Pollution

"TAOS, N.M. — Twice a day, every day, Vicente Fernandez walks along the banks of the Rio Fernando, inspecting the river that has shaped his valley’s fortunes for generations."

"The White House announced Tuesday that President Trump would likely veto legislation designed to manage a class of cancer-linked chemicals leaching into the water supply."

"The state of Louisiana has issued a series of key air quality permits for a gargantuan proposed petrochemical complex that would roughly double toxic emissions in its local area and, according to environmentalists, become one of the largest plastics pollution-causing facilities in the world."

"The human toll from coal-fired pollution in America has been laid bare by a study that has found more than 26,000 lives were saved in the US in just a decade due to the shift from coal to gas for electricity generation."

"Environmentalists and politicians worry Chesapeake Bay cleanup efforts could be weakened, if not doomed, days after the federal official overseeing that work called an agreement to reduce water pollution an “aspirational” goal and not rules to be enforced."

"The Trump administration on Monday took its first step toward tighter pollution controls on trucks, an anomalous move for a government known for weakening environmental policies but one that would pre-empt tougher state rules."

"Nearly a decade of BP-funded research has uncovered a laundry list of potential health effects resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, including possible links between obesity and dispersants used to break up the oil; the discovery of dangerous bacteria in tar balls still washing up on Gulf beaches; and a new understanding of the links between disasters and the mental health problems of both fishers and oilfield workers."

"A bill that would require the EPA to regulate PFAS, an emerging family of chemicals contaminating U.S. municipal and private water supplies, is slated to be the first major legislation that the House will take up in 2020."

"The state of North Carolina says it has secured an agreement with Duke Energy to excavate nearly 80 million tons (72.5 million metric tons) of coal ash at six facilities."

"The Trump administration has built up the biggest backlog of unfunded toxic Superfund cleanup projects in at least 15 years, nearly triple the number that were stalled for lack of money in the Obama era, according to 2019 figures quietly released by the Environmental Protection Agency over the winter holidays."