Latest Pollution Headlines
All the headlines from our Pollution Topic Page, ordered by recency.
VW Owners Nominate Feinberg to Manage Potential Emissions Settlement
Dec 14 2015 // Consumer lawyers suing Volkswagen AG over economic losses tied to vehicles rigged to cheat emissions tests have nominated Kenneth Feinberg as a special settlement master. Feinberg handled General Motors Co.’ ignition...
Allianz Global Names AIG’s Williams Environmental Liability Manager for North America
Dec 11 2015 // Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS) reported that Thomas Williams has been named regional practice leader, Environmental Impairment Liability (EIL), for North America. Based in Atlanta, he will report to Dieter...
Kentucky Mining Company Fined for Clean Water Act Violations
Dec 10 2015 // Kentucky’s Energy and Environment Cabinet has agreed to levy a stiff fine against a coal mining company that acknowledged thousands of Clean Water Act violations, effectively barring the company from operating in...
Saving Shore Communities a Risky, Expensive Proposition
Dec 9 2015 // The sea is rising. The land is sinking. Entire mid-Atlantic communities are anchored in between, bookended by certain disaster unless a way is found to turn back the tide and save the shore. No one knows how to fix the fix...
California Judge Breyer Expected to Combine, Expedite VW Diesel Claims
Dec 9 2015 // A San Francisco judge who is the brother of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer will oversee more than 500 consumer lawsuits against Volkswagen AG over claims of economic losses connected to rigged emissions-testing...
Southern California Spill Spewing Gases of a Half-Million Cars
Dec 7 2015 // Call it the invisible spill. You can’t see it, but it’s there – a steady stream of natural gas seeping out of the pipe casing in a well in Southern California that may spew as much greenhouse gas into the air...
$1.3M Settlement in Suit Against Tulsa Appraisal Firm Approved
Dec 7 2015 // Former residents of the old mining town of Picher, Okla., have reached a settlement with a Tulsa-based appraisal firm they say intentionally undervalued their property for a federal buyout. The Joplin Globe reports that a...
How a King of Coal Conspired Against Mine Safety
Dec 4 2015 // To hear Donald L. Blankenship tell it, the U.S. coal industry has been undone by inept regulators, evil unions, the media and “global warming hoaxers.” But for jurors at his criminal trial in Charleston, West...
North Carolina Judge Rejects 13-Year-Old’s Climate Change Challenge
Dec 3 2015 // A judge has ruled against a 13-year-old girl who took North Carolina to court over climate change, but the eighth-grader says she’ll continue to fight for environmental protections. The News & Observer of Raleigh...
PartnerOne Launches Contractors Pollution & Professional Product
Dec 1 2015 // PartnerOne Environmental is working in partnership with Berkley Environmental, a Division of Berkley Specialty Underwriting Managers, to offer PartnerOne Contractors Pollution & Professional. This product is a combined...
Anadarko’s $160 Million Fine for 2010 Gulf Oil Spill Falls Well Below What U.S. Sought
Nov 30 2015 // Anadarko Petroleum Corp. was ordered to pay almost $160 million for its role as part-owner of the doomed Gulf of Mexico well that in 2010 caused the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. The fine was the last big...
Brazil to Sue BHP and Vale for $5.24B in Damages Caused by Burst Dam Disaster
Nov 30 2015 // Brazil’s federal and state governments plan to sue the owners of the Samarco iron ore miner for 20 billion reais ($5.24 billion) in damages caused by the burst of a tailings dam, Environment Minister Izabella...
Some Asbestos Left Behind in Montana Town Amid Move to End Cleanup
Nov 23 2015 // Federal officials say their final analysis of a Montana community wracked by deadly asbestos contamination shows a costly and much-criticized cleanup is working – even though about 700 properties have yet to be...
Brazil Slaps Initial Fine of $66 Million on Mine for Burst Dam Disaster
Nov 13 2015 // Brazil’s president slapped preliminary fines of 250 million reais ($66.2 million) against a mine in the country’s southeast where two dams burst, killing nine people and coating a two-state area with mud and...
Aspen Insurance Appoints McElroy as Global Head of Environmental
Nov 12 2015 // Aspen Insurance, the insurance segment of Aspen Insurance Holdings Ltd., announced that William McElroy will be appointed global head of environmental, effective Nov. 16, 2015. McElroy will lead Aspen Insurance’s...
Volkswagen Offers Diesel Owners $1,000 ‘Goodwill’ Payment
Nov 11 2015 // Volkswagen AG, reeling from an expanding scandal involving diesel cars it has admitted it rigged to pass U.S. pollution tests, announced Monday that owners of the vehicles will receive $1,000 in what the company calls a...
Dual Commercial Hires Broomfield for Environmental Program in New York
Nov 5 2015 // Dual Commercial LLC, a specialty program administrator based in Naples, Florida, has hired John Broomfield as senior underwriter for the firm’s the Environmental Division. He is based in New York City. Broomfield has...
Dual Commercial Expands Environmental Program with Schoning in Colorado
Nov 3 2015 // DUAL Commercial LLC has named Melissa Schoning to its environmental team as a senior underwriter. Schoning will be working out of Lakewood, Colo. Schoning has more than 12 years of insurance experience in environmental...
South Carolina Homeowners Face Expensive Repairs to Unsafe Dams
Oct 30 2015 // People who live around dozens of lakes in South Carolina are under emergency orders to repair or replace dams that ruptured or were deemed unsafe by inspectors after the historic rains this month, and they face staggering...
EPA: Missouri Landfill Fire Fix to Come by Year’s End
Oct 28 2015 // A plan to make sure an underground St. Louis-area landfill fire doesn’t reach a cache of Cold War-era nuclear waste buried nearby will come before the end of 2015, an Environmental Protection Agency administrator...
