Pollution

"KARNES CITY, Texas -- In the five years since the shale boom hit, the once-beautiful hills of south Texas have been transformed into a scarred, industrial landscape. The residents’ health is part of the collateral damage, according to the environmental watchdog group Earthworks. Their new study documents hazardous chemicals in the air and serious ailments reported by families living in close proximity to drilling operations."

"MIAMI -- When she was little, Elaine Taylor remembers rushing home whenever Old Smokey fired up. Clouds of ash from the towering trash incinerator would fill the air and settle on the ramshackle houses and the yards of the West Grove neighborhood."

"The good news: A sample of what are probably the best fracked wells in the country finds low emissions of methane, a potent heat-trapping gas. The bad news: The study likely missed the super-emitters, the wells that are responsible for the vast majority of methane leakage."

"In response to complaints from neighbors, Norfolk Southern agreed Thursday to take more aggressive steps to clean up lung-damaging diesel pollution from equipment at the railroad's Englewood freight yard."

"CONCORD, N.H. -- Cleanup at one of the state's major Superfund pollution sites is moving into high gear."

"CENTRALIA, Wash. — Proposals to make the Northwest a major coal exporting region have made for a familiar debate over the potential impacts on people and the environment."

"Texas oil and gas officials are once again investigating whether gas drilling contaminated water wells in a neighborhood west of Fort Worth where similar charges gained national attention nearly three years ago."

"WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. -- A federal judge has approved settlement with a Texas firm over the discharge of fluids from a Marcellus Shale natural gas well site in Lycoming County."

"Japanese authorities, now struggling to contain leaks of radioactive groundwater from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant, were urged two years ago by U.S. experts to take immediate steps to prevent groundwater contamination but decided not to act on the advice."

"Two environmental activists who climbed an OAO Gazprom (GAZP) Arctic rig to protest planned oil extraction were taken into custody following warning shots from Russia’s Coast Guard."