"Only one in three people in Tanzania has access to piped water despite government efforts to improve water supplies with most of the population still relying on unsafe water that brings the risk of disease, according to a study on Thursday."

"Illegal levels of arsenic and mercury polluted the Rio Doce river in the days after a dam burst at an iron ore mine in early November in Brazil's worst-ever environmental disaster, according to tests by a state water agency."

It could be harder to prosecute corporate polluters, producers of tainted food, and other white-collar criminals if a Koch-backed bill to reform criminal justice goes through.

"Several environmental and health groups are moving to protect a new rule limiting ozone levels against a lawsuit."

"Companies that report their hydraulic fracturing chemicals to FracFocus have become less forthcoming since 2013, finds a study of 96,000 disclosures."

"Workers at Brazilian iron ore miner Vale SA fear for their safety after the Samarco dam burst in the town of Mariana, where the company was reducing the number of employees because of weak ore prices, despite its push for output and complaints about safety."

"The Environmental Protection Agency proposed tougher new limits on Tuesday on smokestack emissions from nearly two dozen states that burden downwind areas with air pollution from power plants they can't control."

"Panel finds little basis in EPA's 1,000-page study for claim that fracking has not led to 'widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water.'"

"The Energy Department has proposed a 17-year delay in building a complex waste treatment plant at its radioactively contaminated Hanford site in Washington state, pushing back the full start-up for processing nuclear bomb waste to 2039."

"House committee unanimously approves proposed legislation to phase out such personal care products, whose exfoliants can end up in rivers and lakes".