Why one of the nation’s largest Superfund river sites can’t address pollution from abandoned mines.
Pollution
Posted inArticles
Court sides with industry on power plant emissions
Supreme Court decision is a setback to one of the biggest environmental actions of the Obama administration.
Posted inArticles
Methane leaks from oil and gas production on federal lands
New proposals from EPA and BLM to curtail leaks are due out this summer.
Posted inArticles
Mapping 7 million gallons of crude oil spills
A thousand pipeline ruptures or spills reported nationwide in the past five years.
Posted inArticles
Natural gas leaks are dangerous and exacerbate climate change
Plus, enough gas has escaped infrastructure since 2010 to heat 170,000 homes for a year.
Posted inArticles
EPA says fracking could contaminate drinking water
Feds identify no widespread problem but concede to insufficient data.
Posted inJune 8, 2015: Tree of Life
Western cities ranked by most polluted air
Los Angeles and Fresno are worst, Prescott and Bellingham best.
Posted inJune 8, 2015: Tree of Life
Latest: New air quality regulation for oil and gas operators
Wyoming will require companies to retrofit equipment
Posted inJune 8, 2015: Tree of Life
Senate approves major reform of the chemical safety law
The biggest bipartisan environmental legislation to pass the Senate in decades.
Posted inArticles
Courts force feds to consider climate impacts of mining coal
A Colorado mine sees the latest in a string of rulings that may threaten the industry.
Posted inMay 11, 2015: The Wetland Wars
The Los Angeles wetland wars
Environmentalists saved a wetland from developers a decade ago. Now they’re trying to save it from each other.
Posted inArticles
Tom Udall tries to fix the nation’s toxic chemicals law
Greens oppose the bill, though it’s brokered by a champion of the environment.
Posted inArticles
For rural Oregonians, protections from herbicides come up short
Aerial spray regs remain the West Coast’s weakest after the death of a key law.
Posted inArticles
On a methane mystery tour in the Four Corners region
Scientists, planes and instruments descend on San Juan Basin to find roots of the massive greenhouse gas hotspot.
Posted inArticles
EPA loophole allows streams of wastewater in Wyoming
Environmentalists challenge permits that result in dumping of toxic chemicals on tribal land.
Posted inArticles
Unwanted California tires end up in rivers and beaches
But efforts to use the trash as building materials in Mexico offer new hope.
Posted inArticles
Supreme Court wrestles with air-pollution rule
Should the EPA have considered how expensive the new regs would be for operators?
Posted inArticles
BLM’s new fracking rules strike middle ground
But they’re unlikely to resolve today’s fierce skirmishes over oil and gas development.
Posted inMarch 2, 2015: Unite and Conquer
Keeping the dust down in California’s Owens Valley
A civil engineer battles Los Angeles over its air pollution legacy.
Posted inMarch 2, 2015: Unite and Conquer
Latest: California fracking companies inject protected aquifers with wastewater
EPA found that state regulators allowed 2,500 to be contaminated.