Disasters

"Five years ago today a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the coast of northeastern Japan unleashed a powerful, 30-foot-high tsunami that swept across the landscape, killing 15,000 people, displacing nearly 400,000 others, and triggering one of the worst nuclear disasters in history — a triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant."

Renee Montagne interviews Gina McCarthy, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, about EPA's role in the Flint water crisis. McCarthy says Michigan's slow-walking response to the problem made it hard for EPA to intervene. McCarthy is one of several key witnesses to testify this week before the House Oversight Committee. Resigned Regional Administrator Susan Hedman will testify today.

"Sea-level rise, a problem exacerbated by greenhouse gas emissions, could disrupt the lives of more than 13 million people in the United States, three times the most current estimates, according to a study published Monday."

As the Flint water crisis was being discovered, Michigan environmental officials tried to manipulate exemptions in the state's freedom of information law to keep secret emails that should have been subject to disclosure.

"Japan on Friday marked the fifth anniversary of the 2011 tsunami that killed more than 18,000 people and left a devastated coastline along the country's northeast that has still not been fully rebuilt."

"A slow-moving storm dumped more rain on the waterlogged U.S. South on Thursday after heavy downpours killed at least four people this week, prompting evacuations and rescues from inundated areas."

"Flint Mayor Karen Weaver has suspended water billing temporarily — for about a month — while the city works out how it will apply $30 million from the State of Michigan to help residents who’ve paid for nearly two years for water that’s unsafe to drink."

"Heavy rains and high winds from a storm system moving north from Mexico flooded parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana, leaving at least one person dead, officials said on Wednesday."

"Duke Energy has appealed the state’s $6.8 million fine involving the Dan River coal ash spill, calling the action “entirely arbitrary and capricious” and requesting “dismissal of the ... civil penalty in its entirety.”"

"Facing a six-year barrage of increasingly large earthquakes, Oklahoma regulators are effectively ordering the state’s powerful oil-and-gas industry to substantially cut back the underground disposal of industry wastes that have caused the tremors across the state."