Pollution

"North Carolina’s recent tactic of blocking citizens from challenging state permits for industrial polluters could result in a federal takeover of the state’s regulatory program."

"Indonesia's forest fires, which this year sent vast plumes of smoke across the region described by climate officials as a 'crime against humanity', could return as early as February, the forestry minister said on Friday, but on not such a large scale."

"Mexican copper miner, smelter, and refiner ASARCO must pay more than $163 million to settle U.S. government charges that the company broken the law by releasing hazardous air pollutants, including lead and arsenic, from its primary copper smelter in Hayden, Arizona."

"The City of Montreal says the controversial process of dumping eight billion litres of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence River went off without a hitch as it got under way on Wednesday."

"It official: The algae bloom that covered Lake Erie this past summer was the biggest and baddest ever recorded."

"HOOSICK FALLS, N.Y. -- People packed a village meeting in Hoosick Falls Tuesday night after receiving a notice their water might be contaminated."

"Dispersants used to encourage the oil's breakdown actually hindered microbes that were helping clean-up the huge slick, says new research."

"Lax enforcement, outdated rules and numerous substances — natural and manmade — threaten drinking water for hundreds of thousands of state residents".

"After a ruptured oil pipeline went undiscovered for 17 hours, spilling 800,000 gallons of heavy oil into Michigan's Kalamazoo River in 2010, Congress ordered an audit that laid bare the industry's lackluster record of spotting leaks. But after five years of work, the Obama administration has proposed a regulatory overhaul that fails to patch that hole in the nation’s pipeline safety net — a revelation that has been largely ignored amid Washington's obsession with the Keystone XL pipeline."