"DuPont said it plans to stop selling and recall its widely used Imprelis herbicide after customers and several lawsuits complained that the treatment has killed thousands of trees."
"Shell cleared a major hurdle Thursday in its effort to begin a two-year drilling program in the Arctic Ocean next summer, receiving a conditional exploration permit from the federal agency that oversees offshore oil development."
"A U.N. report has criticized Shell and the Nigerian government for contributing to 50 years of pollution in a region of the Niger Delta which it says needs the world's largest ever oil clean-up, costing an initial $1 billion and taking up to 30 years."
"Raising its forecast, the U.S. government's weather agency on Thursday predicted the 2011 Atlantic hurricane season will produce 14 to 19 named storms, 7 to 10 of them becoming hurricanes."
"Drought worsened in the Midwest during the last week as record-high temperatures stressed the developing corn and soybean crops, while cotton and pastures eroded amid a historic drought in the southern Plains."
"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is overseeing an effort to determine the extent of contamination at a former uranium mining site on the Navajo Nation that marked a high priority for assessment."
"Wyoming and the U.S. Department of Interior have reached an agreement that would end federal protection for wolves in the state and allow hunters to kill more than 50% of those living outside Yellowstone National Park."
Oil and gas executives have long claimed that there is no case in which hydraulic fracturing has contaminated a drinking water aquifer. But such a case exists. And one of the biggest bars to enumerating suspected additional cases is the oil and gas industry's refusal to allow disclosure of them -- a condition of court settlements with landowners.
