Pollution

"After a series of legal twists that led to a stinging rebuke from a federal judge last week, U.S. EPA has decided to exempt a planned natural gas power plant in California's San Joaquin Valley from new air pollution rules, including limits on greenhouse gas emissions."

"A top New York State official filed a lawsuit against the federal government on Tuesday to force an assessment of the environmental risks posed by drilling for natural gas in the Delaware River Basin, arguing that a regulatory commission should not issue final rules governing the drilling until a study is completed."

"As residents confront a gigantic cleanup following the tornado that savaged Joplin, experts say environmental dangers could lurk amid the mountains of debris in the southwestern Missouri city and even in the water and air."

"The federal government has explored hiring a professional public relations firm and organizing trips for international leaders to promote Canada's oilsands industry, while fighting back against foreign climate change policies requiring it to reduce its pollution, a newly released federal document has revealed."

"Key committees writing rules for New Jersey's new program to clean up contaminated sites are made up entirely of the polluting companies and their contractors."

"The federal government has acknowledged it deliberately excluded data indicating a 20 per cent increase in annual pollution from Canada’s oilsands industry in 2009 from a recent 567-page report on climate change that it was required to submit to the United Nations."

Abandoned mines in Colorado and across the West are contaminating many streams with toxic discharges.

As environmentalists flag the hydrofracking gas-drilling method as a new threat to the Susquehanna River, some basin residents say authorities have still not fixed an old threat: acid mine drainage.