"At first glance the results of the fourth edition of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s fourth National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment are sobering—the modeled data suggest that every person in the United States is at increased risk for getting cancer from outdoor air pollutants and that nearly a quarter of the population is at increased risk for certain noncancer health effects."
"The government is moving to ban the sale of some popular rat and mouse poisons such as D-Con and Hot Shot in an effort to protect children and pets."
"Environmental health and autism experts Tuesday called for reform of the outdated U.S. law regulating chemicals, the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976."
"BP succeeded in sinking the oil from its blown well out of sight — and keeping much of it away from beaches and marshes last year — by dousing the crude with nearly 2 million gallons of toxic chemicals. But the impact on the ecosystem as a whole may have been more damaging than the oil alone."
"Floodwaters around the South Dakota capital of Pierre are rising and they're about to get much higher. The dams along the Missouri River can't hold back a massive surge of water spurred by record rains in Montana."
"An oil and gas trade group has taken the rare step of challenging a U.S. EPA information request, saying the agency is seeking too much data as it revisits a George W. Bush-era analysis of refineries' cancer-causing emissions."
"The Supreme Court decided [Tuesday] not to take up the question of whether U.S. EPA followed the correct procedure in effectively banning a pesticide that had been in use for years."
"A World Health Organization panel has concluded that cellphones 'possibly carcinogenic,' putting the popular devices in the same category as certain dry cleaning chemicals and pesticides, as a potential threat to human health."
"As residents confront a gigantic cleanup following the tornado that savaged Joplin, experts say environmental dangers could lurk amid the mountains of debris in the southwestern Missouri city and even in the water and air."
"The U.S. Forest Service is weighing tighter restrictions on aerial fire retardant drops as part of a long-running legal battle over the environmental effects of pouring millions of gallons of the chemical mixture on Western wildlands every year.
Retardant use has soared in recent decades as wildfires have grown larger and more houses have been built on the wildland edge. Nationally, federal and state agencies apply an average of more than 28 million gallons a year, the vast majority of it in the West and much of that in California.
Nearly a third of the retardant used by the Forest Service in the last decade has been in California, where urban development abuts fire-prone wildlands and weather and terrain regularly produce monster blazes.
The proposed limits, outlined in a recently released environmental document, are not expected to cut overall usage. Rather, they are intended to reduce drops on and near waterways, where they can kill fish, and to slightly expand the acreage that is off limits to retardant releases for ecological reasons."
Bettina Boxall reports for the Los Angeles Times May 30, 2011.
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