Pollution

"ST. LOUIS, Mo. -- In a legal settlement with the United States and an environmental foundation, The Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District has agreed to make extensive improvements to its sewer systems and treatment plants, at an estimated cost of $4.7 billion over 23 years.

The improvements are intended to eliminate illegal overflows of untreated raw sewage and to reduce pollution levels in urban rivers and streams.

"The Ten Mile River, once polluted by the many jewelry factories that lined it decades ago, has bounced back, according to environmentalists, and is now home to a variety of wildlife."

Rick Foster reports for the Attleboro Sun Chronicle August 7, 2011.

"Environmentalists say the Environmental Protection Agency has shot down a request for new regulations to deal with the massive area of low oxygen that crops up every summer in the Gulf of Mexico due to the huge amount of nitrogen and phosphorous from fertilizer, urban runoff and sewage systems that winds up in the Gulf."

"The Environmental Protection Agency should order companies such as Schlumberger Ltd. and Halliburton Co. to disclose the hydraulic fracturing chemicals used in U.S. oil and gas drilling, advocacy groups said."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is overseeing an effort to determine the extent of contamination at a former uranium mining site on the Navajo Nation that marked a high priority for assessment."

Oil and gas executives have long claimed that there is no case in which hydraulic fracturing has contaminated a drinking water aquifer. But such a case exists. And one of the biggest bars to enumerating suspected additional cases is the oil and gas industry's refusal to allow disclosure of them -- a condition of court settlements with landowners.

"Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal, labeled 'one of the most contaminated bodies of water in the nation,' isn't just a filthy Superfund site. To urbanites, it's a little piece of the outdoors."

"New studies in California and Wisconsin reveal a dirty little secret: Out of sight, many urban sewer pipes are failing and germ-ridden filth is bleeding out."

"It is the nation's first public health goal for hexavalent chromium, made infamous in 'Erin Brockovich.' The goal isn't an enforceable standard but will help develop one, an official says."

"Critics are concerned that the B.C. government is allowing a natural gas company to draw water from a northern BC Hydro reservoir to use in a controversial technique called fracking."