Pollution

"Of all the environmental and climate change challenges facing North Carolina—including its vulnerability to sea level rise, the extreme flooding from Hurricane Matthew, the wisdom of drilling offshore and fracking throughout the state—the one issue Gov. Pat McCrory has struggled with most politically is coal ash."

"About 300 million children in the world breathe highly toxic air, the United Nations Children’s Fund said in a report on Monday that used satellite imagery to illustrate the magnitude of the problem."

"Fewer polluters were criminally prosecuted based on referrals from the Environmental Protection Agency this year than in any year in the past two decades, including during the George W. Bush administration."

"Some specially trained dogs are helping humans curb themselves. A company that has trained dogs to recognize the smell of human fecal bacteria has been sniffing out sources of water pollution nationwide, discovering broken sewer pipes, leaking septic tanks and illegal sewage discharges, to the delight of environmental groups and government agencies."

"UK water companies are urging the national trading standards body to help stamp out “misleading” labelling on disposable wet wipes that are marketed as flushable but clog up drains and litter oceans at huge environmental cost."

"The Detroit incinerator, long controversial for its burning of the city’s waste, is being targeted by a lawsuit that claims the facility repeatedly fails to meet safe air emission standards."

"Duke Energy, North Carolina’s largest utility, has been ordered to submit a post-flood plan for the storage ponds at one coal-fired power plant, after reports surfaced of coal ash residue contaminating a local waterway."

"Flash floods and landslides in north-central Pennsylvania have caused a Sunoco pipeline to rupture, spilling an estimated 55,000 gallons of gasoline into a tributary of Loyalsock creek in Lycoming County."

"Federal regulators on Thursday finalized new guidelines to reduce emissions of ozone-forming pollutants for oil and gas drilling sites."