"Each day, American municipalities discharge treated wastewater back into natural sources at a rate that would fill an empty Lake Champlain within six months. Growing pressure on water supplies and calls for updating the ancient subterranean piping infrastructure have brought new scrutiny to this step in the treatment process, which is labeled wasteful and unnecessary by a spectrum of voices."
Artificially created wetlands may not really compensate well enough for the loss of natural wetlands they replace.
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"To many, it’s a familiar scenario: a strip mall suddenly pops up in what was once a desolate quagmire or boggy boondock.
"CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A federal judge has sided with Alpha Natural Resources in the company's effort to keep testimony about West Virginia University studies linking mountaintop removal to birth defects and cancer among coalfield residents out of a legal challenge to one of Alpha's new mining permits."
"Despite billions of dollars spent on nanotechnology research and development over the past decade, the human and environmental safety of nanomaterials remains unclear. As a result, a new nanomaterials safety research strategy is needed, and new governmental oversight is required to ensure the essential research is carried out, according to a report released [Wednesday] by the National Research Council (NRC)."
"Sea ice is encroaching unusually early on the central Bering Sea, threatening to grind Alaska's economically important snow crab fishery to a halt at the peak of the season, leaving crabbers facing major losses."
"President Obama will travel to Nevada and Colorado on Thursday to sell the public on the energy proposals he outlined in this week’s State of the Union address."
Here, courtesy of the Federation of American Scientists, are some recent Congressional Research Service backgrounders that may be useful to environment/energy reporters, on chemical facility security, nuclear power plant design and seismic safety considerations, and proposed Keystone XL pipeline legal issues.
Most current fracking operations happen on non-federal lands. But on federal lands, things are different — Obama intends to require disclosure of fluids as a condition of new leases for fracking on federal lands. If it takes place, this could push the ingredient lists further into the open.
The e-mail pressuring agency scientists was written by USGS Director Marcia McNutt, and was never meant to be made public. Against strong agency resistance, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility forced disclosure of the e-mail with a Freedom-of-Information-Act lawsuit.
CDC's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has been investigating a Navy cover-up of cancer-causing drinking water at its Lejeune, NC, base. Now, Project on Government Oversight has released a January 5, 2012, letter from Marine Major General J.A. Kessler asking ATSDR to redact its report in the name of "force protection."
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