"Children whose drinking water contains high concentrations of manganese appear to have lower IQ scores on average than children not exposed to the metallic element, researchers have found."
The Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday, September 22, will hold a hearing on the National Flood Insurance Program, which is teetering under some $19 billion in debt. The NFIP is set to expire Sept. 30, just as the hurricane season reaches its height. Congress has allowed the NFIP to expire four times already this year.
"America's warning system for the series of giant ocean waves known as a tsunami is better than it was before the deadly 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, but not good enough to meet risks posed by tsunamis generated near land that leave little time for warning, says a new congressionally requested report from the National Research Council."
"The New Mexico Environmental Law Center today appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower court decision that allows uranium mining in the Four Corners region of New Mexico. The appeal claims the mine would contaminate drinking water used by some 15,000 Navajo people."
EPA warns Pavillion, WY residents not to drink or cook with their well water, and that the presence of methane (the main ingredient in natural gas) is so high that they should ventilate any room in which a shower is operating, and to not ignite anything in a closed room in which water is running.
There were just 12 of these hypoxic areas in the 1960s. Now there are more than 300, or nearly half of the 647 waterways investigated by a consortium of federal agencies that released its report on Sept. 3, 2010.
The invasive and harmful quagga mussel is showing up in Western states, and the Western states are fighting back.
The House Science Committee on Thursday holds a hearing to probe what went wrong thirteen years ago when a federal report whitewashed the health threats to Marines and their families from contaminated water at the Camp Lejeune, N.C., base.
"The federal government declared in April that basking sharks in the Pacific Ocean are a 'species of concern,' which means the government doesn't yet have enough information to say the giant fish is threatened or endangered, but it might be."
EPA has reissued the operating permit for the world's largest sewage treatment plant -- Blue Plains, which handles sewage from most of the DC metro area. Despite huge improvements in the Potomac River since the 1960s, Blue Plains needs to reduce its nitrogen discharge another 45 percent to protect the Chesapeake Bay.
