"CHARLOTTE — When Republicans took control of the North Carolina legislature four years ago, they promised to do away with environmental regulations they claimed hurt economic growth. But environmental groups say lawmakers have gone too far, gutting laws aimed at protecting the public's health."
"A Baltimore-based company wants to spread waste called industrial sludge on more than 16,000 acres of farm fields in seven Virginia counties, including Hanover and Goochland, but opponents have raised such a stink that Virginia officials are taking extra time to consider the issue."
"Pennsylvania has 86,000 miles of rivers, streams and creeks — a total length eclipsed only by the vast wilderness in Alaska."
Several hundred thousand residents of the Toledo, Ohio, area remained Monday morning under an advisory not to drink their tapwater. Labs found microcystin, a toxin produced by blue-green algae, in the water. The algae are blooming in western Lake Erie, from which the city draws its water, because of phosphorus frpm farm runoff, lawn fertilizer, and sewage overflow. At a 3 am news conference, Mayor D. Michael Collins said the advisory would ramain in effect for some hours although tests showed microcystin in the water returning to safe levels. The crisis disrupted people's lives on a massive scale as bottled water was distributed.
North Carolina lawmakers said Thursday they still haven't reached agreement on legislation requiring Duke Energy to limit pollution leaking from its coal ash dumps across the state, nearly six months after a spill coated 70 miles of the Dan River with gray sludge."
"In the dog days of summer, Nick Anthony wouldn't swim in Lake of the Woods unless some money was involved."
"Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announced new actions Tuesday aimed at curbing methane emissions form the nation's natural gas systems."
Here are some recent explainers of interest to environmental journalists from the CRS, which Congress does not allow to be released to the taxpaying public who paid for them. The WatchDog thanks those who leaked them and the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy for publishing them.
"Proposed answers from Environment Canada to questions about a 2013 oilsands leak triggered emails suggesting the ministry 'limit information' given to media."
"The Government Accountability Office is calling on the federal Environmental Protection Agency to step up enforcement of water contamination and seismic activity associated with fracking, the high-pressure injection of fluids into wells to extract oil and natural gas."
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