Pollution

"Oregon's Environmental Quality Commission [Thursday] adopted the strictest standards for toxic water pollution in the United States."

"THERMAL, Calif. — Community activists in Southern California's Coachella Valley have been toiling for years along the eastern rim of this crescent-shaped breadbasket to spread the word about the abandoned waste dumps, shoddy migrant housing and overburdened recycling facilities that are a fact of life in this poor, farmworker community."

"Ohio's state parks will be open for oil and natural gas drilling for the first time under legislation the state Senate passed on Wednesday."

"Indian officials signed an agreement with the World Bank on Tuesday to use a $1 billion loan to finance the first major new effort in more than 20 years to cleanse the revered Ganges, one of the world’s dirtiest rivers."

"This year's record Mississippi River floods are forecast to create the biggest Gulf of Mexico 'dead zone' since systematic mapping began in 1985, U.S. scientists reported on Tuesday."

"The largest mining company in Idaho's Silver Valley will pay $263.4 million plus interest to settle one of the nation's largest Superfund lawsuits -- one of the top 10 such settlements in history, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Monday."

"Tall smokestacks are one reason that emissions from coal-fired power plants are blown across state lines, making it more difficult for downwind states to clean up their air, a new Government Accountability Office study found."

"U.S. EPA raised significant concerns today with the environmental effects of a controversial $7 billion pipeline proposal, emboldening the plan's critics and upping the ante for political clashes over Canadian oil sands crude that risk derailing the project for good."