Pollution

An environmental video journalist was among those charged by Russia for piracy after a protest of Arctic drilling.

"In October 2013 a new international convention to control mercury emissions will be open for signing in Japan. Named the Minamata Convention on Mercury, the agreement is a response to the realization that mercury pollution is a global problem that no one country can solve alone. The convention was four years in the making, with more than 130 nations agreeing by consensus to a final text in January 2013. It includes both compulsory and voluntary measures to control mercury emissions from various sources, to phase the element out of certain products and industrial processes, to restrict its trade, and to eliminate mining of it."

"Almost 200,000 tons of contaminated soil would be removed from the 500-acre Ringwood Superfund site — where the Ford Motor Co. dumped toxic paint sludge from its Mahwah factory 40 years ago — under a proposal issued Monday by federal environmental officials."

"The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday released its formal, final decision on how to complete the Superfund cleanup of the Gowanus Canal, a waterway whose depths contain toxins from long-ago industry and more recent sewage overflows."

"Legislators say Congress must fully understand the potential grave consequences resulting from floods."

"The federal government is about to release its final, $500 million cleanup plan for the Gowanus Canal, one of New York City’s two Superfund sites, a long-awaited moment in the effort to cleanse more than a century of environmental abuse."

"Critics of hydraulic fracturing, known widely as 'fracking,' have been pushing hard for natural gas companies to disclose all of the chemicals in the fluids that are used in the process. But what if the companies themselves don't even know what those chemicals are?"

"Shell Oil has not disclosed new safety measures since a critical federal report in March, and it has not applied to drill in the Arctic in 2014."

"WHITING -- The Indiana Department of Environmental Management issued its final ruling on a permit application for BP's Whiting Refinery, requiring the company to cut its mercury releases into Lake Michigan by more than half."

"Cancer-causing industrial chemicals have been found in the sewers at a Columbia-area restaurant as a state investigation of illegal dumping expands from the Upstate to the Midlands, where utility officials scrambled this week to learn more about the threat to central South Carolina."