Pollution

"Pollution has plagued this Birmingham, Alabama, neighborhood for decades. Will anything ever change?"

"A forthcoming EPA overhaul of standards for lead in drinking water will essentially ban partial lead pipe replacement, in which part of a lead pipe is removed but another part is allowed to remain, Bloomberg Environment has learned."

"The Environmental Protection Agency on Aug. 1 proposed changes to the Clean Air Act’s New Source Review permitting program, which currently requires industrial facilities to install new pollution controls each time a company adds a new facility or expands existing operations."

"Record-breaking spring rains and historic flooding in the Midwest were poised to create one of the biggest dead zones on record in the Gulf of Mexico this summer, researchers had estimated. Instead, Hurricane Barry mixed up the waters, making the dead zone smaller than expected, scientists said during a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration press conference on Thursday."

"Just as utilities have begun making costly plans to move toxic coal ash out of fragile storage ponds to protect waterways and aquifers, the Trump administration may be about to give them a cheaper alternative: Letting them use unlimited amounts of ash at certain construction sites."

"A fire at an Exxon Mobil plant in Baytown Wednesday morning injured 37 people and sent a plume of smoke over a Houston-area chemical facility for the fourth time since April."

"Alaska Natives and environmental groups sued the Trump administration on Wednesday, accusing it of concealing information about the effects of oil development in the long-protected Arctic National Wildlife Refuge."

"21 state attorneys general sent a letter urging Congress to pass legislation addressing public health threats from PFAS."

"More than half a million Russians have demanded the authorities do more to tackle vast wildfires in Siberia that environmentalists have dubbed an ecological catastrophe, but which officials have said would be “pointless” to put out."

"The Trump administration on Wednesday proposed scrapping restrictions on arsenic-laden waste from coal-fired power plants."