Pollution

"The Environmental Protection Agency is working to clear contaminated soils from a former recycling business site in Wayland [MI]."

"The Interior Department will leave in place George W. Bush-era changes to a rule designed to protect streams from mountaintop-removal coal mining until 2011, according to court documents filed by the Obama administration Friday."

"More than 60 years after scientists assembled the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, lethal waste is seeping from mountain burial sites and moving toward aquifers, springs and streams that provide water to 250,000 residents of northern New Mexico."

"In Atlanta, Ga., you'll find southern gentility, a world-class music scene--and 21,000 pounds of environmental waste. In spite of its charms, the city's combination of air pollution, contaminated land and atmospheric chemicals makes it the most toxic city in the country."

"Congress authorized buying out the residents of the contaminated community of Treece [Kansas] on Thursday, and the Environmental Protection Agency signaled it's ready to move forward with emptying the town of people."

"Idling school buses spew tons of exhaust into the air, putting children at risk when they leave school at the end of each day. In New York City alone, idling vehicles emit as much pollution as nine million diesel trucks driving from the Bronx to Staten Island. But the city's laws requiring them to shut down their engines in school zones are poorly enforced."

"A new EPA report says that the potentially toxic pollutants in coal ash – from mercury to arsenic - are of particular concern because they can concentrate in large amounts that are discharged to waterways or seep into groundwater."

"Congressional negotiators reached a deal Tuesday that would effectively exempt 13 ships that haul iron ore, coal and other freight on the Great Lakes from a proposed federal rule meant to reduce air pollution."

"More than 100 properties near the Doe Run Co.'s smelter have been recontaminated with dangerous levels of lead, a finding that comes less than a decade after regulators ordered the company to remove and replace polluted soil on the properties, the U.S. EPA said Monday."

"Nearly identical bills to prevent cruise ships from discharging raw, untreated sewage in U.S. coastal waters were introduced Wednesday in both Houses of Congress."