In a move meant to “expand hydration options” for visitors to national parks, the National Park Service is reversing a six-year-old policy that allowed parks to ban the sale of bottled water. [More]
pollution
National Park Service Changes Its Tune, Ends Ban On Disposable Water Bottle Sales In Parks
By 8.17.17
Some Google StreetView Cars Now Tracking Pollution
By 6.5.17
While we’ve grown used to the idea of Google’s StreetView cars zooming around town snapping photos for mapping purposes, some of those vehicles have been equipped with a pollution monitoring system to help researchers get a better picture of what is in the air we breathe every day. [More]
WHO: Tobacco Isn’t Just Bad For Humans, It’s Also Killing The Environment
By 5.30.17
From cancer to heart disease and many things in between, the health effects of smoking tobacco are well known. But a new report from the United Nation’s World Health Organization tries to show how all this smoke has affected the environment. [More]
Worms That Eat Through Plastic Bags Could Help Cut Down On Pollution
By 4.24.17
Plastic bags clog up our gutters, landfills, and waterways, but researchers hope that plastic-munching worms may hold a secret to making these messes more manageable. [More]
State Sues Monsanto For Decades Of Alleged PCB Pollution
By 12.8.16 — Updated: 12.9.16
The federal government banned the use and production of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in 1979 after determining the chemicals are toxic. However, the state of Washington alleges that Monsanto knew as early as 1937 that the PCBs it produced were dangerous, but that company continued to allow them to pollute the state’s waterways. [More]
Yuengling To Pay Nearly $10M To Settle Pollution Allegations
By 6.24.16
Facing federal allegations of violating the Clean Water Act, D.G. Yeungling and Son, the country’s oldest brewing company, has agreed to pay nearly $3 million in penalties and invest $7 million for improvements to its two breweries in Pennsylvania.
[More]
BMW, Daimler Deny Manipulating Emissions Tests
By 9.24.15
Less than a week after regulators called out Volkswagen for using “defeat device” software to cheat on emissions tests for 11 million vehicles worldwide, the integrity of some other German automakers is being called into question. [More]
Google Slaps Air Pollution Monitoring Systems On Street View Cars In San Francisco
By 7.29.15
The next time you see a Google Street View car cruising down your block, it might be doing more than just snapping photos — it could be tracking air pollution.
[More]
Secret Slaughterhouse Pipeline Fills Texas Creek With Pig Blood
By 1.25.12
An amateur drone pilot in Texas was flying a simple rig with a point-and-shoot camera attached for fun, and noticed something strange in a creek. There was an awful lot of dark red in the water. He notified the county, and a Department of Health and Human Services investigation showed that the substance discoloring the water was blood. Raw pig blood from a nearby meatpacking plant. [More]
Government Tells Power Plants To Go Ahead And Pollute More
By 10.7.11
Proposing to relax emissions standards for power plants in 10 states, the Environmental Protection Agency is allowing power plants to send more pollution across state lines than previously allowed. And plants that ignore the relaxed Cross-State Air Pollution Rule guidelines and keep on going pollution-crazy won’t have to pay any penalties until 2014 rather than previously-planned 2012. [More]
Feds Tell Reporter It's Illegal To Build Sand Castles in Florida
By 9.20.10
A journalist who was searching the Florida Gulf Islands National Seashore for signs of oil pollution got a silly reason to go home from federal agents. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service representative told the WEAR ABC 3 Pensacola reporter, who was using a shovel to dig through the sand, that he needed to produce a permit that said he could do so. Soon after, a National Parks Service rep told the reporter the same thing. [More]
Half-A-Dozen Companies Knew About Tainted Drywall, But Stayed Mum And Kept Selling It
By 6.23.10
Newly released court documents indicate that over a half-dozen companies knew about the rotten egg smells exuding from Chinese drywall since 2006, but they stayed quiet and kept selling the junk. [More]
Cul-de-sacs Are Making Us Fat
By 6.23.10
Are the disconnected cul-de-sacs so popular in suburban development actually strangling their communities? [More]
Report: Americans Trash The Environment And Don't Care
By 6.4.10
The National Geographic Greendex survey of sustainable consumption is out, and most of the 17 countries in the study have improved over the past year. In the lowest-scoring one, though, consumers are actually less concerned about the environment and think that the whole issue is being exaggerated. And a majority in that country believe their current habits are unsustainable, but they’re cool with letting their grandkids deal with it. [More]
I Like Smelling Farts, Chinese Drywall Distributor Tells Court
By 6.1.10
Do you like farts? Documents and depositions unearthed by ProPublica and the Sarasota Harold-Tribune show exchanges between homebuilder WCI Communities and drywall distributor Banner that reveal the sulfur-emitting drywall problem was known as far back as 2006, and yet customers and authorities were not notified. In one deposition, a Banner executive refuses to admit that sulfur-stinking drywall might bother others, seeing as he himself, on certain occasions, enjoys the sweet aroma of another man’s butt gas: [More]
First Results Of Gov Study Of Chinese Drywall Inconclusive, But More Tests To Come
By 10.30.09
Yesterday the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced some findings from its study of the problematic Chinese drywall, which 1,900 Florida homeowners have complained stinks and makes people sick. The commission told the Associated Press that “no connections have been made yet,” but that they’re doing more tests—which means there’s still no definitive answer on who should be held financially responsible if the homes have to be gutted and repaired, which the Wall Street Journal says could cost as much as $25 billion dollars.
Excreted Tamiflu Found In Rivers; Flu-Resistant Superbirds Coming Soon
By 10.2.09
You know all that delicious Tamiflu we humans have been taking in order to reduce our suffering as various strains of regular, swine, and bird flu fly around the globe? Yeah, um, turns out that it doesn’t break down in our bodies and can’t be removed by water treatment plants. The combination of Tamiflu-polluted waters and wild birds may result in resistant strains of avian flu.
Study: Candles May Contribute To Indoor Air Pollution
By 8.25.09
You may want to think twice about covering up that stench in the bathroom by lighting up 25 votives. A new study by researchers at South Carolina State University found that “paraffin-based candles — the most popular kind — emitted toxic chemicals like toluene and benzene.”
