Chemicals

Twelve states sued EPA Oct. 28, 2007, over the agency's cutbacks in data available to communities about the toxic threats presented to them by nearby industrial plants.

There are at least 61 sites in CO, ID, MT, NM, and WY that naturally contain some form of asbestos, according to a report released July 9, 2007,by the US Geological Survey.

Preliminary results from a Montana air quality study suggest that replacing older wood-burning stoves and fireplaces with cleaner-burning, EPA-certified models can substantially reduce airborne fine particulates.

Along with the usual spooky and spine-tingling sights we have come to expect in caves, another scary inhabitant is turning up — contaminants such as PCBs, pesticides, dioxins, gasoline, fertilizers, sewage, and caffeine. These pollutants, which are leaching into caves from the surface and groundwater, can pose a threat to the delicate underground environments that are prized by many, and that provide benefits to people, plants, and animals on the surface. The presence of these contaminants underground also serves as a blunt reminder of how pervasive pollutants are.

Around the world, compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) are widely touted — and sometimes required — as energy-efficient replacements for standard incandescent bulbs.

FDA's decision on the sale of cloned meat and dairy products is expected soon.

Neither EPA nor the American public know very much about the possible health effects of tens of thousands of chemicals used in commerce and consumer products every day.

The strategy of changing chemical processes at industrial facilities so they use less hazardous materials, and pose less of a threat from terrorism and accidents, gained little traction in the Bush administration after 9/11. But a number of organizations continue to push the idea.

As the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan drag on, new light has been shed on the environmental health impacts of the 1991 Gulf War. On Nov. 17, 2008, the Congressionally-mandated Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses released a major report which concluded that from 175,000 to 210,000 of the nearly 700,000 U.S. veterans of the first Gulf War suffer from Gulf War illness.