Environmental Health

"This week, in a first, firefighters are demanding independent testing for cancer-linked chemicals known as PFAS in their gear and that their union drop sponsorships from chemical and equipment makers."

"Every day at work for 15 years, Sean Mitchell, a captain in the Nantucket Fire Department, has put on the bulky suit that protects him from the heat and flames he faces on the job. But last year, he and his team came across unsettling research: Toxic chemicals on the very equipment meant to protect their lives could instead be making them gravely ill.

"As Michael S. Regan was settling in as North Carolina’s top environmental regulator in a new Democratic administration, a powerful Republican wanted to send a message to the young head of the state’s Department of Environmental Quality."

"At the request of the Biden administration, a federal court today tossed out a Trump-era rule limiting the use of science to craft EPA regulations."

"On a former Cold War missile base perched high above the Golden Gate Bridge, in what is now the largest marine mammal hospital in the world, Frances Gulland still remembers the shock she felt when she first started working here as a veterinarian 26 years ago."

"Polluting factories go uninspected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Leadership positions sit vacant at the U.S. Geological Survey’s climate science centers. And U.S. Department of Agriculture research into environmental issues important to farmers is unfinished."

"A federal court in Washington, D.C., on Friday sided with environmentalists and struck down provisions relaxing requirements for areas that are not in compliance with the Environmental Protection Agency’s air pollution standards."

"In a victory for environmentalists and Nigerians whose land was polluted by oil leaks, a Dutch appeals court ordered energy giant Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary Friday to compensate two farmers for damage to their land caused by leaks in 2004 and 2005."

"An audit found that the time it takes the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality to issue penalties to polluters has doubled. Some companies that have been known to violate air quality rules were able to keep at it for years, or even decades."

"Rural communities in Oregon paid millions of dollars for clean, safe drinking water because the state didn’t protect their watersheds from logging-related contamination."