Pollution

The Superfund hazardous waste cleanup program has been slow to start and finish hundreds of cleanups.

"A federal judge in Miami on Wednesday threatened the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with contempt of court in a ruling that accuses the agency of ignoring federal Clean Water Act requirements in Florida's Everglades."

"An 18,000 gallon spill of crude oil from a pipeline into the Delta National Wildlife Refuge has personnel from the U.S. Coast Guard, the state of Louisiana, and the Cypress Pipe Line Company scrambling to contain the spreading mess."

North Carolina "largely ignores millions of tons of ash from coal-fired power plants that threatens to contaminate N.C. groundwater, lakes and streams, the N.C. Sierra Club says in a report today."

"Maryland is failing to ride herd on water pollution in the state because of serious funding shortfalls and its own flawed enforcement practices, according to a Washington-based think tank."

"A federal study of hydraulic fracturing set to begin this spring is expected to provide the most expansive look yet at how the natural gas drilling process can affect drinking water supplies,... . The oil and gas industry strongly opposes this new approach."

"Environmentalist Jeff Spoelstra says an 80-mile stretch of the Kalamazoo River that runs through toxin-laced land in southwestern Michigan was on its way to becoming safe again. ...Then, in January 2009, Lyondell Chemical Co. filed for bankruptcy protection. The Houston-based petrochemical giant argued in court that as it reorganized, it could avoid what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said were about $2.5 billion in cleanup costs...."

"Environmentalists demanded Tuesday that Puerto Rico's government order new tests to determine whether coal ash being used for home and road construction in the U.S. island's south is free of toxic material."

"Alleging that a Brandywine landfill is discharging toxic pollutants into local waterways, the Maryland Department of the Environment filed suit against the site's operator Friday in federal court. ... The landfill stores the waste byproducts of coal combustion from Mirant's Chalk Point Generating Plant in Aquasco."