Pollution

Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker's payback to the billionaire Koch brothers who helped elect him went beyond crushing unions to deregulating pollution. According to the liberal blog Think Progress, Walker and state Supreme Court Judge David Prosser worked quietly behind the scenes to allow Koch's Georgia Pacific paper plants to keep dumping thousands of pounds of phosphorus into the Fox River near Green Bay.

"A year after the worst oil spill to strike U.S. waters, oyster beds are struggling along the Gulf of Mexico, the dolphin population is experiencing what the federal government calls an 'unusual mortality event,' and red snapper with rotting fins are showing up on fishing lines."

"A federal appeals court has upheld two decisions that threw out most of a lawsuit field against chemical giant DuPont Co. by Parkersburg [WV] residents over the pollution of their city's water with the toxic chemical C8."

"Several Democratic senators said Tuesday that the Environmental Protection Agency should step up regulation of the natural gas industry because they are concerned that toxic chemicals used in drilling could enter the public water supply."

High prices for agricultural crops are driving farmers to plant more acres. Some of that land had been previously held back from planting because it is highly erodible. Changing weather patterns and inadequate enforcement of erosion protections are making things worse.

"Extracting natural gas from shale formations using hydraulic fracturing generates more greenhouse-gas emissions than burning coal, according to a new study that drew immediate attacks from oil and gas interests already facing pressure from lawmakers and regulators worried about the environmental effects of shale-gas development."

"Beneath the lush, green hills of eastern Utah's Uinta Basin, where elk, bear and bison outnumber people, the soil is saturated with a sticky tar that may soon provide a new domestic source of petroleum for the United States. It would be a first-of-its kind project in the country that some fear could be a slippery slope toward widespread wilderness destruction."

Neighborhood organizers won a settlement Tuesday that promises better cleanup of "green water" runoff from a former chrome production plant in Jersey City.

"The Alberta government has proposed new environmental rules that would revoke a number of oil sands leases – including those which already have active projects – in an effort to protect sensitive habitat, wildlife and forest land in the most industrialized area of the province."