"With a startling report that some researchers call more spin than science, the government said Wednesday that the mess made by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is mostly gone already."
"More than 2,000 people filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court on Tuesday seeking over $10 billion in punitive damages from BP Plc for 40 days of excess pollution from the company's Texas City, Texas, refinery, according to court documents."
Here's a roundup of recent developments and resources that can help you cover how local stormwater management fits into the regional and national picture, including the Natural Resources Defense Council's 20th annual beach report and the proposed Green Infrastructure for Clean Water Act of 2010.
Data for the 2009 Toxics Release Inventory, released July 28, 2010, includes only about 80% of the total expected submissions so it's not possible to look at category totals, trends, and other aspects that require 100% of the data until later this year. However, you can report immediately on many local emitters, including evaluations of their totals and trends.
"Scientists say this year that the 'dead zone' area that forms every summer in the Gulf of Mexico is one of the largest ever measured."
"Locals clamored for information Saturday, asking state and local authorities what sort of chemicals spilled into the North Oconee River, which turned greenish-blue and began to give off fumes that irritated eyes and throats."
"Western Lake Erie could be on the verge of one of its worst algae outbreaks in years."
"A new database that compiles thousands of government and industry records on Alberta's oilsands lays out in painstaking detail how the industry is a constant source of low-level pollution to the area's land, air and water, says the scientist who pulled it all together."
"Now that the oil on the surface appears to be dissipating, the notion of a recovery from the spill, repeated by politicians, strikes some here as short-sighted. The gulf had been suffering for decades before the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20."
EPA made public its latest Toxics Release Inventory, which gives a picture of toxic chemical emissions into the environment from some 21,000 facilities nationwide during 2009, the latest year available. The dataset, which is preliminary, allows local reporters to track toxic threats and trends in their communities and regions.
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