About two dozen chemicals in the 8.3 million gallons of fluid used to fracture a gas-bearing Marcellus Shale formation near Canton, Ohio were disclosed on a public website — but the identities of another four chemical ingredients were withheld on the claim that they were trade secrets. EnergyWire's Peter Behr takes a look at the controversy.
One starting point to covering agriculture — and the health implications of land and water use — is to follow the money using Environmental Working Group's major database tool. Any reporter covering the ag-environment link should know about it.
"Beaches across the nation continue to be fouled by sewage and storm water pollution that puts swimmers at risk of getting sick, according to a report by an environmental group."
"Open train cars filled with sand have raised alarm in St. Paul's St. Anthony Park neighborhood, where some residents wonder if the silica that comprises 80 percent of the unprocessed sand is safe."
"OTTAWA -- Changes to Canada's environmental protection laws in the federal budget implementation bill will offer new tools to 'authorize' water pollution, while allowing the government to outsource services to protect the country's waterways, says Fisheries and Oceans Minister Keith Ashfield."
"GRANTS PASS, Ore. -- The timber industry is hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court will maintain business as usual on controlling muddy water running off logging roads into salmon streams."
"With reports of once-buried waste making its way to the surface, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is calling for a new study of health and safety concerns near a Louisville landfill that once was on the nation’s Superfund list of most toxic places."
"New Jersey legislators approved legislation on Monday banning the treatment or storage of fracking waste in the state."
"Too contaminated to drink and never in continuous supply because of the hours-long daily power shortages, the water in Gaza is causing widespread, chronic health problems and contributing to high rates of child mortality."
Florida's famous freshwater springs are in trouble. "The culprits, environmental experts say, are a recent drought in north-central Florida and decades of pumping groundwater out of the aquifer to meet the demands of Florida’s population boom, its sprinklers and its agricultural industry. To what degree the overconsumption of groundwater is to blame for the changes is being batted back and forth between environmentalists and the state’s water keepers.
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