Drilling Contamination Clear At Last in Pennsylvania

A fracking drill rig.

On Aug. 29, in a small step towards greater transparency, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection released agency response letters confirming 243 cases in which drinking water supplies were contaminated by oil and gas drilling since 2008.

Read More

America To Benefit From Flame Retardant Victories

Sitting on a couch.

Two victories in California last week will soon make families – and firefighters – across America healthier. Both involve toxic flame retardant chemicals deliberately put into our couches, chairs and other furniture items.

Read More

Right to Know Reader: Cancer-Causing Power Plants Might Be Closer Than You Think

The Evergreen Community Power Plant (located at bottom center in the above image) is a small power plant that emits toxic chemicals, including lead and mercury. But the nearby community may not even know it's there because the facility avoids public discl

Congress long ago recognized that we must deal with the cumulative risk from smaller polluters. In 1990, Congress passed amendments to the Clean Air Act directing EPA to reduce the cancer risk from these sources by at least 75 percent. Since the announcement of this goal, the EPA hasn’t done so well, and a recently released regulation demonstrates why.

Read More

Valley Air District Will Miss Soot Deadline

Oil and gas fields in California's Central Valley.

Well, it happened. As we predicted back in June, the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District officially has no hope of attaining the 1997 soot standard by the Dec. 31, 2014 deadline.

Read More

Business Confidentiality Shouldn’t Trump Chemical Safety

A child plays with a baby carrier.

We’re exposed to toxic chemicals day in and day out. Hampered by attacks on almost any effort to get information to the public and to oversee chemicals out in the marketplace, the federal government fails to protect us.

Read More

ACHE Act: A Way to End Mountaintop Removal Mining

An aerial view of Marsh Fork Elementary School in 2006.

Coalfield residents living near mountaintop removal mining sites have long suspected this terrible, destructive practice is hurting our health.
I first started thinking about it during the long fight to replace the Marsh Fork Elementary School, which sat at the foot of a huge mountaintop removal mining site near my home in Peachtree Hollow.

Read More

Disney Building Fake Florida Spring – Really

Ichetucknee Spring.

Now here’s a crazy story that we absolutely are not making up. Disney is building a fake Florida spring for the world to see in its Orlando amusement park.

Read More

Digging Out of the Money Pit to Create a Smart Grid

Transmission lines.

Our aging electric grid is in need of a major renovation to deliver electricity reliably into the next century, and one way or another, that overhaul will cost us a lot of money. The question is whether we throw more money at propping up the old architecture that is designed to deliver electricity from big fossil-fuel fired power plants, or make the forward-looking investments necessary to harness the clean energy that our future requires.

Read More

Louisiana Residents Travel to Texas to Ask for Strong Protections from Big Oil

Overburdened communities in Louisiana traveled to Houston to tell EPA the impact oil refineries have on their health and their lives.

After years of dealing with toxic air pollution seeping into their neighborhoods and homes, residents from all over Louisiana took a bus to Houston to tell EPA their toxic tales. Mary Williams of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice explains why they made the journey.

Read More

Tween Wolf Advocate Calls Out Secretary Jewell (Very Politely)

Alyssa Grayson.

Last year in Rhode Island, then-12-year-old Alyssa Grayson approached Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell at an event and boldly handed her a letter asking her to reconsider plans to delist wolves from the Endangered Species Act.

Read More