Pollution

"For decades, families across a swath of southeast Los Angeles County have lived in an environmental disaster zone, their kids playing in yards polluted with brain-damaging lead while they wait on a state agency to remove contaminated soil from thousands of homes. Now, the cleanup faces even greater uncertainty."

"Federal officials are continuing to express concerns about the potential environmental impacts of a proposed titanium mine near the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia while the company behind it has allegedly pushed back against the idea of a major government assessment of those impacts."

"Mario Molina, who shared a Nobel Prize in chemistry for demonstrating the threat to the ozone layer posed by CFCs, chemical compounds often found in refrigerants and hair sprays and whose use was later curtailed by a landmark international accord, died Oct. 7 at his home in Mexico City. He was 77."

"Ariel Kinzinger had a headache. Clark Brinkman coughed and wheezed. LaNesha Collins, feeling physically fine, was frustrated by another day mostly trapped inside looking out at a sepia sun, in Portland, Ore."

"A conservation group sued the federal government on Thursday over an action taken this year to no longer allow polluters to reduce their fines by paying for projects to help the environment."

"A federal court on Thursday struck down an Obama-era regulation targeting methane leaks from drilling on public lands, arguing that it went beyond the scope of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which promulgated the rule."

"First, the wildfires came to California and Oregon, scorching hundreds of thousands of acres of national forests. Next, weeds will sprout on those blackened lands. They'll be followed quickly by chemical weedkillers like glyphosate, as the Forest Service tries to make trees grow again."

"A three-judge panel appeared divided Thursday on President Trump’s effort to repeal his predecessor’s regulations on planet-warming emissions from the power sector and replace them with far weaker controls."

"Japanese fish industry representatives on Thursday urged the government not to allow the release at sea of tonnes of contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant, saying it would undo years of work to restore their reputation."

"Sixty percent of California’s public water supply wells that were tested for so-called forever chemicals contain those compounds, according to research that the State Water Resources Control Board released Wednesday."