A fatal November 30, 2012, collapse of part of a coal-slurry impoundment in West Virginia served as a reminder of safety issues that may not be adequately regulated in some states and localities. You can locate local coal-slurry impoundments and information on their status with an online public database.
Is the public entitled to see documents that may bear on the safety of a for-profit utility's plan to restart the flaw-stricken San Onofre nuclear plant in California? Maybe not. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board ruled the utility must turn the documents over to the board — but currently plans to keep them secret from the public.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was joined by the Washington (PA) Observer-Reporter in a suit to unseal records of the July 2011 settlement of a case in which a family had sued four natural gas companies over damages they claimed were caused by hydraulic fracturing. The appeals court said a lower court had erred in throwing out the newspapers' case.
The Society of Environmental Journalists wrote Interior Secretary Ken Salazar about the Election Day incident of attempted intimidation in Colorado, when the Secretary threatened to "punch out" SEJ member Dave Philipps, senior investigative reporter with the Colorado Springs Gazette.
Bud Ward, editor of The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media, writes about the ways for these two disciplines to get along and learn from each other — while preserving their own independence and remaining loyal to their underlying principles.
SEJ President Carolyn Whetzel explains results of a research project underwritten by the Brainerd Foundation to identify SEJ’s strengths and weaknesses, which served as a basis for a discussion on a strategic path for the organization over the next three years.
William Souder explains how Rachel Carson's seminal 1962 work Silent Spring shaped (and still shapes) modern environmentalism (from his new book, On a Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson).
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