Public

The failure of aging water and sewer pipes damages streets and homes and causes pollution to seep into drinking water supplies in many cities across the country. The only solution may require higher water bills for consumers.

"Facing foreclosure, Gail Litz, 61, has sued the town of Goldsboro, Caroline County and the state, seeking millions of dollars in compensation and to halt the seeping sewage that is fouling her lake and forced her to close Lake Bonnie Campsites." The Maryland Department of the Environment ordered the town to build a public sewer system or pay fines of $100 per day if it didn't meet the deadlines. "Fourteen years later, the pollution continues unchecked. No fines have been collected. The lake remains contaminated."

"A political battle is heating up between Florida and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over how best to clean up the state's polluted waters."

"Illinois is moving to phase out the use of perchloroethylene, or perc, a common dry-cleaning chemical linked to cancer, liver damage and neurological problems."

"The federal 'vaccines court' ruled Friday in three separate cases that the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal does not cause autism, a finding that supports the broad scientific consensus on the matter but that greatly disappointed parents who are convinced that their child's illness was caused by vaccines."

"U.S. EPA settled a lawsuit [last week] by agreeing to use the Clean Water Act to address ocean acidification, a move that some see as opening a side door to federal curbs on greenhouse gases that scientists link to problems in the marine environment."

"North American bird species are 'facing a new threat -- climate change -- that could dramatically alter their habitat and food supply and push many species towards extinction,' said Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar on Thursday when he announced the new report, 'The State of the Birds: 2010 Report on Climate Change.'"

"The federal government is doing what once had been unthinkable: Building a new stretch of pipeline and draining more water from the Columbia River system to aid farmers. The pipeline is approved to carry just a trickle, but will be designed to handle much more water than that. New proposals would dramatically increase the amount of river water provided to Columbia Basin farmers."

A dramatic decline in male births among indigenous American peoples -- both in the Arctic and elsewhere -- has been linked to toxic industrial pollution. "Toxic pollutants travel from industrialized countries and accumulate in the marine food chain of the Arctic region, and in the traditional diet of indigenous peoples."

"The bill that funds the Energy Department and water projects for this year contains at least six earmarks giving grants to for-profit companies. And in at least two cases, lawmakers obtained earmarks for companies that had given those same House members campaign contributions."