Pollution

"SALEKHARD, Russia -- Russia announced on Tuesday that it had opened a piracy investigation against the crew of a Greenpeace ship after its activists scaled an offshore oil platform in the Arctic last week. The step signaled that the authorities intended to act decisively to thwart more protests against Russia’s ambitious plans to expand energy exploration in the region."

"The damage from oil during the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster to communities of tiny organisms living in and on the soft sediment on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico surrounding BP's Macondo well will take decades to repair, according to a new scientific study conducted by NOAA, BP and university researchers."

"Long Island's sole source of drinking water lies beneath many of the most contaminated places in New York State."

"A federal judge in New Orleans has handed environmental groups what amounts to half a loaf in their push for federal regulations on the flow of pollutants into the Mississippi River that fuels the annual spring low-oxygen 'Dead Zone' along Louisiana’s Gulf coast."

"Environmental inspections of oil and gas facilities on public lands have jumped nearly twofold since 2007, but federal investigators said Monday that the government is doing a poor job of targeting the riskiest sites."

"Monic Uriarte says she began having headaches and bouts of dizziness three years ago, about the time she and her neighbors began smelling a chemical odor on the streets and in their homes."

"KARNES CITY, Texas -- In the five years since the shale boom hit, the once-beautiful hills of south Texas have been transformed into a scarred, industrial landscape. The residents’ health is part of the collateral damage, according to the environmental watchdog group Earthworks. Their new study documents hazardous chemicals in the air and serious ailments reported by families living in close proximity to drilling operations."

"MIAMI -- When she was little, Elaine Taylor remembers rushing home whenever Old Smokey fired up. Clouds of ash from the towering trash incinerator would fill the air and settle on the ramshackle houses and the yards of the West Grove neighborhood."

"The good news: A sample of what are probably the best fracked wells in the country finds low emissions of methane, a potent heat-trapping gas. The bad news: The study likely missed the super-emitters, the wells that are responsible for the vast majority of methane leakage."

"In response to complaints from neighbors, Norfolk Southern agreed Thursday to take more aggressive steps to clean up lung-damaging diesel pollution from equipment at the railroad's Englewood freight yard."