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Friday Finds: Flame Retardant Flameout
Investigation sets flame to chemical retardant claims Flame retardants have long been heralded as life-saving chemicals that slow fires, but a recent investigative series by the Chicago Tribune has found that the toxic chemicals, which are found in American babies at the highest recorded levels among infants in the world, both may not be safe…
Read MoreTr-Ash Talk: Clean Up Your Coal Ash!
The Progress Energy plant in Asheville, NC operates two of the nation’s tallest high-hazard coal-ash ponds. “High-hazard” means that if either of the pond’s decades-old earthen dams were to break, loss of life would be likely. In Asheville, such a break would completely swamp the French Broad River and Interstate 26. Absent a dam break,…
Read MoreLooking Forward To The Long Summer Daze
“School’s out for summer!” When I was growing up, Alice Cooper’s 1972 hit usually infiltrated my head sometime around the beginning of May, looped incessantly, and hit a feverish crescendo in the few minutes before the final bell released us to summer break. Now, many years later, a very different line completes the couplet in…
Read MoreWhen Paint Chips are Not the Only Danger
We all know the danger that resides in lead-laden paint chips peeling off the walls of old homes. It’s well understood that lead is poisonous and, even in small doses, can harm brain function and cause learning disabilities in children. Lead also is associated with impairment of the cardiovascular, reproductive, kidney and immune systems of…
Read MoreJudge: Salmon-killing Dams Should Go
In a video interview, federal judge James A. Redden said four dams on the lower Snake River should go. As he explained, it’s easier to take the dams out than it was to put them in and the change is needed for salmon to survive.
Read MoreCoal — The Earth's Food Poisoning
When you’ve got food poisoning, what’s the last thing on earth you want? A heaping plate of the offending dish, right? Well—new, dirty coal plants are to the planet what shrimp scampi is to a roiling belly. Industrial carbon pollution from coal plants is making us sick, driving climate change, and intensifying the smog-filled air…
Read MoreTr-Ash Talk: 'Stand Your Ground' Embraces Coal Ash
The New York Times reported over the weekend that Common Cause, a nonprofit watchdog group, was using thousands of documents it received to bolster a claim that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) violates its nonprofit status by practicing in state and federal lobbying. ALEC, which has been in the news lately, is a corporate…
Read MoreGroup Wins Chance to Protect Grand Canyon
We’re in! Judge Martone of the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona today granted our motion to intervene to defend the Department of the Interior’s decision to ban new uranium mining claims for 20 years across 1 million acres of public lands adjacent to the Grand Canyon. Today’s order – read it here…
Read MoreBP Oil Spill – Two Years Ago Today
Remembering America’s greatest environmental disaster, two years later.
Read MoreTr-Ash Talk: The Coal Breath of Betrayal
The House’s embrace of David McKinley’s (R-WV) amendment and its attachment to the transportation bill is nothing short of a deadly betrayal of public health. This measure ensures that the nation’s dangerous and leaking coal ash ponds and landfills will continue to operate indefinitely without regulation or federal oversight. If it passes the Senate, it…
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