Chemicals

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.

"The city of Spokane has filed a lawsuit against the international agrochemical giant Monsanto, alleging that the company sold chemicals for decades that it knew were a danger to human and environmental health."

"Two years after President Obama issued a landmark executive order setting federal priorities for advancing chemical security, a slew of agencies continue to plod toward regulatory changes, to the frustration of some environment and public health organizations that would like to see faster improvements."

"Seven years after the end of a much-lauded program to monitor mercury in Louisiana’s waterways, state officials lack updated data to warn people about any potential contamination in the fish they catch and eat."

"More than 70 percent of pollen and honey samples collected from foraging bees in Massachusetts contained neonicotinoids, a type of insecticide that has been linked to colony collapse disorder, researchers are reporting. The disorder causes adult bees to abandon their hives in winter."

"It’s growing increasingly difficult to see a light at the end of the tunnel that the U.S. Chemical Safety Board finds itself in these days."

"The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule on emissions of certain toxic air pollutants at manufacturing plants."

"Three years after federal health officials cut by half the amount of lead in a child’s blood that they said warrants medical attention, Massachusetts has yet to tighten its standards."

"Senior U.S. health officials have squelched a Food and Drug Administration proposal that for the first time would have curbed dentists’ use of mercury – one of the planet’s nastiest toxins because it attacks the central nervous system – in treating Americans’ decayed teeth."