Latest Pollution Headlines
All the headlines from our Pollution Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Methane Emissions Becoming an Issue for North Dakota Oil Industry
Oct 21 2014 // Methane emissions will likely be the next big environmental issue to face North Dakota’s booming oil industry according to a top official at the state’s Department of Health. Dave Glatt, chief of the Department...
U.S. Hospitals Face Risks in Ebola Virus Waste Disposal
Sep 29 2014 // U.S. hospitals may be unprepared to safely dispose of the infectious waste generated by any Ebola virus disease patient to arrive unannounced in the country, potentially putting the wider community at risk, biosafety...
Neighbor’s Toxic Spill in Leads to Home Evacuations in North Little Rock
Sep 26 2014 // Some families in North Little Rock, Ark., have been forced to evacuate their homes after a hazardous chemical spill in a neighbor’s backyard. Fire Chief Jim Murphy tells KATV-TV the homes were evacuated after a...
Canada Eyes Insurance Pollution Fund for Oil-By-Rail Risks
Sep 23 2014 // The Canadian government is looking at extending the insurance burden for crude-by-rail disasters beyond just railways and is weighing the idea of a special fund similar to one once set up for maritime oil spills, a...
Judge Approves $2.9 Million West Virginia Chemical Spill Deal
Sep 19 2014 // A federal bankruptcy judge has approved a $2.9 million settlement that would benefit 300,000 people whose water was contaminated in a January chemical spill. Judge Ronald Pearson filed the order this past Tuesday in U.S....
Cleaning Up China’s Contaminated Soil: Who Pays?
Sep 17 2014 // Nearly four years after a massive state-run steel mill on the outskirts of Beijing was closed to help cut smog in the Chinese capital, little has been done to clean up the contaminated site. The factory’s idled...
Occidental to Pay $190M in New Jersey River Pollution Case
Sep 16 2014 // Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s chemical unit agreed to pay $190 million to cover its liability for the cleanup of the Passaic River in northern New Jersey, state officials said. Occidental Chemical is the legal...
BP Hopes Missing Comma Triggers $750 Million Transocean Spill Insurance
Sep 16 2014 // BP Plc, which already has paid more than $28 billion for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, seeks to get a $750 million chunk of that back by convincing a Texas court that a missing comma may give the oil company access to...
Judge Worried Freedom Industries to Abandon Chemical Spill Cleanup
Sep 10 2014 // A bankruptcy judge is concerned that a chemical company may abandon the site of a massive January spill without cleaning it up. Judge Ronald Pearson expressed the concern in an order filed last Friday in U.S. Bankruptcy...
Communities at Risk in Wake of Failure to Address Rising Seas
Sep 8 2014 // Missions flown from the NASA base here have documented some of the most dramatic evidence of a warming planet over the past 20 years: the melting of polar ice, a force contributing to a global rise in ocean levels. The...
BP Gross Negligence Ruling a Warning to Big Oil and Partners
Sep 5 2014 // A U.S. judge’s watershed ruling means the final cost to BP Plc for the 2010 Gulf oil spill may eclipse $50 billion, wiping out years of profits and highlighting the risks of drilling as the industry pushes into more...
West Virginia Water Utility Balks at $2.9M Chemical Spill Proposal
Sep 4 2014 // A utility is opposing a $2.9 million bankruptcy settlement that would fund projects to benefit 300,000 people whose water was contaminated in January. West Virginia American Water says Freedom Industries shouldn’t...
DuPont Hit with $1.3 Million Penalty for Multiple West Virginia Chemical Leaks
Aug 29 2014 // DuPont will pay a fine of $1.275 million to settle a federal complaint over eight chemical releases from a Kanawha County production facility, one of which killed a worker. The Department of Justice and U.S. Environmental...
FEMA Reimburses West Virginia Entities for Chemical Spill Costs
Aug 27 2014 // The Federal Emergency Management Agency has reimbursed $1.4 million to local and state governments, hospitals and some non-profit groups for costs related to January’s chemical spill in Charleston, West Virginia. The...
A Fracking Compromise for Colorado
Aug 26 2014 // On the second day of his vacation, surrounded by science fiction and comic book fans at Comic Con, Alan Salazar looked around the San Diego Convention Center for a quiet place so he could take a phone call from his...
Court Asked to Dimiss Spill Claims Against West Virginia Airport, Chemical Producer
Aug 25 2014 // An airport and a chemical producer want claims dismissed in a lawsuit partly targeting them over a January chemical spill. In U.S. District Court in Charleston, Yeager Airport filed a motion last week to dismiss claims in...
North Carolina Lawmakers Approve Law Regulating Duke’s Coal Ash Dumps
Aug 21 2014 // State House and Senate leaders said this week that they have reached a compromise on legislation to make Duke Energy curb pollution from its 33 coal ash dumps across North Carolina. House Speaker Thom Tillis and Senate...
Mine Owner to Pay $1.5B Penalty to Kentucky for Environmental Violations
Aug 21 2014 // West Virginia billionaire Jim Justice has reached a $1.5 million settlement with Kentucky officials over dozens of violations at several of his coal mines in eastern Kentucky. The agreement between Justice and the...
West Virginia Chemical Spill Claims Mount
Aug 18 2014 // Charleston, West Virginia-based Freedom Industries can expect about 5,000 groups to ask for money in bankruptcy claims over the January chemical spill that seeped into West Virginia’s biggest water supply. The...
West Virginia Chemical Spill Spawns Health Effects Studies
Aug 13 2014 // Federal health officials are outlining new studies on the chemicals that spilled into West Virginia’s largest drinking water supply. The National Toxicology Program said in a memo that potential pregnancy and liver...
