"It is touted as the largest Superfund cleanup ever, one that will remove 4.3 million cubic yards of sediment contaminated with a stew of pollutants from the Passaic River and even make it safe for people to fish there again without significantly raising their risk of cancer."
"The state Department of Public Health is adopting the nation's first-ever drinking water standard for hexavalent chromium, a carcinogen found in water supplies across the state."
"Democrats are exploring a new attack line against the Koch brothers and Republican allies, telling voters the billionaire energy executives want to let home flood insurance premiums soar to help corporate America."
"A new study released Wednesday finds there are almost 10,000 schools across the country located within a mile of a chemical facility."
"A group of scientists and food activists is launching a campaign Thursday to change the rules that govern seeds. They're releasing 29 new varieties of crops under a new 'open source pledge' that's intended to safeguard the ability of farmers, gardeners, and plant breeders to share those seeds freely. It's inspired by the example of open source software, which is freely available for anyone to use, but cannot legally be converted into anyone's proprietary product."
Exxon had said it was planning to restart the aging pipeline — which was given to seam ruptures — by the end of March. But the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration has so far refused requests to make public the restart plan. Elizabeth Douglass wrote about PHMSA's secrecy in InsideClimate News. Photo: The Pegasus pipeline, exposed and suspended in Houston County, 7 miles NW of Crockett, TX, in May 2013. Credit: Safe Community Alliance.
For years, under multiple administrations, White House officials have subverted open government by holding illegal "ex parte" meetings with special interests affected by agency rulemakings. The meetings are still secret but now they have made the existing online database of meetings and calls searchable by agency, sub-agency, date range, stage of rulemaking, and regulatory identifier. The catch? You can only search for meetings that happened AFTER April 1, 2014.
