Pollution

"Flint residents aren’t using enough water to pull necessary chemical treatments through the city’s system, hindering efforts to get water up to safety standards in a community where residents are afraid to use their taps and loathe to pay for what comes out of them.

Although the past six months have produced improvements, recent testing by Virginia Tech researchers, including expert Marc Edwards, shows contamination still at problem levels.

As legal actions against the chemical company 3M go forward, lawyers are charging that 3M "knew about the health hazards posed by the perfluorinated chemicals it was manufacturing and using to make carpet coating, Scotchgard, firefighting foam, and other products — and that the company knew the chemicals were spreading beyond its sites."

"In-depth scientific research and broad-based communications are both needed to get control of harmful algal blooms and low-oxygen conditions called hypoxia in U.S. waters, advises a new report to Congress."

"As Pennsylvania’s natural gas production continues to expand, so does the possibility of potentially harmful methane emissions."

"TransCanada Corp. has resumed sending oil through the Keystone Pipeline after a weeklong shutdown prompted by a leak and oil spill in southeastern South Dakota."

"More than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) of shoreline and 44,000 square kilometers (17,000 square miles) of open water in Lake Huron and Lake Michigan could be at risk if oil spilled from twin 63-year-old underwater pipelines that run below the Straits of Mackinac, according to a study released Thursday by the University of Michigan Water Center and supported by the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes Regional Center."

"TransCanada has increased the estimated size of an oil spill near Freeman to a "potential volume” of 16,800 gallons, or 400 barrels."

"Gov. Peter Shumlin has announced that the state will test additional manufacturing sites around Vermont for PFOA, a suspected carcinogen that's been found in North Bennington and Pownal."

"Waste leaching from frack disposal wells are the likely source of a spike in endocrine-disrupting compounds in downstream waterway—a troubling sign given the roughly 36,000 disposal sites across the U.S."

"AES Corp. settled a lawsuit accusing the power-generating company of allowing one of its units to dump coal ash on beaches in the Dominican Republic, which allegedly caused a spate of birth defects in children."