Latest Pollution Headlines
All the headlines from our Pollution Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Exec in West Virginia Chemical Spill Charged with Lying About Role
Dec 10 2014 // A West Virginia executive faces charges of lying to protect his personal wealth from lawsuits after his company spilled chemicals into 300,000 people’s water supply in January, according to a criminal complaint...
Latimer Appointed Environmental Risk Underwriter at ACE
Dec 9 2014 // ACE Group has appointed Robert Latimer as environmental risk underwriter as it continues to invest in building its environmental liability insurance capabilities in the UK & Ireland. Latimer will be responsible for...
Ammo Company in Montana Sued Over Lead Exposure
Dec 8 2014 // Eight former and current employees of a Bozeman, Mont. ammunition company fined for safety violations have filed a lawsuit saying they were exposed to dangerous levels of lead. The lawsuit was filed last week against USA...
N.H. Officials Remind Residents to Take Care of Fuel Storage Tanks
Dec 2 2014 // The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services issued a public service announcement reminding residents that snow and ice can damage outdoor heating oil/propane/natural gas tanks, and the piping connecting the tank...
U.S. Supreme Court Rejects Sept. 11 Environmental Appeal
Dec 2 2014 // The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to revive a New York real estate developer’s lawsuit against the leaseholder of the destroyed World Trade Center and two airlines seeking environmental cleanup costs related...
N.Y. Gov. Cuomo Wants State to Have Best Weather Monitoring System
Dec 1 2014 // Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants New York to create the nation’s best weather monitoring system, one more robust than even the National Weather Service and more capable of predicting events like the snowstorm that buried...
Florida Gov. Scott Facing Rising Seas, Climate Change Politics
Nov 17 2014 // When Florida Governor Rick Scott won re-election Nov. 4, he triumphed over both his Democratic challenger and California billionaire Thomas Steyer, who spent $20 million painting him as a climate-change denier. Scott, a...
Montana Governor Pushes EPA to Wrap Up Libby Asbestos Study
Nov 12 2014 // Montana Gov. Steve Bullock is pressing federal regulators to wrap up a long-delayed study of asbestos dangers in a northwestern Montana mining town where hundreds of people have died from exposure to the hazardous...
Los Angeles Port Sees Air Pollution Levels Dip
Nov 5 2014 // Harbor officials say efforts to reduce air pollution at the Port of Los Angeles are working. Authorities on Monday say diesel particulate levels dropped 7 percent last year compared to 2012 – an 80 percent reduction...
UPenn’s Interdisciplinary Research Seeks to Track Ambler’s Asbestos Legacy
Oct 22 2014 // Joe Amento, a lifelong resident of Ambler, Pennsylvania, was 53 when he died of a rare cancer with one main cause — exposure to asbestos. He was fine at Christmas 2002. In January, a pain in his side kept him awake...
Landslide Cleanup Deal Reached in Oregon, Insurers to Pay
Oct 22 2014 // A legal path has been cleared for hundreds of tons of debris to be removed from a waterway south of Coos Bay, Ore. that’s home to federally protected coho salmon and green sturgeon. In April 2012, a massive...
Officials: Caddo Lake Not Threatened by Louisiana Oil Spill
Oct 21 2014 // Cleanup crews continue to mop up a 4,000-barrell oil spill into a four-mile stretch of Tete Bayou northwest of Shreveport, La. Officials said that the oil has been contained without reaching Caddo Lake, which straddles the...
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...
