Pollution

"The Environmental Protection Agency has dropped its claim that an energy company contaminated drinking water in Texas, the third time in recent months that the agency has backtracked on high-profile local allegations linking natural-gas drilling and water pollution."

The Justice Department, Coast Guard, and EPA are trying to crack down on illegal ocean dumping of ship waste by stepping up prosecutions. They fight shipowners' "magic pipes" with cash rewards for whistleblowers who can take cell-phone photos. But the crackdown has not been fully successful.

"Kelp off Southern California was contaminated with short-lived radioisotopes a month after Japan’s Fukushima accident, a sign that the spilled radiation reached the state's coastline, according to a new scientific study."

"The five-day-and-counting mega-engineering challenge continues at Total's Well-from-Hell in the North Sea. That name was coined by Frederic Hauge of Bellona, a Norwegian group that monitors the oil industry:

"California's long-running campaign to reduce air pollution has indirectly helped create a new problem: its oil refineries produce more greenhouse gas emissions than refineries anywhere else in the country."

"ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The Minnesota Department of Health is taking a closer look at a variety of chemicals that make their way into the water supply. Federal and state regulators have already placed limits on many contaminants found in drinking water, among them lead and mercury. But health officials are turning their attention to other chemicals that are not widely known, including those in fragrances, prescription drugs and bug spray."

"ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Federal offshore drilling regulators on Wednesday approved Shell Oil's spill response plan for exploratory drilling in the Beaufort Sea, drawing strong criticism from environmental groups that claim oil companies cannot clean up oil in ice-choked waters."

"NEW ORLEANS -- After months of laboratory work, scientists say they can definitively finger oil from BP's blown-out well as the culprit for the slow death of a once brightly colored deep-sea coral community in the Gulf of Mexico that is now brown and dull."

"A proposed cleanup of Montana air pollution would force three industrial plants to spend $90 million on measures to improve visibility in some of the nation's prized public lands, including Yellowstone and Theodore Roosevelt National Parks."