"The Environmental Protection Agency proposed Thursday to include microplastics and pharmaceuticals on a list of contaminants in drinking water for the first time, a step that could lead to new limits on those substances for water utilities."
"When pollution gets bad enough in the rivers supplying Iowa’s largest city with drinking water, it costs Des Moines around $16,000 a day to run a special system to filter out dangerous nitrates. It’s a fact of life in the agriculture-dependent state — and climate change is making the water quality problem even worse."
"When former top Environmental Protection Agency official Judith Enck noticed a cavalcade of chemical and plastics industry lobbyists visiting the agency’s Washington headquarters in February, she wondered what could be up."
"A new study of pesticide exposure in Peru finds a mechanistic association between exposure and cancer, and shows how “complex pesticide mixtures” can contribute to the development of cancer in people, even at exposure levels currently deemed safe."
"John Beard takes no pleasure in being right. In January, he told Capital B that he feared U.S. military action in Venezuela, which ultimately gave America preferential access to the South American nation’s vast oil reserves, would lead to disaster in southeast Texas."
"Work to get lead out of Garden State homes has surged in recent years, fueled by an influx of federal pandemic relief money and urgency from Newark’s drinking water crisis. But it’s been years since Newark largely dealt with its water problems, with the subsequent calm taking attention away from lead issues."
"The US Environmental Protection Agency has proposed to remove air emission regulations from plastic pyrolysis plants, also known as chemical or advanced recycling facilities, that essentially burn plastic to make fuel."
"Before becoming a top official at the Environmental Protection Agency, Aaron Szabo was a lobbyist for the oil and gas industry. Metadata shows he helped draft a trade group’s 2022 letter to the EPA objecting to controls on methane emissions."
"The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has opened the door to punitive damages in a class-action lawsuit regarding contamination from “forever chemicals” called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) on people’s private property."
"Thousands of dead fish are washing ashore and people are falling ill too, as officials investigate possible sources of contamination."
