Pollution

"If you use exfoliating soaps, you might not know those little beads may be made of plastic -- or think about what happens to them when they go down the drain."

"NARAHA, Japan -- The decontamination crews at a deserted elementary school here are at the forefront of what Japan says is the most ambitious radiological cleanup the world has seen, one that promised to draw on cutting-edge technology from across the globe."

"PITTSBURGH -- An ongoing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study on natural gas drilling and its potential for groundwater contamination has gotten tentative praise so far from both industry and environmental groups."

"RICHMOND, Calif. -- The Chevron refinery’s massive oil storage tanks sit on the hills overlooking this small, impoverished city in San Francisco’s East Bay. Painted earthen red to blend with the natural surroundings, the tanks cannot help dominating the city’s skyline, much the way the oil giant itself has long shaped Richmond’s identity, economy and politics."

"In three decades of drilling, John C. Holko said, his oil and gas business has never faced such a hostile environment."

"Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig that was drilling the BP Macondo well when it caught fire and sank off the Louisiana coast in 2010, beginning the nation's largest oil spill, has agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal misdemeanor violation of the Clean Water Act and pay $1.4 billion in civil and criminal fines to settle violations of the Clean Water Act and federal offshore drilling safety regulations, the company and the U.S. Justice Department announced today."

"CONCORD, N.H. -- Nearly a decade after it was first brought, a lawsuit accusing two oil giants of widespread groundwater contamination in New Hampshire is expected to present jurors with the most complex and time-consuming trial in state history."

"Residents of Gardendale, a suburb near the hub of the west Texas oil industry, face having up to 300 wells in their backyards."

"FAIRBANKS -- Longtime Fairbanks-area resident Suzanne Fenner doesn't have to check the borough's air quality monitoring website to see whether or not pollution is high. She just looks out the front door. When she sees smoke rolling through, she knows she'll be coughing soon enough."

"Fenner, who's lived in Fairbanks since 1986, was shocked to learn recently she'd developed asthma. After being sick off and on for months, her doctor told her the asthma was a direct result of air pollution. ...

"Ruling in a bitterly contested case with national ramifications, a federal judge found Thursday that the Waterkeeper Alliance failed to prove that an Eastern Shore farm's chicken houses were polluting a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay."