Remember how EPA library closures and record purges were threatening public access to important environmental information? Now Congress is requiring the agency to restore library services, reports Katherine Boyle of Greenwire: U.S. EPA must craft plans to reopen regional libraries shuttered from a Bush administration cost-cutting effort under a provision in the agency’s fiscal 2008 […]
The latest issue of National Geographic includes a story on e-waste thatâs worth reading â especially if you got a new computer, TV, or other electronic gift over the holidays and now need to figure out how to get rid of the old one. Discarded electronic goods often contain a few useful bits â drives, […]
EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson has denied Californiaâs petition to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucksâagainst the advice of technical and legal staff, reports the Washington Postâs Juliet Eilperin. Governor Schwarzenegger says his state will sue over the decision, and EPA lawyers and staff predict California will win that suit (just as states have […]
Updated 12/20: See below Four workers were killed and at least 14 people were injured in a violent explosion at the T2 Labs in Jacksonville, Florida. The firm manufacturers Ecotane®, the gasoline additive “methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl” (i.e., MMT® or MCMT), which increases the octane rating of gasoline. The firm says that its Florida facility is state-of-the art, and uses a […]
The “Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007” (H.R. 6) has passed the House and Senate, and is making its way to President Bush for a signing ceremony today at DOE headquarters. Richard Simon of the Los Angeles Times reports that the measure is getting mixed reviews from interest groups. Opponents, like the Grocery Manufacturers Association, say […]
Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivoreâs Dilemma, writes in the latest New York Times Magazine about two stories that âmay point to an imminent breakdown in the way weâre growing food today.â The first is the rise of community-acquired MRSA (thatâs Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a nasty antibiotic-resistant bacteria) and the growing body of evidence linking […]
Environmental Health
Erin Brockovich Revisited: New Evidence Linking Cancer with Chromium in Drinking Water
The journal Epidemiology has just published new evidence that drinking hexavalent chromium — also called chromium 6 — increases risk of stomach cancer. The study is important for public health purposes, since many drinking water sources are chromium contaminated (including the water in the community in the movie Erin Brockovich). This new study is also […]
If you live near a facility that releases between 500 and 2,000 pounds of a toxic chemical each year, you may be about to lose your access to important information about what you and your neighbors are potentially exposed to. Thatâs because EPA has changed its Toxics Release Inventory reporting requirements, raising the level at […]
By Dick Clapp There were two reviews of Devra Davisâs new book, The Secret History of the War on Cancer (Basic Books, 2007), published in Lancet journals last month. One was in the November 24 issue of the Lancet and the other was in the November issue of Lancet Oncology. They are so diametrically opposite […]
The Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act (H.R. 2262) would revamp the 1872 federal law governing hardrock mining (mining for metals and gems, not for coal), and a new article from Business Week reports that the Act has the support of many local officials who worry about miningâs effects on air, water, and tourism. Industry officials […]