Latest Pollution Headlines
All the headlines from our Pollution Topic Page, ordered by recency.
West Virginia Coal Industry Data Shows Mines Releasing Excessive Pollution
Jun 5 2019 // Several West Virginia coal mines, including some owned by the governor’s family, have released many times the allowable amounts of pollutants into nearby waterways in recent years without being penalized by...
Declarations
Jun 3 2019 // Poor Compliance Record “Valero’s Port Arthur refinery has a poor compliance record even when compared to other Texas oil refineries, spewing out millions of pounds of dangerous pollution into surrounding...
New Hampshire Sues 3M, DuPont, Other Chemical Companies
May 31 2019 // New Hampshire has sued eight companies including 3M and the DuPont Co. for damage it says has been caused by a class of potentially toxic chemicals found in pizza boxes, fast-food wrappers and drinking water. The...
4 Months of Mississippi Delta Flooding Taking a Toll on Farmers, Residents
May 31 2019 // Larry Walls should have been out working in his fields last week. Instead, his John Deere tractor is parked on high ground, just beyond the reach of the ever-encroaching floodwaters in the southern Mississippi Delta. Four...
Texas Environmentalists Plan Pollution Lawsuit Against Valero
May 23 2019 // Three Texas environmental groups have notified Valero Energy Corp. of plans to file a lawsuit under the U.S. Clean Air Act for pollution at the company’s Port Arthur, Texas, refinery, the organizations...
EPA Begins Rewrite of Rules on Costs, Benefits of Environmental Regulations
May 23 2019 // The Trump administration is planning to write new rules for how it weighs the human costs and benefits of environmental regulations, a move that could make it harder for future presidents to stiffen limits on pollution and...
Sand-Bag Barrier in Mississippi Overwhelmed by River Flooding
May 23 2019 // Floodwaters overwhelmed a miles-long sandbag barrier over the weekend, drenching another community in the southern end of the Mississippi Delta. Volunteers, prisoners and others had stacked 100,000 sandbags and more than...
AGCS Offers Crisis Management Response Services with Its Pollution Liability Cover
May 22 2019 // Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS) announced it is offering expanded emergency response services as part of its Environmental Impairment Liability (EIL) coverage when pollution and/or contamination events...
Chemical Multinationals Must Stop Cutting Corners in Sourcing: Report on China Blast
May 22 2019 // A prominent Chinese environmental group has called on chemicals multinationals to stop “cutting corners” by outsourcing business to Chinese suppliers that violate safety regulations after an investigation into...
West Virginia Fines Pipeline Builder $266K for Environmental Violations
May 21 2019 // The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and Mountain Valley Pipeline have agreed the latter will pay $266,000 for environmental violations dating back to April 2018. The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports the...
WCD’s Spessard Joins Beazley to Head Expanded Environmental Claims Team
May 20 2019 // Specialist insurer Beazley has hired Cal Spessard to head the team responsible for handling claims arising from the company’s environmental liability business. Spessard joins Beazley from environmental risk...
Violations of IMO 2020 Emissions Rules for Shipping Could Hit Insurance Cover
May 20 2019 // Tougher rules on sulfur emissions from ships will come into effect next year in the biggest shake-up for the oil and shipping industries for decades. United Nations shipping agency the International Maritime Organization...
Bayer’s Strategy on Roundup Litigation Rests on EPA Glyphosate Finding
May 17 2019 // Bayer AG plans to argue that a $2 billion jury award and thousands of U.S. lawsuits claiming its glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup causes cancer should be tossed because a U.S. regulatory agency said the herbicide is...
California Jury Blames Roundup for Couple’s Cancer, Awards $2 Billion
May 13 2019 // A California jury on Monday awarded more than $2 billion to a couple who claimed Bayer AG’s glyphosate-based Roundup weed killer caused their cancer, in the largest U.S. jury verdict to date against the company in...
Plaintiffs’ Attorney Urges $1 Billion Damages Award in Roundup Trial
May 9 2019 // The jury in Bayer AG’s third Roundup weedkiller trial was urged by a plaintiffs’ lawyer to consider socking the company with $1 billion in damages as punishment for covering up the health risks of the herbicide...
Mining Giant BHP Faces $5B Damages Claim over 2015 Brazil Dam Disaster
May 8 2019 // Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP is facing a landmark, $5.0 billion damages claim in England for being “woefully negligent” in the run-up to a 2015 dam failure that led to Brazil’s worst environmental...
Sniffing Out Particles, Singling Out Pigs: Food Industry Urged to Embrace Robots, AI
May 6 2019 // E.coli in beef. Metal shavings in bread crumbs. Contaminated water on vegetables. The food industry has its share of quality control scandals and their insurers have had their share of claims. Some believe food would be a...
Texas Senate Panel Weighs Input on Stronger Storage Tank Regulations
May 2 2019 // Weeks after a massive fire at a Houston-area petrochemical storage facility garnered national attention, a panel of state lawmakers heard dueling testimony Monday night on a bill that would strengthen state oversight of...
Pollution Charges Filed Against Texas Petrochemical Facility That Burned
May 1 2019 // Water pollution charges have been filed against a company that owns a Houston-area petrochemical storage facility where a large fire that burned for days in March caused chemicals to flow into a nearby waterway. The Harris...
Weed Killer Chemical Glyphosate Is Not a Cancer Agent, Says EPA, Contradicting Juries
May 1 2019 // The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Tuesday that glyphosate, a chemical in many popular weed killers, is not a carcinogen, contradicting recent decisions by U.S. juries that found that it caused cancer in...
