Chemicals

"An environmental disaster in North Carolina reveals that a rare, potentially dangerous compound is abundant in burned coal."

"In the past two weeks, two citizens groups in North Carolina announced plans to sue Chemours, the DuPont spin-off company that now makes GenX, over its release of the chemical from its plant in Fayetteville, North Carolina. The Cape Fear Public Utility Authority issued a letter of intent to sue both Chemours and DuPont last week over violations of the Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act by releasing GenX into the Cape Fear River, which is a source of drinking water for more than 250,000 people in the Wilmington area."

"A federal court [Tuesday] ruled that U.S. EPA cannot require companies to replace potent heat-trapping chemicals with other substances, dealing a blow to part of the Obama administration's climate change legacy."

"For decades, some of the dirtiest, darkest secrets of the chemical industry have been kept in Carol Van Strum’s barn."

"Documents released Tuesday in a lawsuit against Monsanto raised new questions about the company’s efforts to influence the news media and scientific research and revealed internal debate over the safety of its highest-profile product, the weed killer Roundup."

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Residents in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, were given 'misleading' statements by health officials who 'deflected' attention from lead-contaminated water, according to the audit."

"Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt vowed Tuesday to cut through bureaucratic red tape that has slowed the cleanup of toxic Superfund sites and follow a task force’s recommendations to act more boldly in holding companies responsible for past contamination."

"Michael Dourson, President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, founded and ran a toxicology consulting firm whose work enabled DuPont to avoid providing clean water to people in West Virginia after the company contaminated the area around one of its plants with a dangerous industrial chemical."

"Attorneys general from 11 states today filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over a delay in Obama-era rules aimed at preventing accidents at chemical plants."