Pollution

Thanks to money and loopholes, gas drillers can dump radioactive waste from their Pennsylvania operations in a New York landfill.

"In 2008, [some North Carolina residents] discovered what the state had known for several years: Groundwater near their neighborhood had been contaminated with trichloroethylene, a chemical compound often used as an industrial solvent and suspected to cause cancer."

"The winding Mataponi Creek looks clear in the sunlight, with marsh grasses lining its banks. But some of the coal ash waste from a nearby power plant is also coursing through its waters, and residents are worried it is contaminating their well water."

"High levels of perchlorate were found in the Mojave Desert city's water supply. Residents have been flocking to grocery stores to buy water, and the school district is prepared to provide students with bottled water when classes resume Monday."

"A widespread method of extracting natural gas by shooting chemical-laced water underground is a growing threat to water supplies in 28 states, say scientists, landowners and environmentalists." A Scripps Howard investigation finds overwhelmed state inspectors, thousands of violations, regulators paid by drilling royalties, political campaigns flush with gas money, and a system stacked for drillers and against public health.

"The activist group Environment Maryland released a report today urging Maryland and the federal government to make big poultry companies more accountable for controlling polluted runoff from farms where their birds are being raised."

"Stand before the pond known here in southwestern Pennsylvania as Little Blue Run, and you’ll see nothing that resembles its bucolic-sounding name. The one-time stream is now an industrial pond, filled with arsenic-laced waste from a coal-fired power plant."

"Exxon Mobil Corp. agreed to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit over a decades-old oil spill and related environmental contamination in Brooklyn, New York, state Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo said."

"After Pittsburgh City Council gave final approval Tuesday to a ban on natural-gas production in the city, industry opponents vowed to press for similar prohibitions at the Allegheny County and state levels."