Pollution

"Explosions used to be no big deal for residents of sleepy rural towns in north Louisiana's piney woods near the Arkansas border. Blasts meant jobs."

"Thousands of chemical storage tanks across West Virginia would be exempt from the law passed in the wake of the Freedom Industries spill, under legislation introduced Tuesday in the House of Delegates."

"It is time to strengthen the nation's smog limits to improve the health of millions of people who suffer the ill effects of air pollution, dozens of environmentalists, doctors, asthmatic children and religious leaders told a panel of federal officials Monday at a daylong hearing."

"CASPER, Wyo. -- The Wyoming company whose pipeline leaked 30,000 gallons of crude oil into the Yellowstone River in Montana and its sister company have had multiple pipeline spills and federal fines levied against them in the last decade, according to government records."

It's not just the application of nitrogen fertilizer to farmlands that causes nitrate pollution of water -- it's the timing of that application and the runoff that results. One solution seems to be winter cover crops.

"The U.S. Forest Service adopted a rule on Wednesday that requires managers of the nation’s nearly 200 forests and grasslands to formally designate where snowmobiles can be operated on the 193 million acres of public land the agency oversees."

"A diesel fuel spill has left about 12,000 people in south-eastern West Virginia without drinking water."
 

"Residents of a Montana town whose water supply was tainted by an oil pipeline rupture last week got the all-clear on Friday to turn taps back on, though some reported brown or black material spurting from faucets even after their pipes were flushed."

"A second large oil spill into Montana's Yellowstone River in less than four years is reviving questions about oversight of the nation's aging pipeline network."