"The federal government’s decision to consider making the Hackensack River a Superfund site is drawing praise from local mayors and other elected officials — but that praise comes with caveats, including a sense that the Hackensack’s pollution is so pervasive and its hydrology so complex that trying to clean it up might be a fool’s errand."
"The U.S. drilling frenzy is over. What’s not is the boom in oil production."
"Earlier this month the U.S. Navy's research office rented out a conference center in Washington, D.C., to show off some of its hottest new technology."
Small pilotless remote-controlled "drones," which have promise for many kinds of environmental journalism, are finally coming under tentative regulation from the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA released proposed rules Sunday.
"For the past five weeks, volunteers have been desperately trying to nurse back to health more than a hundred sea lions found stranded along the state's beaches in a mystery that's threatening one of California's most lovable sea creatures."
"The number of imperiled wolves found only in the American Southwest climbed to 109 in 2014, marking the fourth consecutive year that the population of Mexican gray wolves has risen by at least 10 percent, federal wildlife managers said Friday."
"The government on Friday approved the commercial planting of genetically engineered apples that are resistant to turning brown when sliced or bruised."
"A federal judge on Friday (Feb. 13) dismissed a controversial wetlands damage lawsuit filed by the east bank levee authority against more than 80 oil, gas and pipeline companies, ruling that the authority failed to make a valid claim against the energy firms."
"During a week of United Nations climate negotiations in Geneva, the draft of a new treaty got longer and more complex, rather than shorter and simpler as leaders had planned. That may nonetheless represent progress, according to participants and environmentalists."
Mississippi Power, a subsidiary of the Southern Company, is building a so-called "clean coal" plant in Mississippi. The cost has ballooned from the original estimate of $1.8 billion to the current $6.17 billion (and counting). As the residents of rural Kemper County can tell you, that is just the beginning. It will strip mine lignite from 48 square miles of timber and pasture land.
