Environmental Health

"U.S. EPA closed a 14-year-old civil rights complaint against a landfill in a predominantly black community in Alabama last month, telling a federal court that legal challenges over its slow response to the case are moot."

"Problems continue to mount for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. To high unemployment, a lagging economy and billions in public debt, add unsafe drinking water to the island's list of woes. A new study by the Natural Resources Defense Council says nearly all of the tap water available on the island violates federal safety standards."

"[Maine] Gov. Paul LePage’s bill to take away municipal government’s ability to enact local pesticide ordinances closely mirrors a model bill written and promoted by a secretive national group that helps large national corporations ghost-write laws for sympathetic state legislators."

"About 70 percent of the country’s contaminated sites are near low-income housing, two federal agencies have found."

"Thousands of Flint, Mich., residents have been warned that they could lose their homes if they don’t pay outstanding water bills — even as the city has just begun replacing lead-tainted pipes after a contamination crisis linked to a dozen deaths."

"Tests last summer showed troubling levels of lead in the water at Summit Township Elementary School, perched on a quiet hilltop outside Butler, Pa. But for the next five months, no one told the parents of Summit’s 250 students."

"A federal court delayed its case Thursday regarding a major Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) air pollution rule."

"Environmental advocates are bracing for potentially 'catastrophic' changes to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations that protect children from dangerous lead exposure across the country. Advocates say if the agency moves forward with its plans to repeal or replace programs that regulate hazardous lead levels, lead poisoning prevention efforts would be set back decades."

"A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that ExxonMobil Corp should pay a $19.95 million penalty for pollution from its Baytown, Texas, refining and chemical plant complex between 2005 and 2013."

"State programs that track Zika infections and Zika-related birth defects around the country are in jeopardy as public health officials have been told not to count on federal funds for those efforts after July."