Contaminated fill, a little-noticed and largely unregulated health threat, is keeping some ball fields closed this spring in New Jersey ... and probably is a problem in many other areas.
"CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- The state of Wyoming, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and two American Indian tribes announced Thursday they have agreed to additional testing of groundwater that the federal agency says may have become contaminated by gas development that includes hydraulic fracturing."
"The nonprofit group Friends of the Earth filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency today to force the regulation of lead emissions from general aviation aircraft under the Clean Air Act."
"A first-of-its-kind, peer-reviewed study published in Environmental Health Perspectives today reveals an alarming number of unlabeled chemicals of concern in commonly used household and personal care products."
"In large sections of America's farmland, new strains of weeds are making life miserable for farmers. They've developed resistance to the country's No. 1 weedkiller, Roundup. Now farmers face a choice: Do they go for yet another kill-all-the-weeds chemical, or go back to more complicated, labor-intensive ways of fighting weeds?"
"Campbell's Soup has agreed to stop using the chemical BPA in the lining of its cans, joining a host of other brands moving away from using the substance."
"After one of the biggest environmental fights in decades, exploratory drilling is expected to begin in July off the state's north coast. The company has plans in case of a spill; opponents say normal operations will still release damaging chemicals."
"DONNA, Texas -- Signs bearing a skull and crossbones dot the banks of a reservoir and canal near this town on the U.S.-Mexico border, but the fishermen standing in the reeds nearby ignore them, casually reeling in fish that are contaminated with toxic chemicals and banned for human consumption."
"It is a pattern seen in various parts of the world — children being sickened from exposure to lead from mining activities. But the scale of the problem in Nigeria’s gold-mining region of Zamfara is unprecedented: More than 400 children have died and thousands more have been severely poisoned by exposure to lead dust."
Elizabeth Grossman reports for Yale Environment 360 March 1, 2012.
"Most of the biggest polluting industrial boilers are in manufacturing states east of the Mississippi River, but 68 dot the West coast states."
