On April 4, 2014, the Alamo Area Council of Governments, the regional area which is supposed to control smog, released its study results — which suggested drilling in the Eagle Ford shale did indeed contribute a lot to smog. Days later, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which had funded the study, cut AACOG's budget by 25 percent.
"Zoning changes prohibit new storage sites, but 3 dumps can remain despite neighbors' protests."
"Almost 150 million people live in areas where air pollution levels are unhealthy to breathe, an increase from a previous American Lung Association report."
"The Moapa Band of Paiute Indians thought coal ash from a nearby plant was killing them off; so they fought back."
"Riding on his pride in the first export of Russian Arctic oil earlier this month, President Vladimir Putin has signed a law that allows oil and gas corporations to establish private armed security forces to defend their infrastructure, upping the ante for protestors."
"In a major victory for the Obama administration, the Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the smog from coal plants that drifts across state lines from 28 Midwestern and Appalachian states to the East Coast."
"For the first time since Duke Energy’s defunct Eden, N.C., coal plant leaked thousands of gallons of coal ash into the Dan River nearly three months ago, the public is getting a look at how the nation’s largest electric utility company may change its containment of coal ash, a substance environmentalists say is one of the biggest threats to rivers and groundwater across the country."
"North Dakota this week confirmed the discovery of a new radioactive dump of waste from oil drilling. And separately, a company hired to clean up similar waste found in February at another location said it had removed more than double the amount of radioactive material originally estimated to be there."
"FORT WORTH, Texas -- A Wise County couple who sued Plano-based Aruba Petroleum, claiming that natural gas operations near their 40-acre ranch made them sick, has won a $2.9 million award from a Dallas jury."
"Hundreds of West Virginia residents who sought emergency-room care in January were treated for symptoms that were 'consistent' with exposure to MCHM, the primary chemical that leaked from the Freedom Industries tank farm into the region’s Elk River drinking-water supply, according to a review made public Wednesday."
