Environmental Health

Residents of the historic African American community of Mossville in southwest Louisiana plan to protest pollution from a chemical palnt nearby run by SASOL, a petrochemical company that helped prop up the apartheid regime in South Africa.

"With tens of thousands of sick nuclear-weapons workers thwarted in their bids to win compensation from the U.S. government, Congress is under growing pressure to investigate what went wrong with a $12 billion federal program aimed at helping them."

"The utility whose leaking natural gas well has driven thousands of Los Angeles residents from their homes acknowledged that it understated the number of times airborne levels of the cancer-causing chemical benzene have spiked during the crisis."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s top Midwest official said her department knew as early as April about the lack of corrosion controls in Flint’s water supply — a situation that likely put residents at risk for lead contamination — but said her hands were tied in bringing the information to the public."

"Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder late Tuesday activated the National Guard to help distribute bottled water and filters in Flint as it deals with a drinking water crisis that began months ago."

"The head of Europe's food safety watchdog has written to a group of nearly 100 senior scientists strongly rejecting their criticisms in a row about the safety of weed-killer ingredient glyphosate."

"The government of Nunavut said it will be meeting with the federal government later this month to begin discussions on marine protected areas in the territory."

"Alex Hummell says few dentists seem worried enough about invisible, odorless mercury to take the kinds of precautions needed to prevent everyday exposures."

"A panel of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency science advisers is strongly criticizing last year’s much-cited EPA report that agency officials had tried to tout as finding that the nation’s natural gas drilling and production boom had not led to “widespread, systematic” impacts on drinking water supplies."