"ANCHORAGE -- More than four years after Royal Dutch Shell paid $2.8 billion to the federal government for petroleum leases in the Chukchi Sea, a company vessel on Sunday morning sent a drill bit into the ocean floor, beginning preliminary work on an exploratory well 70 miles off the northwest coast of Alaska."
A former lawyer and scientist for flame retardant companies -- who often argued the substances were safer than EPA thought -- is now in charge of an EPA program studying the safety of such chemicals.
"California regulators have not been conducting the intensive workplace-safety inspections of Chevron's Richmond plant and the state's 14 other oil refineries that federal standards call for, a Chronicle investigation shows."
"The long legal battle over Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's controversial 2009 decision to cancel 77 leases near pristine federal lands in Utah may have finally reached its end."
"Long-awaited dredging will begin this month in Waukegan Harbor to remove soil contaminated with hazardous substances at a Superfund site once described as the 'world's worst PCB mess,' officials announced Thursday at the Waukegan Yacht Club."
"CLEVELAND -- The mystery deepens, as several agencies not only look for the reason why tens of thousands of fish washed up dead along the northern shores of Lake Erie, but seagulls as well."
"Two more cases of hantavirus infection have been linked to Yosemite National Park, one fatal and the other believed to have originated in the park's high country, marking the first time the outbreak has been traced beyond the Curry Village campground."
"The government forecaster has issued its most definitive report since first raising the El Niño alert three months ago, forecasting a weak phenomenon that will last until the Northern Hemisphere spring."
"The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) directed its staff on Thursday to start an environmental review into the temporary storage of spent nuclear fuel, following a court ruling that led the agency to stop issuing new reactor licenses."
"Scientists have found that the aquatic birds are good indicators of toxins in the environment. That's why researchers have taken to the waters of western Maine for what's believed to be the longest-running loon monitoring study in North America."
