Chemicals

"Neighborhoods on the [Buffalo's] East and Lower West Sides are 'ground zero' for the worst lead poisoning problems in all of Upstate New York. Lead paint is considered the culprit, but the crisis in Flint, Michigan, has raised questions about the safety of the drinking water in cities like Buffalo."

"EAST CHICAGO — About once a week for much of 2015, Kamia Edwards’ son was too sick to go to school."

A chronic array of mysterious health problems among public housing residents in East Chicago, Indiana, was finally traced to soil contaminated with lead and arsenic by decades of industrial activity. Authorities from various government agencies had kept residents in the dark about the threat.

"The U.S. Chemical Safety Board is joining the investigation into the Friday night fire at Sunoco Logistics in which seven contract workers were injured, including four who were critically burned." The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is already investigating.

"As locally acquired cases of Zika continue to gradually grow in Miami, officials are still hamstrung in deploying a promising technology to fight the mosquitoes that transmit the virus, Aedes aegypti. There are 22 locally acquired cases in Florida, 19 primarily in the Wynwood area of Miami, two in Broward County, and a new case in Palm Beach County."

"We may be in the clear when it comes to heat domes, but it’s still really hot. More than half the country could see temperatures in the 90s by the end of the week, and if that forecast comes true, you may find relief in the cool, crisp breeze of an air-conditioner. But in the next few years, the way air-conditioners work could change."

"Drinking water supplies serving more than six million Americans contain unsafe levels of a widely used class of industrial chemicals linked to potentially serious health problems, according to a new study from Harvard University researchers."

"When Tom Barber, a scientist at the University of Arkansas who studies weeds, drives the country roads of eastern Arkansas this summer, his trained eye can spot the damage: soybean leaves contorted into cup-like shapes."

"The agricultural unit of German chemicals company Bayer AG will halt future U.S. sales of an insecticide that can be used on more than 200 crops after losing a fight with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the company said on Friday."

"Atrazine has been a dirty word among environmentalists for decades. Now state and federal agencies are coming down on the weed killer, amid troubling evidence that it disrupts hormones and contributes to birth defects."