Pollution

"State officials say the latest round of sampling in Flint provides more evidence that the water quality is improving in the city’s troubled pipeline system."

"The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasts that the dead zone in the Gulf, an area incapable of supporting marine life, will be much the same size it's been for the past several years."

Dust and emissions from an Idaho smelter left a legacy of lead poisoning among a generation of children near what is now a Superfund site.

"The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned aside the latest effort by a group of states led by Michigan to block Obama administration environmental regulations limiting power plant emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants."

"The wind that blows through Bokoshe, Okla. is an ominous one. A small, low-income town near the Arkansas border, Bokoshe sits in the shadow of a coal power plant. Its toxic byproduct, coal ash, is trucked daily to a nearby dump, and when the wind blows through town, that ash rains down on its residents. They believe it is to blame for the asthma and cancer that runs rampant there."

"More than one-third of the world's population can no longer see the Milky Way because of man-made lights."

"Oil refineries have sued to overturn a series of new air pollution rules aimed at reducing emissions 20 percent at each of the Bay Area's five gasoline plants, the largest source of industrial pollution in the region."

"For the first time, carbon dioxide emissions from an electric power plant have been captured, pumped underground and solidified — the first step toward safe carbon capture and storage, according to a paper published Thursday in the journal Science."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says it will take 30 years and around $746 million to clean up a 10-mile stretch of the Willamette River known as the Portland Harbor Superfund Site."

"The House on Wednesday passed a bill to reauthorize the federal pipeline safety oversight board."