Pollution

"Waste leaching from frack disposal wells are the likely source of a spike in endocrine-disrupting compounds in downstream waterway—a troubling sign given the roughly 36,000 disposal sites across the U.S."

"AES Corp. settled a lawsuit accusing the power-generating company of allowing one of its units to dump coal ash on beaches in the Dominican Republic, which allegedly caused a spate of birth defects in children."

"A key section of the Keystone pipeline has been shut down due to an oil spill in South Dakota, TransCanada said on Monday."

"Industry groups are challenging President Obama’s rule to protect workers from exposure to harmful silica dust."

"With public officials across the nation under fire for downplaying the health risks posed by lead water pipes, Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration is moving to start testing tap water in the homes of children poisoned by the brain-damaging metal."

"A federal judge in New Orleans has granted final approval to an estimated $20 billion settlement, resolving years of litigation over the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico."

"As Southern California continues to battle the nation’s worst smog, most members of a powerful regional panel that enforces air pollution regulations can breathe relatively easily. Nine of the 13 members of the South Coast Air Quality Management District live close to the ocean in Los Angeles or Orange counties, where ozone, the hallmark pollutant of summer smog, exceeds federal health standards fewer than 10 days a year."

"A worsening financial crisis for the nation’s biggest coal companies is sparking concerns that U.S. taxpayers could be stuck with hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in cleanup costs across a landscape of shuttered mines stretching from Appalachia to the northern Plains."

"A California judge ruled Wednesday that the Port of Los Angeles and a national railroad company failed to adequately assess the environmental impacts of a $500-million freight yard they want to build next to low-income, mostly minority neighborhoods."

"A half dozen coal-fired power plants in Georgia face tougher federal rules that could force them to spend millions of dollars, or even shut down some, to reduce heavy metal pollutants in the state’s rivers and ground water."