Pollution

"Regulator admits risks but recommends Trudeau government approve project to ramp up shipping of tar sands crude via Salish Sea tribal fishing grounds".

"The EPA announced new drinking water health advisory levels today for the industrial chemicals PFOA and PFOS. The new levels — .07 parts per billion (ppb) for both chemicals — are significantly lower than standards the agency issued in 2009, which were .4 ppb for PFOA and .2 ppb for PFOS."

"A House committee on Wednesday passed a bill to delay the Obama administration’s new ozone pollution rule and change the way the federal government writes future air pollution rules."

"The NAACP has filed a federal lawsuit against Michigan and its governor on behalf of the residents and businesses in Flint, where high levels of lead in the drinking water has created a health crisis."

"DEQ says all Duke Energy coal ash waste must be dug up, but wants permission to be more lenient if improvements occur."

"State regulators have raised the risk designations for some of Duke Energy’s coal ash dumps, a move that could require 25 impoundments to be dug up by 2024.

Or not.

The Department of Environmental Quality wants the power to lower risk rankings in 18 months if the utility proves that coal ash is not polluting nearby drinking water and repairs dams at its waste sites."

"A Houston-based pipeline company has been indicted in California on 46 criminal charges stemming from a major oil spill last year that forced beach closures and fouled miles of shoreline near Santa Barbara, prosecutors said on Tuesday."

"The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected Exxon Mobil Corp's appeal of a $236 million judgment against the oil company in a case brought by the state of New Hampshire over groundwater contamination linked to a gasoline additive."

"Alarmed by chronic problems with lead-contaminated water in downstate Galesburg, federal officials are urging local officials to provide bottled water or filters to residents where testing at household taps found high levels of the toxic metal. Though the small Knox County city stands out for repeatedly exceeding U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lead standards, a Tribune analysis of state data has identified about 170 other public water systems in Illinois — serving about 700,000 people in all — where test results exceeded federal standards during at least one year since 2004."

"Vessels continued to skim oil off the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday after about 88,200 gallons of oil were released from a Shell flow line about 90 miles off the coast of Louisiana."

"Just outside Pearland, theater patrons come and go within 200 feet of a warehouse that stockpiles a pesticide so toxic it seeped into a family’s house in Utah and killed two little girls."