Chemicals

"Chinese soldiers and rescue workers in gas masks and hazard suits searched for toxic materials in China's port of Tianjin on Sunday as Premier Li Keqiang arrived to offer condolences, days after explosions flattened part of a national development zone."

"The United States is investigating whether the Islamic State used chemical weapons, the White House said Thursday, following allegations that IS militants deployed chemical weapons against Kurdish forces in northern Iraq."

"On Sunday morning, hundreds of thousands of pounds of toxic gas were accidentally released from the Shell Oil facility in Deer Park [Texas]."

"Huge, fiery blasts at a warehouse for hazardous chemicals killed at least 50 people and turned nearby buildings into skeletal shells in the Chinese port of Tianjin, raising questions Thursday about whether the materials had been properly stored."

"Concerns about the safety of Teflon, C8, and other long-chain perfluorinated chemicals first came to wide public attention more than a decade ago, but the story of DuPont’s long involvement with C8 has never been fully told."

"After failed attempt in 1975, agency tries again on beryllium, which can trigger potentially deadly diseases".

"The EPA touted its only preliminary finding of discrimination in a civil-rights case, but the complainants were less than thrilled with the outcome".

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ordered a new round of air quality tests for a South Bay neighborhood after detecting a variety of contaminants inside homes near two federal cleanup sites."

"Blasting the Environmental Protection Agency for "egregious" delay in the face of an acknowledged threat to human health, a U.S. appeals court has given the agency an Oct. 31 deadline to issue a full and final response to environmentalists' 2007 petition to take the neurotoxin chlorpyrifos off the market."

EPA is trying to phase out the soil fumigant methyl bromide, on which the commercial strawberry crop has been dependent. Methyl bromide damages the ozone layer of the atmosphere. But the effort to find an adequate substitute has scientists scrambling.