"Bryan and Kathleen Borres worried that Marcellus shale drilling near their Murrysville home might affect their well water. During the summer, the couple had a baseline test done. The results surprised them — the water they had been drinking from the well, drilled in 2005, contained coliform and E. coli bacteria."
"LOS ALAMOS, N.M. -- Pickup trucks believed present at the world's first nuclear bomb test, coke and whiskey bottles, a calendar and a toothbrush are just a few of the items unearthed by a cleanup of one of Los Alamos National Laboratory's original toxic dump sites, where the detritus of the 1940s Manhattan Project was strewn through some of northern New Mexico's most scenic mesas and canyons."
"The scale of operations at the Hanford Site, scene of a multi-billion-dollar cleanup of a half-century of accumulated hazardous waste, cannot fail to impress."
"In a remote desert spot in northern Nevada, there is a geothermal plant run by a politically connected clean energy start-up that has relied heavily on an Obama administration loan guarantee and is now facing financial turmoil."
Salmonella bacteria are pervasive in much U.S. chicken, and sicken an estimated 1 million people a year.
For many poor families in California's rural San Joaquin Valley, the drinking water that comes from the tap is unhealthful -- often polluted by the same large-scale agriculture that gives them jobs. Pollution of private wells is a problem that spreads nationwide.
Mark Grossi reports for the Fresno Bee October 1, 2011.
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"With the Obama administration about to decide whether to green-light a controversial pipeline to take crude oil from Canada’s oil sands to the United States Gulf Coast, e-mails released Monday paint a picture of a sometimes warm and collaborative relationship between lobbyists for the company building the billion-dollar pipeline and officials in the State Department, the agency that has final say over the pipeline."
"Earlier this week, I published a post pointing out that the Daily Caller's claim that the EPA plans to hire 230,000 employees to enforce new climate regulations is false. Since then the Daily Caller has quadrupled-down on the claim, despite a number of other outlets -- first Politico, then Greg Sargent's Washington Post blog -- also pointing out that it was flat-out wrong. Now the Caller has published an editor's note that, rather than reasserting the claim, attempts to reframe their entire argument."
Many people have told stories of getting severely sick near natural gas wells, especially ones using the controversial fracking technique. One of the biggest barriers to determining whether the gas production is causing illness is the gas industry's resistance to disclosing the toxic emissions and hazardous wastes they generate.
Abrahm Lustgarten and Nicholas Kusnetz originally reported the story for ProPublica September 16, 2011.
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"EPA finds trichloroethylene causes kidney and liver cancer, lymphoma and other health problems. The decision could raise the cost of cleanups nationwide, including in the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys."
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