"West Virginia regulators and coal operators have not properly implemented state rules meant to keep strip mining from contributing to flooding during heavy rains over narrow mountain hollows, according to a new federal report."
"A judge has ordered Chevron Corp. to stop work on its controversial oil refinery expansion in Richmond, [Calif.], handing environmentalists their biggest victory in a long fight over the project."
The Center for Biological Diversity has filed the federal lawsuit on ocean acidification, charging that the EPA has failed to comply with its mandate under the Clean Water Act to protect Washington State’s ocean waters from excessive CO2.
Heart arrhythmias in females and permanent, deleterious modifications of a gene that plays a pivotal role in reproduction are two new problems being linked to bisphenol A. New findings about the toxicity of this chemical and data suggest human exposures may be higher than U.S. regulatory agencies have assumed.
Heavy lobbying by companies eager to get a slice of the $23 billion-a-year organic food business is watering down USDA "organic" standards to the point where consumers "are not always getting what they expect: foods without pesticides and other chemicals, produced in a way that is gentle to the environment."
"When you hear about dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Lakes, they’re largely caused by pollution draining from the farm belt. It can take a long time and a lot of money to reduce pollution at factories. So they’re starting to pay farmers to cut pollution instead."
"Two of Florida's top politicians are pushing state and federal regulators to approve a taxpayer-funded breakwater that would slow down, but not stop, erosion threatening expensive Palm Beach County condos. But biologists fear the breakwater will block sea turtles from one of the most important nesting beaches in the state."
"A unique partnership between University of Vermont researchers and a federal farm program is providing time and space for grassland songbirds to reproduce on land where their nests usually are destroyed by haying."