New Surface Mining Chief Cracks Down on Mountaintop Removal, Valley Fills
The U.S. Department of the Interior is taking immediate actions to strengthen its oversight of state surface coal mining programs. The agency will issue federal regulations to better protect streams affected by surface coal mining operations, such as mountaintop removal mining, Interior officials announced today.
Read More »Science Report: Climate Change Speeding Toward Irreversible Tipping Points
The speed and scope of global warming is now overtaking even the most sobering predictions of the last report of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, finds a new report issued by the United Nations Environment Programme, entitled “Climate Change Science Compendium 2009.”
Read More »Report: Energy Efficiency Could Halve U.S. Greenhouse Gases by 2050
Energy efficiency investments can provide up to half the greenhouse gas emissions reductions most scientists say are needed between now and the year 2050 to avert the worst effects of climate change, finds a new report from the nonprofit and independent American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, ACEEE.
Read More »EPA Invests $2 Million in Philadelphia Drinking Water Security
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania, February 23, 2009 (ENS) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today presented a $2 million grant to Philadelphia to help the city address the risk of intentional contamination of its drinking water by diseases, pests, or poisonous agents. The federal agency says it could make a total of $9.5 million available to the [...]
Read More »EPA Revisits Bush-Era Denial of California Tailpipe Emissions Waiver
WASHINGTON, DC, February 6, 2009 (ENS) – In accordance with President Barack Obama’s order in January, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will reconsider its decision denying California permission to set standards controlling greenhouse gases from motor vehicles. The waiver request was made by California on December 21, 2005, to allow the state the right to [...]
Read More »Coal Ash Spills Could Happen at Dumps Across USA
WASHINGTON, DC, January 7, 2008 (ENS) – Nearly 100 coal ash dumps across the United States pose similar or even greater potential dangers than the eastern Tennessee site that spilled a billion gallons of toxic sludge and contaminated water last month, finds a report released today by environmentalists. The study warns that the Bush administration [...]
Read More »Rapanos Will Pay for Clean Water Act Violations
DETROIT, Michigan, December 30, 2008 (ENS) – In long-running case that affects the scope of federal jurisdiction over wetlands and other waters, developer John Rapanos and related defendants agreed Monday to resolve violations of the Clean Water Act at three sites in Midland and Bay counties, Michigan. Rapanos has agreed to pay a $150,000 civil [...]
Read More »Commercial Ship Discharges Now Need Clean Water Permit
WASHINGTON, DC, December 19, 2008 (ENS) – A new general permit will reduce releases of 26 types of discharges from vessels operating in U.S. waters, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Beginning today, some 61,000 domestically flagged commercial vessels and 8,000 foreign flagged vessels will need to comply with the discharge permit. As a [...]
Read More »Pennsylvania Debuts Thermostat Recycling to Lower Mercury Risk
PAOLI, Pennsylvania, December 18, 2008 (ENS) – That thermostat on the wall that allows residents to control the temperature of their rooms contains the deadly neurotoxin mercury. But fewer Pennsylvanians will face mercury exposure now that Pennsylvania’s new Mercury-Free Thermostat Law is in place, say state environmental regulators. “This law is another means of protecting [...]
Read More »National Report Advises Cumulative Risk Assessment of Phthalates
WASHINGTON, DC, December 18, 2008 (ENS) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should examine whether combined exposures to chemicals known as phthalates could cause adverse health effects in humans, particularly to the male reproductive system, says a new report from the National Research Council. This analysis, called a cumulative risk assessment, is warranted, said the [...]
Read More »ExxonMobil Fined for Violating Clean Air Decree at Four Refineries
WASHINGTON, DC, December 17, 2008 (ENS) – ExxonMobil has agreed to pay nearly $6.1 million in civil penalties for violating the terms of a 2005 court-approved Clean Air Act agreement, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today. “The Department of Justice will not tolerate violation of our consent decrees,” [...]
Read More »EPA’s Most Wanted Fugitives Featured on New Website
WASHINGTON, DC, December 10, 2008 (ENS) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is taking a page from the book of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is now posting pictures and descriptions of fugitive environmental lawbreakers or those accused of environmental crimes on a new website. The EPA’s Most Wanted site opened today at: http://www.epa.gov/fugitives [...]
Read More »Highest U.S. Court Ponders Power Plants and Fish Protection
WASHINGTON, DC, December 4, 2008 (ENS) – The U.S. Supreme Court is wrestling with the difficulty of valuing fish and aquatic organisms with little or no commercial worth, hearing arguments in a legal dispute over what steps older power plants should take to limit water use and minimize environmental harm. In oral arguements Tuesday, the [...]
Read More »New York Proposes Cleanup for Onondaga Lake Tributaries
ALBANY, New York, November 28, 2008 (ENS) – The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation will unveil proposals to clean up contaminated soils in two Onondaga Lake tributaries at a public meeting on December 10. The meeting will be held to present the plans, to elaborate on the reasons for recommending the preferred remedies, [...]
Read More »More Than Health Damaged by Ag Nutrients in Drinking Water
MANHATTAN, Kansas, November 24, 2008 (ENS) – The pollution of fresh water by agricultural nutrients costs government agencies, drinking water facilities and individual Americans at least $4.3 billion a year in total, finds new research from Kansas State University. Biology professor Walter Dodds, who led the study, says the researchers calculated that $44 million a [...]
Read More »Two-year Milestones Set to Speed Chesapeake Bay Restoration
WASHINGTON, DC, November 24, 2008 (ENS) – To accelerate progress toward cleaning up the nation’s largest estuary, the Chesapeake Executive Council agreed at its annual meeting on Thursday to set restoration milestones every two years. These milestones will focus the partnership on achieving the Chesapeake Bay Program’s science-based goals to reduce excess levels of nitrogen, [...]
Read More »Sierra Club Wins Appeal of Coal Plant Air Permit
WASHINGTON, DC, November 13, 2008 (ENS) – In a case with national implications, the Environmental Appeals Board of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ruled today that the EPA had no valid reason for refusing to require that best available control technology be used to limit carbon dioxide emissions from a coal-fired power plant proposed in [...]
Read More »EPA Encourages Americans to Bring their Green to Work
New ENERGY STAR® Online Tool Provides Employees with Workplace Energy Saving Tips The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designed the new @ work tool for people who didn’t want to stop their energy conservation actions for 8 hours each day when they were at work. With the average American worker spending 40 hours a week [...]
Read More »New Rule: Clean Water Permits Voluntary for Factory Farms
WASHINGTON, DC, November 3, 2008 (ENS) – The Bush administration finalized a rule Friday that allows more than 15,000 factory farms across the country to avoid certain requirements of the Clean Water Act if they claim they do not discharge animal wastes into lakes, rivers and streams. Federal officials said the rule will help protect [...]
Read More »Electronics Recyclers Held to New National Guidelines
WASHINGTON, DC, November 3, 2008 (ENS) – Recycling obsolete electronics is getting easier and more convenient as more manufacturers take responsibility for collecting and recycling older, unwanted equipment. Dell Computers and Goodwill, for instance, this week launched Reconnect, a free computer recycling service in the greater New York city and eastern New York state area. [...]
Read More »One Mile of Grand Calumet River Gets $33 Million Cleanup
HAMMOND, Indiana, October 27, 2008 (ENS) – Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and Department of Natural Resources are joining forces in a $33 million effort to restore a little over one mile of the Grand Calumet River. The plan calls for the cleanup of [...]
Read More »Expert Report: EPA Stormwater Program Needs “Radical Changes”
WASHINGTON, DC, October 15, 2008 (ENS) – Increased water volume and pollutants from stormwater have degraded water quality and habitats in virtually every urban stream system in the United States, says a new report from the National Research Council. The committee of experts that wrote the report says, “Radical changes to the U.S. Environmental Protection [...]
Read More »Green Stampede Recycles Football Game Waste
BOULDER, Colorado, October 10, 2008 (ENS) – Football fans going to Colorado Buffaloes games are having a hard time trying to find a trash can at Boulder’s Folsom Field this season. Traditional cans have been replaced by recycle and compost bins by University of Colorado’s athletic department. The Colorado Buffaloes are the first major collegiate [...]
Read More »EPA Won’t Regulate Rocket Fuel Toxic in Drinking Water
WASHINGTON, DC, October 6, 2008 (ENS) – Perchlorate, a toxic component of rocket fuel that contaminates drinking water at sites in at least 35 states, will not be regulated at the national level the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has decided. The agency announced its preliminary decision not to regulate perchlorate in drinking water late Friday. [...]
Read More »California’s Number One Inland Oil Polluter in Trouble Again
SAN FRANCISCO, California, October 3, 2008 (ENS) – An oil company that state and federal officials have called California’s number one inland oil polluter has failed to meet multiple deadlines to clean up leaks from settling ponds on one of its leases, so the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this week took over partial cleanup operations [...]
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