This year's volunteer award recipient is long-time SEJ member Chuck Quirmbach, environment reporter and producer with Wisconsin Public Radio. Read SEJ conference director Jay Letto's presentation at the Miami conference here.
"BALTIMORE — An environmental group said Wednesday that infrared video shows air pollution streaming from natural gas sites that have been sprouting up across the Chesapeake Bay watershed."
"CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- CONSOL Energy has signed on to a legal settlement that marks the first time a coal company has agreed to clean up conductivity pollution associated with a valley fill, an environmental group lawyer said Wednesday."
"NEW ORLEANS — Under a new formula announced on Wednesday by Kenneth R. Feinberg, the administrator of the $20 billion fund set up by BP for victims of the 2010 oil spill, shrimp and crab fishermen along the Gulf Coast may be eligible for settlement payments significantly larger than what they were previously offered."
"State oil and gas agencies across the country are straining to prevent a flood of new drilling from harming human health and the environment. But that's not really their job. Or at least not all of it. Their job is also to promote drilling. And sometimes the law makes that their top priority."
"TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — The Environmental Protection Agency proposed stricter requirements Wednesday for cleaning ballast water that keeps ships upright in rolling seas but enables invasive species to reach U.S. waters, where they have ravaged ecosystems and caused billions of dollars in economic losses."
"Is the U.S. leading or blocking progress toward stopping global warming? It's a key question this week as officials from more than 190 countries begin the latest round of negotiations seeking an eventual global climate-protection plan."
"Grain prices are tempting farmers to plow up protected land, even as conservation subsidies shrink."
"The arsenic-in-juice war continues. Today, Consumer Reports released an alarming study that found high levels of arsenic in samples of apple juice."
"TOKYO — Molten nuclear fuel may have bored into the floor of at least one of the reactors at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the complex’s operator said Wednesday, citing a new simulation of the accident that crippled the plant in March."
