"On Sunday morning, hundreds of thousands of pounds of toxic gas were accidentally released from the Shell Oil facility in Deer Park [Texas]."
"While crews begin the arduous task of cleaning up Colorado’s Animas River — where contamination by heavy metals and toxins leaked from an abandoned hard rock mine turning the water orange — thousands of other natural sites across the American West remain at risk from similarly hazardous defunct quarries."
"RIO DE JANEIRO - Thirteen rowers on the 40-member U.S. team came down with stomach illness at the World Junior Rowing Championships - a trial run for next summer's Olympics - and the team doctor said she suspected it was due to pollution in the lake where the competition took place."
"Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy apologized Tuesday for a mine spill in Colorado that her agency caused last week and planned to travel to the area Wednesday, amid increasing criticism from lawmakers about the EPA’s response."
"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is planning to fix by this spring the problem that caused the Supreme Court to rule against its major air pollution regulation in July."
"Keena Kimmel's bookshop occupies a cozy curve along the Animas River, a place of wild sunflowers and lilacs where fisherman try their luck and kayakers glide under iron bridges. But this weekend the river was empty and Kimmel's heart broken."
"When the Ocean View school district in Orange County, Calif., began to modernize its facilities last year, school officials and taxpayers got an unwelcome surprise."
"Heat-trapping pollution from U.S. power plants hit a 27-year low in April, the Department of Energy announced Wednesday."
"Three days after EPA workers triggered a huge blowout at a festering mine in southwestern Colorado, a mustard-colored plume — still fed by 548 gallons leaking per minute — stretched more than 100 miles, spreading contaminants including cadmium, arsenic, copper, lead and zinc."
For this latest installment of “Between the Lines,” a question-and-answer feature with authors, SEJournal book editor Tom Henry interviewed longtime SEJ member Cynthia Barnett about her third book, “RAIN: A Natural and Cultural History,” which came out in April. It’s a unique, ambitious book that goes beyond climate science and water in general to show how rain itself has been perceived around the world by numerous cultures throughout history. Barnett sees rain as “a unifying force in a fractured world.” She also is the author of two other highly acclaimed books,“Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern U.S.” and “Blue Revolution: Unmaking America’s Water Crisis.
