Pollution

Texan Steve Lipsky can set his well-water on fire. A major U.S. fracking company, Range Resources, has taken him to court for telling the news media about it.

"In an online photo gallery of neighborhood picnics and sunrises over Lake Michigan, an image of black dust blotting out the sky galvanized residents of Chicago's Southeast Side to demand action against companies storing enormous mounds of petroleum coke along the Calumet River."

A new study says that U.S. emissions of the greenhouse gas methane, often emitted by farm and energy operations, are much larger than previously estimated.

"Scio Township resident Roger Rayle is beginning his 21st year as a citizen volunteer watching over the issue of the expanding Pall-Gelman 1,4-dioxane plume."

"Only about half of the prescription drugs and other newly emerging contaminants in sewage are removed by treatment plants."

"Nitrous oxide (N20) emissions could almost double by 2050 if more aggressive action is not taken, undermining global efforts to curb climate change, the United Nations' Environment Programme (UNEP) said on Thursday."

"Shell plans to drill five wells over several years at its Burger prospect in the Chukchi Sea, according to a revised exploration plan filed Nov. 6 and posted online by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to study whether plastic pollution on a small island in the Pacific Ocean is severe enough to warrant listing it as a Superfund clean-up site. Tern Island, a 25-acre strip of land about 500 miles northwest of the Hawaiian island Oahu, is home to millions of seabirds, sea turtles, and the endangered Hawaiian monk seal. "

Yale Environment 360 had the story November 19, 2013.