Latest Pollution Headlines
All the headlines from our Pollution Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Group Sues ExxonMobil Over Baton Rouge Chemical Plant Emissions
Mar 7 2016 // An environmental group’s lawsuit claims ExxonMobil Corp. continues to violate Clean Air Act regulations despite a 2014 settlement over emissions from the company’s Baton Rouge chemical plant. The Louisiana...
Audit Criticizes Michigan Environmental Regulators over Flint Water Crisis
Mar 7 2016 // Michigan environmental regulators made crucial errors as Flint began using a new drinking water source that would become contaminated with lead, auditors said on March 4, as crews in the city started to dig up old pipes...
New Mexico Court Revives Neighborhood Oil Contamination Case
Mar 7 2016 // More than 200 current and former residents who claim decades of oil and gas operations led to contamination that spurred a rash of illnesses in their southeastern New Mexico neighborhood will be able to pursue their case...
Travelers Enhances Contractors Professional, Pollution Liability Coverage
Mar 6 2016 // Travelers has enhanced its product offering for contractors by combining professional liability and pollution liability coverages. The product now offers additional protection against environmental damage caused by design...
Chubb Names Product Line & Customer Segment Leaders for Continental Europe
Mar 4 2016 // Chubb has appointed the team that will lead product line underwriting and distribution for its Continental Europe region. Each of the newly announced positions will report to Steve Reiss, chief operating officer,...
Samarco, BHP & Vale Agree to Pay $5B in Damages for Brazil Mining Disaster
Mar 3 2016 // Mining company Samarco and its owners, BHP Billiton and Vale SA , reached a deal with the Brazilian government on Wednesday to pay an estimated 20 billion reais ($5.1 billion) in damages over 15 years for a deadly dam...
Jury Clears BP Manager of Clean Water Act Charge
Feb 26 2016 // A former BP manager charged with violating U.S. pollution law over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill was cleared by a New Orleans jury, thwarting federal prosecutors’ last chance to jail someone over the...
Thawing Arctic Ice Creates New Environmental Risks as Shipping Routes Open
Feb 25 2016 // The Arctic is thawing even faster than lawmakers can formulate new rules to prevent the environmental threat of heavy fuel oil pollution from ships plying an increasingly popular trade route. Average Arctic temperatures...
BHSI Launches Professional & Pollution Liability Coverage for Contractors
Feb 23 2016 // Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance (BHSI) has launched Contractor’s Protective, Professional and Pollution (CP3) Liability Policy, which is available on a primary and excess basis for practice or project-specific...
Ex-Freedom President Gets 1 Month in Prison for West Virginia Chemical Spill
Feb 18 2016 // An executive who appeared unsympathetic when he spoke to the public after a chemical spill sullied tap water for 300,000 people in West Virginia was sentenced to one month in federal prison Wednesday. Ex-Freedom Industries...
Climate Change’s No Justice, No Pancake, No Fly Zone
Feb 18 2016 // A conceivable diminishment in my pancake experience is what I’ll take away from the last two weeks of weird headlines tied to the topic of climate change. However, it was the rancor over the death of Supreme Court...
Lawsuit Says N.J.’s Post-Sandy Coastal Zone Rules ‘Don’t Make Sense’
Feb 17 2016 // Some New Jersey residents and environmental groups are suing to try to block the state’s new rules governing coastal development in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, saying they allow too many people and buildings to be...
Ex-Freedom Industries Exec Sentenced to 1 Month for West Virginia Chemical Spill
Feb 17 2016 // A former Freedom Industries executive was sentenced Feb. 11 to one month in federal prison for a chemical spill that fouled the drinking water supply of 300,000 West Virginians. Dennis Farrell also was fined $20,000 in...
Sierra Club Lawsuit Claims Fracking Contributing to Oklahoma Earthquakes
Feb 16 2016 // Sierra Club weighed into the controversy over fracking and increased earthquake risk with a lawsuit accusing a Chesapeake Energy Corp. unit, Devon Energy Production Co. and New Dominion LLC of triggering tremors in...
Midwest Group Challenges Peabody Energy’s Plan to Self-Bond Mines
Feb 16 2016 // A Midwestern environmental group has followed through on its promise to formally challenge Peabody Energy’s ability to guarantee it has enough money for future cleanup of its Illinois and Indiana coal mines. The...
Cleanup Plan Finally Approved For Contaminated Montana Town
Feb 12 2016 // The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency granted final approval this week to a costly cleanup program for a Montana community where health officials say hundreds of people have been killed by asbestos poisoning. The...
‘Weird & Wacky’ Methods to Absorb Global Warming Pollution Viewed Too Risky
Feb 11 2016 // Some of the most dramatic measures to suck global warming pollution out of the atmosphere are probably too risky to be worth trying, an academic at a climate research institution concluded. Phil Williamson, a scientist at...
How Supreme Court Could Upend Obama Clean Power Plan
Feb 11 2016 // The U.S. Supreme Court’s unexpected move to block President Barack Obama’s policy to cut pollution from coal plants highlights what both sides in the legal fight agree is a key weakness in the rules — a...
New Jersey 4th State to Sue Volkswagen Over Excess Diesel Emissions
Feb 8 2016 // New Jersey on Friday, Feb. 5, filed a lawsuit against Volkswagen AG and its luxury units over the German automaker’s excess diesel emissions, becoming the fourth U.S. state to take legal action. New Jersey’s...
Company Responsible for West Virginia Chemical Receives ‘Symbolic’ Fine
Feb 8 2016 // A bankrupt chemical company responsible for a spill that contaminated a West Virginia river and fouled the drinking water supply of 300,000 residents was fined $900,000 on pollution charges Feb. 4, with a judge noting that...
