Public

"TOKYO -- The temperature fell to minus 8.7 degrees Celsius on Sunday morning near Japan's crippled nuclear power plant, causing water pipes and valve seals to rupture, leaking tons of water."

"Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant discovered Sunday that the damaged pipes spilled nearly eight tons of water from 14 locations. Two additional water leaks were discovered today, according to plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company.

"The Southern Environmental Law Center, a Virginia-based nonprofit legal advocacy group, has released its 2012 list of the Top 10 endangered places in the Southeast, environmentally speaking. While the list changes from year to year, certain places like the Chesapeake Bay remain a top concern — and issues like pollution from coal-fired power plants and the protection of public lands and old-growth forests are recurring themes. While the list only considers six states, the issues raised by each site resonate nationally, and even globally."

"The commissioner of [Alaska's] Department of Natural Resources wants to change the agency's mission statement, and the proposed changed is not sitting well with at least one lawmaker and conservation groups who are worried about a pro-development bent."

"Companies that disclose greenhouse gas emissions see a small rise in stock price following disclosure, compared to similar companies that keep mum, researchers say."

"Nitrogen fertilizers have been crucial to feeding the increasing number of mouths on earth, but the pollution they leave behind has real consequences that have costs of their own."

"A team of Louisiana scientists is laying the groundwork for creating a new carbon storage industry that could both reduce the effects of global warming and rebuild wetlands along the state’s coastline. Sarah Mack, founder of New Orleans-based Tierra Resources, and Louisiana State University wetlands scientists John W. Day and Robert Lane have come up with a method for measuring the molecules of carbon removed from the atmosphere by the soils and plants that are created with coastal restoration projects."

"California approved aggressive new rules on Friday to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by requiring automakers to put many more electric and hybrid vehicles on the Golden State's roads by 2025. The regulations were approved unanimously by nine members of the state's powerful air-quality regulator, the California Air Resources Board, at a meeting in Los Angeles."

"They are expected to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 34 percent and smog and soot pollutants by 75 percent by 2025, in part by putting 1.4 million electric, plug-in and hydrogen vehicles on the state's roads.

"Republican lawmakers will try to force the Obama administration to approve the Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline by attaching it to a highway bill that Congress will consider next month, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said on Sunday."

President Barack Obama earlier this month denied TransCanada's application for the oil sands pipeline, citing lack of time to review an alternative route within a 60-day window for action set by Congress.

"NEW ORLEANS -- On the day the Deepwater Horizon sank, BP officials warned in an internal memo that if the well was not protected by the blow-out preventer at the drill site, crude oil could burst into the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of 3.4 million gallons a day, an amount a million gallons higher than what the government later believed spilled daily from the site."

"Sea currents act like a conveyor belt, depositing trash on a remote stretch of sand in an ecologically rich region of coral reef and mangrove forests. Locals can only pick up the pieces, bit by bit."