning stoves and fireplaces with cleaner-burning, EPA-certified models can substantially reduce airborne fine particulates.

Along with the usual spooky and spine-tingling sights we have come to expect in caves, another scary inhabitant is turning up — contaminants such as PCBs, pesticides, dioxins, gasoline, fertilizers, sewage, and caffeine. These pollutants, which are leaching into caves from the surface and groundwater, can pose a threat to the delicate underground environments that are prized by many, and that provide benefits to people, plants, and animals on the surface. The presence of these contaminants underground also serves as a blunt reminder of how pervasive pollutants are.