"A group of environmental advocates filed a joint lawsuit against EPA on Thursday challenging the agency’s finalized June Dust-Lead Hazard Standards that the group says are too lax to protect families."
"The Environmental Protection Agency on Aug. 1 proposed changes to the Clean Air Act’s New Source Review permitting program, which currently requires industrial facilities to install new pollution controls each time a company adds a new facility or expands existing operations."
"Record-breaking spring rains and historic flooding in the Midwest were poised to create one of the biggest dead zones on record in the Gulf of Mexico this summer, researchers had estimated. Instead, Hurricane Barry mixed up the waters, making the dead zone smaller than expected, scientists said during a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration press conference on Thursday."
"A federal judge blocked construction of a giant copper mine in Arizona’s Coronado National Forest, overturning a decision by the federal government and handing a major victory to environmental groups and tribes that have been fighting plans for the mine."
"Plans for protecting sage grouse in five Western states are being changed in ways that will conserve habitat while allowing ranchers to maintain their livelihoods, federal officials said Thursday. ... Environmental groups blasted the plan based on the Forest Service’s three-bullet-point summary released Thursday ...."
"Just as utilities have begun making costly plans to move toxic coal ash out of fragile storage ponds to protect waterways and aquifers, the Trump administration may be about to give them a cheaper alternative: Letting them use unlimited amounts of ash at certain construction sites."
"After months of record temperatures, scientists say Greenland's ice sheet experienced its biggest melt of the summer on Thursday, losing 11 billion tons of surface ice to the ocean -- equivalent to 4.4 million Olympic swimming pools."
"A Texas driller with patchy regulatory history will be permitted thousands of allowances for injury or harassment of humpback whales, harbor seals and other marine life as it explores for oil in Cook Inlet, Alaska."
"In the 1980s, the mafia controlled garbage in New York. So when an Alabama businessman named Lowell Harrelson wanted to turn trash into energy, he found a mob boss. Bought 3,186 tons of garbage, put it on a big ship, and set sail to find a landfill to work with. After a 6,000 mile journey, The Garbage Barge, as it came to be known, resulted in an epic mess."
"Steve Perrins didn’t see the lightning, but he couldn’t miss the smoke that followed. It was around dinnertime on July 23 at Alaska’s oldest hunting lodge, nestled in the wilderness more than 100 miles northwest of Anchorage. What began as a quiet evening at the Rainy Pass Lodge soon turned frantic as Alaska’s latest wildfire spread fast."
