Pollution and Extinction
Ecology affected (Fish, Frogs, Trees, Deforestation, Rivers, Oceans and Coral reefs),
Industrial waste products released (Mercury, Cyanide, Dioxins, Cadmium, Pesticides, Atrazine (weed killer), antibotics, steroids, hormones, bacteria, sulfur dioxide, arsenic, irradiation [Cobalt 60], DDT, Ammonium perfluorooctanoate (PFOA) or C-8)
The year 2005 through 2010
The year 2005.


• 2/4/2005 - EPA's mercury rule said to ignore health effect by John Heilprin, Associated Press.
      Washington - The EPA overlooked health effects and sided with the electric industry in developing rules for cutting mercury pollution the inspector general said.    Their limits were based on an analysis submitted by Western Energy Supply and Transmission Associates who represent 17 coal-fired utilities in eight Western States in lieu of the Clean AIr Act requirements.    The EPA has denied the allegations of the proposal on mercury in December 2003 to cut mercury emissions 70 percent by 2018, from the current 48 tons a year to 15 tons.
• 3/10/2005 - Bush again endorses Arctic-refuge drilling by J. Josef Hebert, Associated Press.
      Columbus, Ohio - President Bush said that high gasoline and oil prices are of concern and that the answer is a long-range energy plan that includes drilling in the Arctic wildlife refuge on 2,000 acres for 10.4 billion barrels to allay reliance on foreign oil for more than half of the crude that Americans use.    The debate goes on for a national energy bill, but no short term solutions were offered, even the use of 600 million barrels in the emergency oil reserves to dampen oil prices is not an option.    OPEC has been given a green light to raise prices and boost production.
• 4/7/2005 - Toxic dump near river may be moved by AP.
      The Energy Department proposed to move a huge pile of radioactive waste away from the banks of the Colorado River 30 miles north, near Crescent Junction.    This was a victory for environmentalists, who fear the debris could poison the Southwest's major source of drinking water.    The pile covers 130 acres near the town of Moab and consists of about 12 million tons of dirt and other waste from decades of uranium ore processing.
• 5/29/2005 - Study: Chemical may affect genitalia of male babies by Marla Cone, Los Angeles Times.
      Scientists studying the effects of hormone-mimicking chemicals reported that compounds such as phthalates used in plastics and beauty products and widely found in people seem to alter reproductive organs in size and anatomy of baby boys.
• 5/31/2005 - Fish kill along Beargrass Creek's South Fork puzzles state, MSD - Half-mile section was affected - by Larry Muhammad, The Courier-Journal.
      At least 100 carp and bluegill lay dead and stinking along a half-mile section of the South Fork of Beargrass Creek but state and local agencies do not know what killed them.    Some people told the Metropolitan Sewer District inspector that the creek was a strange brown color last Wednesday.    Whatever it was it knocked the oxygen out of the water, thus causing the fish to die.    It was not an oil spill, and it sounds like one of those X-Files cases, but was most likely something dumped into the creek.    The creek flows through Baardstown Road area and Louisville before emptying into the Ohio River.    The oxygen level is back to normal as to date.
• 6/29/2005 - Teflon ingredient appears bigger risk, report says by AP.
      A chemical used by Dupont Co. to make non-stick substances Teflon poses more of a cancer risk than indicated in a draft assessment by the EPA, an independent review board has found.    The EPA said this year that its draft risk assessment of perfluorooctanoic acid and its salts found "suggestive evidence" of potential human carcinogenicity, based on animal studies.    In this draft report, the majority of an EPA scientific advisory board that reviewed the agency's report concluded that PFOA, known as C-8, is "likely" to be carcinogenic to humans, and that the EPA should contact cancer risk assessments for a variety of tumors found in mice and rats.
• 7/4/2005 - Pollution Side Effects by Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post.
      Washington - Academics, state officials and environmentalists are starting to question whether massive amounts of discarded pharmaceuticals, which are often flushed down the drain, pose a threat to the nation's aquatic life and possible people.    Fish have been found laden with estrogen and antidepressants, with neurological and physiological changes.    No one has seen evidence of effects on human health, but concerns are starting to be raised.    It took 2 ^1/2 years for one state to get a report from the EPA on drugs in their waterways.    There is push to force all waste pharmaceuticals to be incinerated.
      In a sample of 139 waterways in the United States.    Percentage of waterways where chemical traces were found:
  • 89% - Steroids
  • 81% - Nonprescription drugs
  • 75% - Insect repellant
  • 69% - Detergent metabolites
  • 66% - Disinfectants
  • 64% - Plasticizers
  • 60% - Fire retardants
  • 48% - Antibiotics
  • 45% - Insecticides
  • 44% - Hydrocarbons
  • 37% - Hormones
  • 32% - Other prescription drugs
  • 29% - Antioxidants
  • 27% - Fragrances
  • 24% - Solvents
• 10/14/2005 - Proposed EPA regulations covering coal-burning power plants could allow more pollution by AP.
      Washington - The Bush administration proposed regulations that could allow the nation's dirtiest power plants to release more air pollutants each year and avoid complying with the Clean Air Act.    The EPA proposal affects the nation's 600 coal-burning power plants, which represents 55 percent of the nation's electric generating capacity, and produce millions of tons of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide blamed for smog, acid rain and soot lodging in peoples lungs and cause asthma, and also remain a big source of mercury.    Aging power plants are required to install state-of-the-art equipment.
• 11/14/2005 - Screening set on if chemical harms health - 43,000 near plant in W. Va. seek test - by Brian Farkas, Associated Press.
      Belpre, Ohio - Former workers who worked as much as 35 years for a DuPont Co. chemical plant are not so sure about the safety of the operation.    Many want to take a test paid for by DuPont to see if the chemical C-8 used to make Teflon might harm their health.    The test is to determine if there is a link to cancer, heart disease and birth defects.    The chemical has produced liver cancer in lab rats and may be carcogenic to humans.    The company has found higher cholesterol levels among employees who worked closest to C8, and 380 people who live near the plant had up to 80 times more C8 in their blood than the general population.
• 12/18/2005 - At halfway point, global census of marine life reveals oceanic discoveries good and bad by William McCall, Associated Press.
      Portland, Ore. - A massive census of all the fish and other marine life in the world's oceans has reached the halfway point with new evidence of the rich diversity under the sea along with warnings about the decline of many species.    The 10-year international project that began in 2000 with implanted computer chips to track migration of fish.    Larger fish have declined by about 90 percent over the past 50 years.    We can no longer think of the ocean as infinitely vast.    They were encouraged by the amount of biological diversity of new fish which were unknown.
  
  The year 2006.
  
  
• 1/20/2006 - No phosgene gas is found in cylinders by Associated Press.
      Paducah, Ky - The Department of Energy found no toxic phosgene gas in tests of cylinders storing uranium waste at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, a top department official said.    James Rispoli, assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, said at a congressional subcommittee hearing that 14 of 1,825 older metal cylinders at the Paducah plant still need to be tested.    The department's inspector general warned in a Sept. 30 memo that some of the waste cylinders were showing advanced corrosion that could indicate the presence of phosgene inside.    The gas would have been left from the cylinders' former use as Army chemical warfare tanks.    Phosgene attacks the respiratory system, causing the lungs to fill with fluid.
• 1/26/2006 - Companies agree to eliminate release of key Teflon chemical by The Washington Post.
      Washington - Eight U.S. companies, including Dupont Co., agreed to virtually eliminate a harmful chemical used to make Teflon from all consumer products coated with the material.    Although the chemical would still be used to manufacture Teflon and similar products, processes will be developed to ensure that perfluorooctanoic acid would not be released into the environment.    The chemical has been linked to cancer and birth defects in animals and is in the blood of 95 percent of Americans.    The voluntary pact, which was crafted by the Environmental Protection Agency, will force companies to reduce manufacturing emissions of the acid by 95 percent by no later than 2010.    They will also have to reduce trace amounts of the compound in consumer products by 95 percent during the same period.
      Boy, I really feel safe now!
• 1/27/2006 - Congressional investigators say EPA is missing chunks of data on lead in drinking water by Erica Werner, Associated Press.
      Washington - The government has incomplete data about lead in the country's drinking water, and that problem and others may be undermining public health, congressional investigators say.    The Government Accountability Office released a study that looked at the implementation of the Environmental Protection Agency's 1991 Lead and Copper Rule.    The rule requires water systems to test tap water at certain high-risk locations.    If testing finds elevated lead levels, the water systems must notify customers and, in some cases, act to lessen the corrosion.    According to EPA data, the systems exceeding the lead action level dropped by nearly 75 percent over about a decade beginning in the early 1990s.    But the GAO found that recent results from more than 30 percent of water systems were missing from EPA data, apparently because states were not reporting them.    The information was missing for more than 70 percent of them.    The EPA was slow to act on these data problems and can no longer effectively evaluate if the lead rule is being enforced nationwide.
      This could be in standards for plumbing fixtures, that could effect public health.    The EPA will propose improvements and plans for stricter lead monitoring.
      Wow, I even feel safer again!
• 1/31/2006 - Container of radioactive gas explodes by Associated Press.
      Jacksonville, FLA. - About 40 workers were exposed to a small amount of radiation when a container of kryton gas exploded in a defense contractor's facility, company and fire officials said.    The exposure level was so low that most employees at Unison Industries did not need to be decontaminated.    One person who suffered cuts in the explosion was taken to a hospital for treatment, and 15 were taken to hospitals as a precaustion after complaining of being lightheaded, nauseous, having high-blood pressure or other conditions.    Krypton gas is colorless and nontoxic.    It can be made radioactive for use in manufacturing.
• 2/2/2006 - Nuclear plant safety viuolations to earn fines by Nancy Zuckerbrod, Associated Press.
      Washington - The Energy Department plans to fine contractors up to $70,000 per day, who violate basic safety rules at the nation's nuclear-weapons plants.    Such as workers exposed to radiation hazards, but not for exposure to toxic chemicals or other industrial hazards.    The nuclear weapons complex consists of 31 facilities in 17 states, and the contractors were allowed to choose which safety rules they should be required to follow.    That has now chnaged, and will affect about 1000,000 workers with the new rules on maintaining a nuclear arsenal, dismantling surplus weapons, disposing of excess radioactive materials, cleaning up old facilities and conducting energy research.    It has taken to 2006 for a watchdog group to be developed.
• 2/6/2006 - Are the world's lakes shrinking? by Bill Pitzer and Earle Holland, The New York Times.
      According to the Earth Policy Institute, the lakes that supply much of the world's freshwater are drying up at an alarming rate.    Some of this loss is due to increased global temperatures.    Some is lost to irrigation in areas that previously weren't farmed.    Still more is redirected to major cities such as Los Angeles and Guadaljara.
      The institute warns that half of the world's lakes are clearly in trouble.    Africa's Lake Chad, one of the planet's largest lakes, has shrunk by 95 percent since the 1960s, for example, decreasing vital water supplies for the nations of Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria.
      The 5-million-year-old Aral Sea in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan is half the size it was a half-century ago, due to water irrigation being drawn from two rivers that feed it.    Experts worry that the now-exposed lakebed is releasing buildups of agricultural chemicals and heavy metals that can be spread by the wind.
      Forty percent of California's Mono Lake is now gone, drawn off to serve Los angeles.    The remaining water is now three times saltier than it originally was, making the lake uninhabitable for many of the fish species that had thrived there for the past 760,000 years.
• 2/14/2006 - Vapors from asphalt contribute to pollution by The New York Times.
      Most of the concern about air pollution and health risks from asphalt involves manufacturing and application.    The fresher the asphalt, the more fumes it emits, according to the EPA, and under some circumstances asphalt does contribute to ground-level ozone, aka smog.    After it has been in place for a year, however, this becomes negligible.
      One form of asphalt, called cutback, contains solvents that liquefy it and allow it to be applied cold to roadbeds.    Because its volatile petroleum-based solvents can contribute to the chemical reactions that produce smog, its use is prohibited in many areas during "ozone season," typically from spring to fall.
      An urban problem that results from asphalt and other paving is called the heat island effect.    The EPA says heat islands form as cities replace natural land cover with pavement and buildings.
      Possible effects on worker health in making and spreading asphalt has become an issue, but not enough data existed, to determine the long-term effects.
• 3/4/2006 - Pesticides contaminate most streams - Report says levels won't harm humans - by John Heilprin, Associated Press.
      Washington - Most of the nation's rivers and streams - and the fish in them - are contaminated with pesticides linked to cancer, birth defects and neurological disorders, but not at levels that can harm humans.    Pesticides were found in almost all U.S. rivers and streams between 1992 and 2001, says a study released by the U.S. Geological Survey, although most drinking water supplies haven't been affected.
      Pesticides were used in a wide range of benefits, but now we have possible effects on the environment, including water quality.    Pesticides were seldom found at concentrations likely to affect people, and they were less common in ground water.    But they were found in most fish.
      Most frequently detected in agricultural streams were three herbicides used mainly on farms: atrazine, metolachlor and cyanazine.
      A 2003 lawsuit was settled on whether atrazine threatens the survival of endangered Chesapeake Bay sea turtles, endangered Texas salamanders and 16 other aquatic species just last week.
      Three other herbicides used commonly in cities - simazine, prometon and tebuthiuron - showed up more often in urban streams.    The survey looked for 100 pesticides, and found 40 of them had a widespread presence in streams and sediment in both urban and agricultural areas, at concentrations that could affect aquatic life or fish-eating wildlife.    The pesticides showed up more than 90 percent of the time in fish tissue found in agricultural, urban and mixed land-use area.
      The nation's reliance on about 1 billion pounds of pesticides a year showed an urgent need to strengthen policies at all levels of government and curtail pesticide use.
• 3/5/2006 - Destruction of deadly VX nerve agent is gaining steam in Indiana by Rick Callahan, Associated Press.
      Indianapolis - An Army contractor that ran into early technical glitches destroying a deadly nerve agent stored in western Indiana has resolved those problems, allowing it to eradicated more than 10 percent of the Cold-War-era stockpile.
      A year after workers began destroying the Newport Chemical Depot's VX nerve agent, the question of where its chemical waste will end up remains unclear.    The project's cost thus far has topped $1 billion.    They had planned to ship the waste to a DuPont Co. plant in New Jersey for final treatment and disposal into the Delaware River.    The project will produce a caustic wastewater called hydrolysate that the Army compares to liquid drain cleaner.    A single droplet of the VX can kill a human in minutes, and in May 2005, two chemical reactors were built solely to eradicated the VX stockpile, and they have already done 31,860 gallons, about 10.5 percent of the more than 250,000 gallons on hand.    They are planning on destroying about 720 gallons of VX a day.    After the project is complete that will leave behind 2 million to 4 million gallons of hydrolysate, which they are still studying the human health risks of the plan to dispose of that.
• 3/9/2006 - Mercury switches to be collected by Associated Press.
      Washington - Hoping to reduce harmful mercury emissions, the EPA, the auto industry and environmental groups said they have agreed to start a national program to collect mercury switches from scrapped automobiles.    Mercury switches were used in antilock brakes and in convenience lights in trunks and under hoods of vehicles built as late as the 2002 model year.    An estimated 35 million switches are currently being used in vehicles, the auto industry reports.    The program would recover and recycle the pellet-sized switches before the vehicles are shredded and crushed for recycling.
• 4/11/2006 - 1,600 Indiana lakes, streams unsafe for fishing, swimming by Associated Press.
      Indianapolis - Nearly 1,600 streams and lakes in Indiana are unsafe to fish or swim in because of pollution ranging from animal waste from packing plants, bacteria from sewer overflow, to chemicals such as fertilizer, mercury, PCBs and sediment, a state report concludes.
• 4/19/2006 - Chernobyl likely to claim 9,300 lives - Greenpeace disputes U.N. agency's figures - by Mara D. Bellaby, Associated Press.
      Kiev, Ukraine - The U.N. health agency WHO, said that about 9,300 people are likely to die of cancers caused by radiation from the Chernobyl disaster, while a report from Greenpeace put the potential toll at 10 times that number.    The reactor exploded April 26, 1986, spewing radioactive clouds over much of Europe, and Ukraine, Russia and Belarus got the worst of the fallout.    There were 405 deaths in the first 10 years.
• 5/8/2006 - Have humans harmed the world's rivers? by Bill Pitzer and Earle Holland, The New York Times.
      Few people have worried about the impact human's building dams and slowing river flow would have on the environment.    No one understood how extensive the problem was, but now they are concerned since more than half of the world's larger rivers have been dammed.    What is of concern is the serious loss of sediment that normally flows with the river, to be deposited where it reaches the sea.    Without this constant depositing of new sediment, the coast erodes as the river flows seaward.    Meanwhile, the sediment is trapped behind the dams, slowly filling their reservoirs and ultimately making the dams useless.
      In addition, within that sediment are sizable percentages of organic carbon, flushed from farmlands upstream from the reservoirs.    Dams trap this carbon rather than letting it flow naturally to estuaries at a river's mouth, where it would replenish the environment.
• 5/22/2006 - Are beluga whales vanishing? by Bill Pitzer and Earle Holland, The New York Times.
      Belugas appear to be thriving across the Arctic, with an estimated population of 40,000 in 2005.    However in Alaska's Cook Inlet beluga numbers have been plummeting, worrying wildlife officals and puzzling scientists.    Last year the Cook Inlket population was below 300, more than a 75-percent drop from a high of 1,300 in the late 1970s.    Scientists have been examining noise pollution from shipping and recreational boating as one potential culprit.    Waste discharges and development in and around the inlet could also be to blame.
      Beluga hunters are limited to one or two per year, but the population is not growing, and may have to be put under protection under the Endangered Species Act.
• 6/9/2006 - Plant to cut release of deadly chemical - Rubbertown facility enters agreement - by James Bruggers, Courier-Journal.
      Louisville - A Rubbertwon chemical plant, OxyVinyls LP, has agreed to cut emissions of a chemical linked to a deadly form of liver cancer.    It will install equipment to capture and prevent about 100 pounds of vinyl chloride emissions per year at its railcar unloading facility.    They also have plants in New Jersey and Texas and the EPA is trying to get this to be a nationwide effort.    The chemical was linked to angiosarcoma of the liver more than three decades ago, largely due to an unusual number of 20 cases at the former B.F. Goodrich plant in Louisville.
• 7/5/2006 - Whales change tactics, for now, in Pacific war games by Audrey McAvoy, Associated Press.
      Honolulu - While the navy was staging war games with sonar off the island of Kauai two summers ago, more than 150 lost and disoriented whales were swimming chaotically in the shallows of Hanalei Bay.    That mass stranding was a scene neither the Navy nor environmentalists wanted repeated as 40 ships from eight countries return to the islands this month for the world's largest international maritime war games.
      The environmentalists won a temporary restraining order to stop the Navy from using high-intensity sonar during this years exercise.    They will be using the "mid-frequency active sonar" instead by a federal judge's ruling.    The Navy acknowledges sonar can hurt, even kill, whales, but it says many factors cause marine mammals to become stranded.    The Navy has agreed to conduct aerial surveys for marine mammals and restrict sonar use to certain areas.    The Navy settled the sonar lawsuit by not using sonar within 25 miles of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument.
• 7/6/2006 - Pollution is making the oceans more acidic - Changes threaten some marine life - by Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press.
      Washington - Corals and other marine creatures are threatened by chemical changes in the ocean caused by carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, a panel of scientists from the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey warned.    Already blamed for a greenhouse effect warming of the climate, much of this added carbon dioxide is disolving in the oceans, making them more acidic.    The pH scale measures how acidic or alkaline a substance is, rating it from 0 to 14, with 7 being neutral.    The lower the number, the more acidic it is.    The oceans are normally slightly alkaline.    Their average surface pH, was 8.2 in 1800 and is headed for a predicted 7.9 by the middle of this century, a value that has remained constant over hundreds of thousands of years.    The researchers estimated that between 1800 and 1994 the world's oceans absorbed 118 billion metric tons of carbon, reducing the natural alkalinity of seawater.
• 8/4/2006 - Pollution suit filed over Paradise power plant by Associated Press.
      Two Kentucky residents and an Arizona-based environmental group have filed suit against the U.S. EPA over pollution from the Paradise power plant in Muhlenberg County, Ky.    This is funny to me since the song by John Prine, "Paradise" is in this area.    It goes something like this, "Daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenburg County, down by the Green River where Paradise lay."
• 8/8/2006 - Plant told to cut mercury dumping - Releases in W. Va. affect Ohio River - by James Bruggers, Courier-Journal.
      A West Virginia environmental board has ordered the PPG Industries chlorine plant near New Martinsville, W. Va, the largest source of mercury dumping in the Ohio River to curtail discharges of the heavy metal.    They have put 32 pounds of mercury, 76 times greater than limits set for the Ohio River in 2004 according to the U.S. EPA.
• 8/28/2006 - Industrial pollution is mounting in China by Associated Press.
      Beijing - One-third of China's vast landmass is suffering from acid rain caused by its rapid industrial growth, and they are failing to enforce environmental standards for fear of hurting business.    China's factories spewed out 25.5 million tons of sulphur dioxide - the chemical that causes acid rain - last year, up 27 percent from 2000, double safe levels.    Pollution from factories and power plants was rising by 9 percent a year.
• 8/30/2006 - EPA water proposal alarms state officials, environmentalists by Erin Kelley, Gannett News Service.
      Washington - EPA is on the verge of allowing states to dump water filled with bacteria, toxic chemicals and invasive species (zebra mussels, Asian carp) into clean water without having to show the federal government that it won't hurt public health or the environment.    The EPA says it's up to states, not the government to oversee transfers from one body of water to another.    The EPA would no longer be protecting the states in these cases.    Florida's Lake Okeechobee has become an algae-choked mess as polluted runoff from sugar cane fields and city streets has flowed into it for decades.
• 9/5/2006 - Study shows solvents damaged workers' brains by James Bruggers, Courier-Journal.
      Researchers from West Virgina University, the University of Pittsburg and Johns Hopkins University studying railroad workers have documented that cleaning solvents used in their jobs since 1950 caused brain damage, shrinking the vital bridge that helps one side of the brain communicate with the other.    This bridge is called the genu, a section of the corpus callosum that connects the frontal lobes, which are associated with decision making, problem solving and emotions.    These solvents were 1,1,1-trichloroethane, trichloroethylene and perchlorethylene.    More than 600 railroad workers have died from toxic encephalopathy, with chronic depression, loss of short-term memory and hair-trigger temper.    CSX had paid out nearly $35 million to more than 460 current or former workers diagnosed with the illness.    Railroads began phasing the chemical out of their shops in the early 1990s.    The study done will help professionals better understand the medical problems of people in other industries exposed to solvents.
• 10/20/2006 - Dunping hazardous waste hurts Third World - Ivory Coast deaths highlight problem - by Todd Pitman, Associated Press.
      Abidjan, Ivory Coast - Not long after hundreds of tons of toxic waste were jettisoned around Ivory Coast's main city under cover of darkness, Jean-Jaques Kakou and thousands of others awoke to an over-powering stench that burned their eyes and hampered their breathing.
      Three weeks later, Kakou was dead - one of at least 10 victims were linked to dumping that has thrown light on a growing global trade in hazardous waste.    Poison is still being shipped out of developed nations to the Third World despite international legislation.
      Greenpeace said as one of the worst waste scandals of the last decade - one in which toxic black sludge was dumped at 17 sites in Abidjan on Aug. 19.    The cleanup is still under way.    In 1987, 8,000 drums of chemical waste was dumped on a Nigerian beach.
      The sludge was dumped by an Ivory Coast company called Tommy, and tests later showed it contained mercaptans and hydrogen sulfide, a potent poison.
• 10/29/2006 - Chemical weapons plant work starts - Blue Grass material will be destroyed - by Associated Press.
      Richmond, Ky. - U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell marked the beginning of construction of a $2 billion government neutralization plant to be ready in 2007 that will destroy tons of deadly chemical weapons stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot.    The weapons, including mustard gas, sarin and VX, are left over from the Cold War and have been stored in bunkers at the depot near Richmond for more than six decades.    Under the terms of the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, arms stockpiled at eight sites across the country, must be destroyed by 2012.    The plant is expected to employ about 900 workers and will be the nation's final chemical weapons depository to begin disarming its stockpile.
• 10/31/2006 - Is algae choking the Great Lakes again? by Bill Pitzer and Earle Holland, The New York Times.
      In the 1960s, the Great Lakes were almost choked to death by algae blooms, a pudding-like green slime that drains the oxygen out of the water.    Algae can clog water-intake pipes for nuclear power plants and eventually poison the life out of a lake.    Washed ashore by wind and waves, decaying clumps of algae can turn a picturesque beach into a slippery, stench-filled eyesore.
      Algae blooms have returned to the Great lakes in recent years, as 40 years ago they removed phosphorus from detergents and fertilizers ended the algae attacks.    This time around the cleanup may be more complicated, because the algae has brought in some reinforcements.
      Non-native algae called enteromorpha have invaded the lakes, helped by invasive mussel species.    Mussels such as the zebra mussel filter water, making it clearer.    This sounds like a good thing, but clearer water allows sunlight to penetrate deeper into the lakes.    The sunlight in turns help algae to grow deeper and thicker as well, worsening the effects of the algae blooms.
      Runoff of phosphorus from fertilizers may still contribute to algae blooms, but lake levels of phosphorus are lower now than in the 1960s.    That leads officials to conclude that invasive species are the main culprit this time around.
• 11/3/2006 - Seafood may run out by 2048 - Impending collapse a 'wake up call' - by Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post.
      Washington - An international group of ecologists and economists warned that the world will run out of seafood by 2048 if steep declines in marine species continue at current rates, based on a four-year study of catch data and the effects of fishery collapses.
      The paper, published in the journal Science, concludes that overfishing, pollution and other environmental factors are wiping out important species around the globe, hampering the ocean's ability to produce seafood, filter nutrients and resist the spread of disease.
      This will occur in our children's lifetime, and the collapse of commercial fisheries could have a serious impact on the global economy.    The industry generates $80 billion a year, and more than 200 million people depend directly or indirectly on fishing for their main source of income.    World-wide, a billion people eat seafood as their main source of animal protein.
      The 14 researchers from Canada, Panama, Sweden, England and the United States spent four years analyzing fish populations, catch records and ocean ecosystems to reach their conclusion.
      They found that by 2003 - the last year for which data on global commercial fish catches are available - 29 percent of all fished species had collapsed, meaning they are now at least 90 percent below their historic maximum catch levels.
      The rate of population collapses has accelerated in recent years: As of 1980, just 13.5 percent of fished species had collapsed, even though fishing vessels were pursuing 1,736 fewer species then.    Today, the fishing industry harvests 7,784 species commercially.
      The United States and New Zealand have taken steps in recent years to halt the depletion of their commercial fisheries.    Because the global demand for seafood has already outstripped the amount of wild fish available in the sea, The National Fisheries Institute, a trade group are meeting the need in part by relying on farmed fish.
      So it may be possible that one day you will not see seafood on store shelves or in restaurants, eventhough today all we see is an abundance of it now.
• 11/17/2006 - Dirty sky proposed to halt warming - Pollutants would be used to reflect sun - by Charles J. Hanley, AP.
      Nairobi, Kenya - If the sun warms the Earth too dangerously, the time may come to draw the shade.    The "shade" would be a layer of pollution deliberately spewed into the atmosphere to help cool the planet.    The idea comes from prominent scientists, among them a Nobel laureate, Paul Crutzen, of Germany's Max Plank Institute for Chemistry.    The reaction in Nairobi at the U.N. conference on climate change is a mix of caution, curiosity and some resignation to such "massive and drastic" operations, as the chief U.N. climatologist describes them.
      The proposal was made to startle the policymakers, to let them know if they don't take action now, we may be forced to make such a decision in the future.    NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., is hosting a workshop on the global haze proposal.    The theory is to launch ballons bearing heavy guns to carry sulfates high aloft and fire them into the stratosphere.    Sulfur dioxide, a common pollutant, reflects solar radiation, cooling the planet.    This has occurred before when volcanoes shoot so much sulfurous debris into the stratosphere that it is believed to have cooled the Earth by 0.9 degree for about a year.    Many asked what would be the side effects?
• 11/19/2006 - FDA warned against drug used on troops in Iraq - Military says it saves lives on battlefield - by Robert Little, The Baltimore Sun.
      Baghdad, Iraq - U.S. military doctors have injected more than 1,000 wounded troops with a potent and largely experimental blood-coagulating drug despite evidence linking it to deadly blood clots.    The drug, Recombinant Activated Factor VII, is approved in the U.S. for treating rare forms of hemophilia affecting about 2,700 Americans.    Last December the FDA warned that giving the drug to patients with normal blood could cause strokes and heart attacks.    A study claims 43 deaths on clots that developed after injections of Factor VII.
      The Army medical command considers Factor VII to be a medical breakthrough in the Iraq War, giving frontline physicians a powerful new means of controlling bleeding that can be treated otherwise only with surgery and transfusions.    The drug costs $6,000 a dose, made by Novo Nordisk, so most hospitals have stop using it in concern for the clotting and possible death from its use.
• 11/20/2006 - Dangerous drug for birds by The New York Times.
      The link between vulture deaths on the Indian subcontinent and the drug diclofenac has been well-established.    Three species have been partically wiped out from eating carcasses of cattle and other livestock that were treated with the drug, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agent.    A new survey of 870 veterinary cases around the world shows that other scavenging birds, such as raptors, storks, cranes and owls, may be at risk from diclofenac and similar drugs.    The drugs are used in large parts of the world, including South America and southern Africa.
• 11/21/2006 - U.S. delays disposal of gas weapons - Blue Grass depot deadline now 2023 - by Peter Eisler, USA Today.
      Washington - The Pentagon has extended its timeline to destroy aging chemical weapons stored near Richmond, Ky., until 2023 - 11 years later than previously planned.    About 500 tons of deadly nerve gas and mustard gas are stored in rockets at the Blue Grass Army Depot there.    There is also another site Newport Chemical Depot, 30 miles north of Terre Haute, Indiana, where disposal has already begun.
• 11/25/2006 - Lawyer for utility angers environmentalists - High court told U.S. has changed course - by Pete Yost, AP.
      Washington - The supreme court and the lawyers before them infuriated environmental groups by presenting an argument that was incorrect.    The claim that the federal government had changed course in regulating emissions from coal-fired power plants is not true.    Environmental Defense vs. Duke Energy Corp., could determine the fate of an EPA initiative targeting the biggest utilities.    They claim the companies are bent on getting away with 20 years of illegal pollution by trying to decieve the Supreme Court.    The suit was aimed at forcing power companies to install the latest pollution-control equipment on aging coal-fired plants that were renovated so they could be operated for longer hours.
• 11/28/2006 - C-J article didn't influence jury, judge rules - CSX had lost suit over worker's health - by James Bruggers, The Courier-Journal.
      Courier-Journal coverage did not influence a Jefferson Circuit Court jury that awarded a railroad worker $1.8 million in September after he claimed he suffered brain damage from solvent exposure, judge Roger Crittenden ruled.    The C-J had published an article during the trial about West Virginia railroad workers shrinking their brain parts from using cleaning solvents.    The article did not mention the trial, and CSX's attorney will appeal the ruling and blamed the opposing attorney for talking to a reporter.
• 11/29/2006 - Rubbertown still hot spot for toxic air - Exposure up to 60 times that in eastern Louisville - by James Bruggers, The Courier-Journal.
      Residents near Rubbertown's chemical plants continue to face greater health risks from toxic emissions than people in eastern Louisville.    The chemicals being released are: 1,3-butadiene, acrylonitrile, benzene, chloroform, and carbon tetrachloride.
• 12/14/2006 - White dolphin is extinct, searchers say by AP.
      Beijing - An expedition searching for a rare Yangtze River dolphin ended without a single sighting and they suspect one of the world's oldest species was, in effect, extinct.    The white dolpin known as baiji, shy and nearly blind, dates back some 20 million years.    Overfishing and ships, whose engines interfere with the sonar the baiji uses to navigate and feed, are likely the main reasons for the mammal's declining numbers.
• 12/16/2006 - Asia slow to act on cross-border pollution, expert says by AP.
      Yogyakarta, Indonesia - Japan says soot from Chinese power stations is poisoning its lakes.    Coal emissions from India and China are polluting the air in Bangladesh.    Land-clearing forest fires in Indonesia spread a choking haze over Singapore and Malaysia.    Asia needs to follow the lead of the U.S. and Europe and enact regional pacts to reduce cross-border pollution, setting emission limits on sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and other chemicals.    Of course all of them fear the agreements will hurt their economies.
• 12/19/2006 - States sue EPA over soot levels by AP.
      Albany, N.Y. - More than a dozen states sued the U.S. EPA to lower soot levels from smokestacks and vehicle exhausts.    The states want to reduce the current limit by 1 or 2 micrograms of soot allowed per cubic foot of air.    The current maximum is 15 micrograms.
• 12/22/2006 Groups sue over nerve agent waste plan by AP.
      Trenton, N.J. - Environmentalists groups in four states have filed a federal lawsuit to try to stop the Army from trucking the byproduct of a deadly chemical weapon from Indiana to New Jersey, where it would be treated and dumped into the Delaware River.    The complaint by the Delaware Riverkeeper network and other groups claims that moving the byproduct of neutralized VX nerve agent across state lines violates a law banning interstate movement of chemical weapons, and they dispute the Army's assessment of the impact it would have on the Delaware River.    They were planning to ship it to a DuPont facility in Deepwater, N.J., where it would be treated and then discharged into the Delaware, 30 miles upriver of the Delaware oyster beds.
• 12/22/2006 Power-plant battle moves into court by The Courier-Journal.
      Peabody Energy and Sierra Club lawyers squared off in Franklin Circuit Court over the air permit for a large, coal-fired power plant planned for Western Kentucky.    They claim that the Thoroughbred plant for Muhlenberg County would be among the cleanest in the country, and a boon to the economy, but environmentalists are pressing for even more controls.
• 12/29/2006 Pollution still plagues Ky. waters by The Courier-Journal.
      More than 30 years after the federal Clean Water Act was adopted, many of Kentucky's streams, lakes and rivers remain so polluted or changed that they fail to meet their designated uses, according to a new state study.    The study assessed more than 10,000 miles of rivers and streams, about 10 percent of the total, of which 52 percent failed to meet standards for swimming, fishing, drinking or the ability to support aquatic life.
  
  The year 2007.
  
  
• 1/29/2007 Fish still have high levels of DDT by AP.
      Los Angeles - Fish caught off Los Angeles County's coast still contain high levels of banned DDT decades after a manufacturer dumped tons of the pesticide into sewers, creating a toxic plume on the ocean bottom.
• 2/1/2007 Oil-spill damage could last for decades by AP.
      Anchorage, Alaska - Lingering crude from the nation's largest oil spill has dissipated only slightly almost 18 years after the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground and fouled hundreds of miles of Alaskan shoreline.    The estimated 85 tons of oil remaining at Prince William Sound is declining by about 4 percent per year, and will persist for decades below the surface of some beaches along the gulf.
• 2/10/2007 Environmental disasters could become crime in EU by AP.
      Brussels, Belgium - Companies and individuals responsible for environmental disasters should face criminal charges, the European Union's executive Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas is proposing punishing offenses across the 27-nation bloc with up to five years in prison or a $975,000 fine.    Included courts could put a company out of business and order offenders to clean up the environment.
• 2/16/2007 Dutch company, Ivory Coast settle toxic-waste dispute by AP.
      Amsterdam, Netherlands - A Dutch-based oil trading company paid $197 million to secure the release of three executives from an Ivory Coast prison and settle claims that it had dumped toxic waste that killed at least 10 people.    The three were from Trafigura Beheer BV jailed since Sept. 18, accused of illegally dumping the waste in the port city of Abidjan, but denied wrongdoing, saying it properly contracted with a company there to dispose of the waste.
      Ivorian officials said trucks simply poured 528 tons of the lethal chemical waste at 17 public sites after midnight Aug. 19, and thousands sought medical help for symptons such as stinging eyes and nose bleeds.
• 4/3/2007 One company's wheat gluten banned by AP.
      Washington - The U.S. FDA is blocking imports of wheat gluten from a Chinese company, acting after an investigation implicated the contaminated ingredient in the recent food-related deaths of pets and 9,400 pet-food-related complaints.    A recall was issued for 100 brands of pet food made with the chemically contaminated ingredient.
• 4/3/2007 New rules issued for chemical plants by AP.
      Washington - About 7,000 chemical plants, roughly half the nation's total, are at high risk of catastrophe from either an accident or terrorist attack, according to The Homeland Security Department.    Plants that fail to comply to the new standards can be fined or even shut down.
• 4/4/2007 Overfished reefs by AP.
      The amount of seafood caught commercially in and around coral reefs pales in comparison to that harvested from open oceans.    Yet coral reef fisheries aren't small potatoes for millions of people worldwide.
      Coral reefs are generally considered overfished.    A new study by Katie Newton of the University of East Anglia in England and colleagues, concludes that the majority of coral reef fisheries are unsustainable; fish, crustaceans and mollusks are being harvested at a faster rate than they are being replenished.
      Their data shows an estimated maximum sustainable annual yield of 13 metric tons per square mile of reef, the finding was 55 percent of the fisheries, including those in the Philippines, Madagascar and Jamaica, were unsustainable.
• 4/16/2007 MSD plant scrutinized over failed tests - Fish must live 48 hours in effluent by The Courier-Journal.
      Baby fathead minnows, a quarter inch long, put their lives on line to make sure wastewater going into rivers isn't toxic.    The test is to see if they can last 48 hours in tanks of treated effluent.    If more than half make it the effluent will not sicken or kill aquatic life when it mixes into a river or stream.
      The Kentucky Division of Water regulators are trying to find out why the Metropolitan Sewer District's Morris Forman Wastewater Treatment Plant, which discharges into the Ohio River, failed its "biological monitoring" tests in each of the last two Octobers.
• 4/18/2007 Indiana nerve agent waste reaches Texas - VX hydrolysate to be incinerated by AP.
      Indianapolis - Four tractor-trailers with the first shipments of chemical waste from the destruction of deadly VX nerve agent stored in Indian arrived at Port Author, Texas plant Veolia Environmental Services where they will be incinerated within days.    The company signed a $49 million contract with the Army to incinerate about 2 million gallons of hydrolysate.    The local Texas residents are concerned and were given no notice about the shipment coming to their area.    The Army agreed to limit the number of shipments to the plant to no more than 12 trucks per week.
• 4/19/2007 Studies link hormones to cancer risk by AP.
      Atlanta - Research on two continents signaled more bad news for menopause-treatment hormones, offering the strongest evidence yet that they can raise the risk of breast cancer and are tied to a slightly higher risk of ovarian cancer.
      New U.S. government numbers showed that the breast-cancer rate leveled off in 2004 after plunging in 2003 -- the year after millions of women stopped taking hormones because a big study tied them to higher heart, stroke and breast-cancer risks.    Experts said the leveling off shows that the 2003 drop in the cancer rate was real and not a fluke.
      A study done in the United Kingdom found similar results.
• 4/20/2007 Pet food may have been spiked by AP.
      Washington - Imported ingredients used in recalled pet food may have been intentionally spiked with an industrial chemical to boost their apparent protein content, officials said.
      That's one theory being pursued by the FDA as it investigates how the chemical, melamine, contaminated at least two ingredients used to make more than 100 brands of dog and cat food.
      So far, melamine's been found in both wheat gluten and rice-protein concentrate from China.    News reports from South Africa suggest a third pet-food ingredient, corn gluten, used in that country also contained melamine.    That tainted ingredient has not been found in the United States, the FDA said.
• 4/27/2007 Events marks anniversary of Cherobyl disaster by AP.
      Kiev, Ukraine - Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko and dozens of mourners prayed and lit candles before dawn to mark the precise time the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded and caught fire 21 years ago (April 26, 1986) in what became the world's worst nuclear accident.    It spewed radiation over a large area of the former Soviet Union and much of northern Europe.
      An area roughly half the size of Italy was contaminated, forcing the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of people and ruining some of Europe's most fertile farmland.
• 4/28/2007 Activists plan to sue Army for shipping chemical waste by AP.
      Indianapolis - Activists said they are joining with the Sierra Club to sue the Army over shipments to Texas of chemical waste created by the destruction of Indiania's VX nerve gas.
      The Chemical Weapons Working Group, the Sierra Club and other groups filed a notice of intent to sue that accuses the Army of hiring a contractor to ship waste that harbors more VX and toxic chemical compounds than the military says it contains.
      The group claims the material is dangerous to ship and may contain more VX molecules than the Army has said it contains.    Also in issue is that the Army has failed to notify communities affected by the shipments.
• 5/7/2007 Honeybee colonies dying out by New York Times.
      Beltsville, Md. - What is happening to the bees?    More than a quarter of the country's 2.4 million bee colonies have been lost -- tens of billions of bees, according to the Apiary Inspectors of America, a national group that tracks beekeeping.    So far, no one can say what is causing the bees to become disoriented and fail to return to their hives.
      The volume of theories for the disappearances "is totally mind-boggling" said an entomologist at Pennsylvania State University.    People have blamed genetically modified crops, celluar-phone towers and high-voltage transmission lines.    Or was it a plot by Russia or Osama bin Laden to bring down American agriculture?    Some claim it is the rapture of the bees, in which God recalled them to heaven.
      Honeybees are most important to the human food chain, as pollinators of hundreds of fruits, vegatables, flowers and nuts.    The number of bee colonies has been declining since the 1940s, even as crops that rely on them have grown.    This "colony collapse disorder" has been found in 27 states, and beekeepers have lost 26 percent or half of their bee colonies this year.    Some blame cold weather in April.
      The researchers are doing bee autopsies and genetic analysis, and have ruled out mites, although genetic testing has found the presence of multiple micro-organisms in hives that are in decline.    This suggest something is weaking their immune system.    They are suspecting a chemical in the neonicotinoids group as the number one suspect and the pesticide imidacloprid.
• 5/9/2007 Farm-raised fish tainted with melamine by AP.
      Farm-raised fish have been fed meal spiked with the same chemical that has been linked to the pet-food recall, but the contamination was probably too diluted to harm anyone who ate the fish, federal officials said.
      The Canadian-made meal was purported to be wheat gluten, a protein source, imported from China.    The material was actually wheat flour spiked with the chemical melamine and related, nitrogen-rich compounds to make it appear more protein-rich than it was.    Some pigs and chickens may also have been given the meal.
• 5/15/2007 Scientists: Keep wolves on danger list by AP.
      Jackson, Wyo. - More than 230 scientists have signed a letter opposing plans to remove wolves in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho from Endangered Species Act protection.    The scientists claim wolves in the three states still face threats because their numbers are small and because the wolf population in the Yellowstone area, in central Idaho and in northwest Montana don't intermingle.
      The letter, to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, criticized plans to maintain at least 300 wolves and 30 breeding pairs.    About 1,300 wolves now roam across the three states.
• 5/14/2007 Federal loans fuel new coal plants by The Washington Post.
      Washington - A Depression-era program to get electricity to rural area is using taxpayer money to provide billions of dollars in low-interest loans to build coal plants even as Congress seeks ways to limit greenhouse-gas emissions.    Plans are to build the plants over the next 10 years, which will probably offset efforts to reduce emissions over that time.
• 5/20/2007 LEDs could be the next bright idea in lighting by AP.
      The incandescent light bulb may be on its way out as lawmakers are talking about banning the century-old technology because of its contribution to global warming.    Companies such as General Electric are working on a solution are using light-emitting diodes, or LEDs as a challenge.    LEDs, which are small chips usually encased in a glass dome the size of a matchstick head, have been used in electronics for decades.    They were usually red or green, but a scientific breakthrough in the 1990s paved the way for LEDs that produce white light, and use less power than bulbs, are presently common in flashlights.    California and Canada have decided to ban the sale of incandescent bulbs by 2012, as is the European Union.
• 5/30/2007 Administration fights mad-cow testing by AP.
      Washington - The Bush administration said it will fight and appeal the June 1 requirement to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad-cow disease.    The Agriculture Department tests less than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef.    The test is expensive.
• 6/13/2007 Tainted water at Marine base studied by AP.
      Washington - Thousands of Marine families who lived at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina over three decades drank and bathed in water contaminated with as much as 40 times the amount of toxins allowed today.    Results from a new study and lawmakers listened to emotional testimony from families about cancers and other illnesses they blame on tainted tapwater at the huge base.    From 1957 until 1987 the water was polluted by trichloroethylene, a degreasing solvent known as TCE, and tetrachlorethylene, a dry-cleaning agent known as PERC or PCE.    The government describes them as probable carcinogens.    The water was believed to have been contaminated by a dry cleaner adjacent to the camp and by industrial activities on the base.    The test found PCE levels as high as 200 parts per billion, compared with 5 ppb that federal regulators set in 1992 as the maximum allowable.
• 6/15/2007 Dioxin levels high at former U.S. air base in Vietnam by AP.
      Danang, Vietnam - More than 30 years after the Vietnam War ended, the poisonous legacy of Agent Orage has emerged anew with a scientific study that has found high amounts of contamination at the former U.S. air base at Danang.    They found the highest levels ever of dioxin, the toxic chemical compound in Agent Orange, in concentrations 300 to 400 times the internationally accepted limits.    Agent Orange was a defoiliant designed to deny Vietnamese jungle cover, was stored and mixed before loaded onto planes.
• 6/15/2007 Coal for Gas Tanks? by The Courier-Journal.
      Coal may hold a key to America's energy independence, but getting the lumps into the gas tank poses a challenge.    Researchers at a University of Kentucky lab are working to find the best way to turn coal into liquid fuels for trucks, buses and planes.    This is the first serious push for producing synthetic fuels from coal since the 1970s.    Burt Davis says the method of conversion is called the Fischer-Trosch process developed by German scientists in the 1920s.    He is a technical adviser to a South African company, Sasol, which has been turning coal into diesel and aviation fuels for decades.    After coal is burned and turned into various gases, the carbon monoxide and hydrogen are sent to a chemical reactor, where they are mixed with a catalyst.    Depending on what chemicals or compounds are used as the catalyst, various products are made, including diesel and jet fuels, chemicals and an edible wax for coating fruit.    The smog-causing waste gases like sulfur and nitrogen can be stripped out while the fuel is made, as can carbon dioxide.    Their plan is to inject the carbon dioxide deep into the ground for long term storage.
• 7/3/2007 China claims distortion of food-safety issues by AP.
      Beijing - China warned the news media against exaggerating its food-safety problems and stirring consumer panic, even as officials announced dozens of snacks for children had violated standards and more fake blood protein was found in hospitals.
      China's dismal product safety record has gotten more attention as the nation's goods make their way through global markets.    The U.S., Japan and European Union have pushed Beijing to improve inspections.
• 7/9/2007 Lake Okeechobeee muck polluted by AP.
      Fort Lauderdale, Fla. - Scientists have found elevated levels of arsenic and other pesticides in thousands of truckloads of muck scooped from the bottom of Lake Okeechobee.
      State water and wildlife managers are taking advantage of a drought by removing lifechoking muck from the 730-square-mile lake, Florida's largest.    But the removal has created new pollution headaches on shore now.    The arsenic concentrations on the northern part of the lake bed were as much as four times the limit for residential land, and they are trying to figure out where to put it to avoid making another problem.
• 7/17/2007 Foe: Sampling shows nerve agent waste a threat by AP.
      Indianapolis - The Army's own sampling of neutralized VX nerve agent undermines its argument that the material can be transported safely through eight states to Texas.    Managers of the VX destruction at the Newport Chemical Depot in western Indiana do claim that samples from the tanker spillage revealed that concentrations of the deadly nerve agent and a toxic byproduct exceeded the Army's maximum allowable levels for shipments.    So the battle goes with hearings to decide.
• 7/31/2007 Chemical in Ohio River traced to Greenup plant by The Courier-Journal.
      A Greenup County industry plant, Pregis Innovative Packaging Inc., in Wurtland, Ky. has been ordered to stop dumping a toxic chemical methylene chloride into the Ohio River after it was detected as far away as Louisville -- more than 250 miles downstream.    The company makes polypropylene foam packaging and faces several hundred thousand dollars in fines.    It took months for state regulators to find the source.
• 8/1/2007 Groups to sue EPA over pesticide by AP.
      San Francisco - Unions and nonprofit groups said that they will sue the EPA in an effort to ban a pesticide, chlorpyrifos, sold under several brand names, including Lorsban, they say sickens farm workers.    The toxin, which can be used only for agricultural purposes and in small amounts for domestic ant and roach baits, is popular among growers of cotton, corn, almonds and fruit trees.
      The lawsuit claims the EPA failed to study the bug spray's harm to people when it re-approved its use in 2001 for farming.
• 8/2/2007 Lead paint forces toy recall - Fisher-Price got items from China by AP.
      Washington - Fisher-Price/Mattel Inc. is recalling 83 types of toys - including the popular Big Bird, Elmo, Dora and Diego characters - because their paint contains too much lead, involving 967,000 plastic preschool toys made in China and sold in the U.S. between May and August.    This is the latest in a wave of recalls causing global concerns about the safety of Chinese-made products.
• 8/4/2007 Rockwell International to pay $10 million for PCB contamination by AP.
      Frankfort, Ky. - State officials have reached a $10 million settlement with Rockwell International Corp. regarding the company's release of cancer-causing PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, a substance the company once used at its plant in Russellville, Ky., in Logan County.    The plant produced aluminum casing from 1956 to 1989 using the substance during die casting, which polluted the Town Branch and the Mud River.     I remember taking my son to basketball game in Russellville in 2000, and they had to bring water into the school for people to use, all water fountains were not operable.
• 8/5/2007 Ind. toxic shipment OK'd - Environmentalists fail to sway judge. by AP.
      Indianapolis - A federal judge has denied a request from environmentalists that he block truck shipments of more than a million gallons of nerve agent waste from Indiana to an incinerator in Texas.    VX is a Cold War-era chemical weapon so deadly a drop can kill a human.
• 8/16/2007 Group: Some bibs from China unsafe - Lab tests reveal toxic lead levels by AP.
      San Francisco - Some vinyl baby bibs made in China and sold at Toys "R" Us stores contain lead levels four times above the federal safety limits for lead in paint.    Lead most commonly occurs in vinyl products as a stabilizer or pigment.
• 8/23/2007 New rule to extend mountaintop mining by The New York Times.
      Washington - The Bush administration is set to issue a regulation that would extend the coal mining practice of mountaintop removal -- blasting off the tops of mountains and dumping the rubble into valleys and streams.    It has been used in Kentucky and other Appalachian states for 20 years under a cloud of legal and regulatory confusion.    Its purpose makes it easier for mining companies to dig more coal to meet growing energy demands and reduce dependence on foreign oil.
• 8/30/2007 Weaver Popcorn changes butter-flavor chemical by AP.
      Weaver Popcorn Co., an Indianapolis company that's one of the nation's top microwave popcorn makers, has switched to a new butter flavoring, replacing a chemical diacetyl linked to a lung ailment bronchiolitis obliterans in popcorn-plant workers.
• 8/31/2007 U.S. destroying Soviet nerve-gas shells by AP.
      Shchuchye, Russia - In the wheat fields of western Siberia, the U.S. is building a factory the size of a small town to destroy 2 million Soviet-era artillery shells filled with deadly nerve gas at a cost of $200 million in contracts, part of the total $1 billion that the U.S. is contributing.    This is also to keep Russia's stockpile of nuclear, biological and chemical arsenal from falling into the hands of rogue states and terrorists.
• 8/31/2007 Toys 'R' Us recalls art sets with lead by AP.
      Trenton, N.J. - Toys "R" Us is recalling thousands of art sets made in China because there is too much lead in some of the black watercolor paints, and on the printed ink on the packaging.
• 9/5/2007 More Mattel toys recalled by AP.
      New York - Mattel Inc. announced that it is recalling more than 700,000 Chinese made toys that have too much lead in their paint, such as Barbie accessories, Geo Trax Locomotive Toys, and Big Big World 6-in-1 Bongo Band Toys.
• 9/6/2007 ConAgra to drop chemical used to flavor popcorn by AP.
      Omaha, Neb. - The nation's largest microwave-popcorn maker, ConAgra Foods, said it will change its recipe for its Orville Redenbacher and Act II brands, after a doctor at a leading lung-research hospital said in a letter to federal regulators that consumers, not just factory workers, may be in danger from fumes from the butter flavoring.
• 9/6/2007 B-52 mistakenly carried nuclear warheads across U.S. by AP.
      Washington - An Air Force B-52 bomber carrying six cruise missiles bearing nuclear warheads flew across the central U.S. after the nuclear weapons were mistakenly attached to the airplane's wing.
• 9/7/2007 Virus may be hitting bees by AP.
      Scientific sleuths have a new suspect for an afflicion that has killed off honeybees by the billions; a virus previously unknown in the U.S.    Using a novel genetic technique and old-fashioned statistics they identified Israel acute paralysis virus as the potential culprit in the widespread deaths of worker bees, a phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder.
• 9/8/2007 Ban is being proposed on most plastic shopping bags by AP.
      Paper or biodegradable plastic?    An attempt is being made to ban plastic shopping bags unless they are biodegradable.    The reason is the bags clog storm drains, litter trees, rivers and city lots, harm fish and other wildlife, and increase dependence on foreign oil.    Around 4-5 trillion plastic bags are made every year, and 100 billion are discarded, all destined for landfills.    It would take 40 million trees to produce enough paper bags to replace them.    It takes 40 percent less energy to produce plastic bags compared to paper.
• 9/12/2007 Logan seeks more in PCBs settlement by The Courier-Journal.
      Logan County calls the $10 million settlement extremely low compared to an original penalty of $120 million.    Gov. Ernie Fletcher bartered the deal and county officials were left out of the discussions of the 21-year-old pollution case involving Rockwell International's release of PCBs in Russellville.    Rockwell had already spent about $70 million on cleanup efforts.
• 9/12/2007 China to ban lead paint on toys sent to U.S. by AP.
      Washington - China signed an agreement to prohibit the use of lead paint on toys exported to the U.S. and step up inspections of its exports.
• 9/13/2007 Chemical disposal deadline may shift by The Courier-Journal.
      Washington - All chemical weapons at the Blue Grass Army Depot are to be destroyed by 2017 (6 years) under an amendment approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee, instead of the previous 2023 deadline.    The Senate approved it six days later.
• 9/13/2007 Judge decides in favor of states on emissions by AP.
      Montpelier, Vt. - Vermont and other states scored a victory in the battle to get automakers to comply with rules aimed at reducing global warming.    A federal judge ruled that states can regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from vehicles, rejecting automakers' claims that federal law preempts state rules and that technology can't be developed to meet them.    Starting in 2009, the limits require a 30 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from cars and trucks by 2016, to average 43.7 miles per gallon.
• 9/18/2007 New building to shield Chernobyl reactor by AP.
      Kiev, Ukraine - Ukrainian officials signed a $505 million contract with a French-led consortium for construction of a new shelter for the Chernobyl reactor, the site of the world's worst nuclear accident.    The new shelter will be arch-shaped steel structure 345 feet tall and 490 feet long to enclose the concrete sarcophagus erected hastily after the 1986 accident which has been crumbling and leaking radiation for more than a decade.
• 9/21/2007 Utility accepts record EPA fine by The Courier-Journal.
      Washington - An Eastern Kentucky Power Cooperative utility, Dale Generating Station in Clark County, agreed to pay an $11.4 million penalty, the largest acid rain fine ever imposed by the U.S. EPA for emitting more than 15,000 tons of sulfur dioxide and 4,000 tons of nitrogen oxide between 2000 and 2005.
• 9/23/2007 Nations agree to accelerate plan to phase out gases by AP.
      Toronto - Governments of almost 200 countries agreed to speed the elimination of a major greenhouse gas hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) that depletes ozone and used in home appliances, some refrigerators, hair sprays and air conditioners by 2013.    The Montreal protocol was established in 1987.    Developed countries have agreed to reduce production and consumption by 75 percent by 2010 and by 90 percent by 2015 with final phase out in 2020.    Developing countries have agreed to cut production and consumption by 10 percent by 2015 and by 35 percent by 2020 and by 67.5 percent by 2025 with a final phase out in 2030.    Investments in technology has spurred this pursuit.
• 9/23/2007 New fluorescents have a dark side - Bulbs contain mercury, should'nt be tossed in trash by The Courier-Journal.
      Screwing in a compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulb to save money is easy.    Getting rid of them - safely - is hard.    CFLs was a win-win proposition embraced by politicians, business, the government and consumers as a quick strategy to attack energy-consumption problems, and as a standard by 2012.    Now we find out that they may pose a health hazard due to their mercury content, which may leach out into landfills and the environment.    700 million of them are sold annually, and growing.    No recycling process was set up as of yet in all states.    These bulbs last 8 to 10 times longer than standard bulbs, and contain about 5 milligrams of mercury.    If one of them break it could contaminate your home.
• 9/23/2007 Loggerhead turtle numbers fall; commercial fishing cited by AP.
      Washington - Populations of loggerhead sea turtles are now dropping because of commercial fishing, leading them to be on the threatened endangered species lists.    Most are found and lay their eggs along the beaches of North Carolina to Texas, and the Middle Eastern nation of Oman, where they have been know to grow up to 300 pounds.
• 9/27/2007 Lead content prompts more recalls of toys, jewelry made in China by AP.
      Washington - Toys and children's necklaces totalling 601,000 items made in China were recalled because they contain dangerous amounts of lead.
• 9/30/2007 Under Bush, EPA pursuing fewer polluters by AP.
      Washington - The EPA's pursuit of criminal cases against polluters has dropped off sharply during the Bush administration by a third, compared to previous administrations.
• 10/1/2007 Nutrient runoff a factor as frog deformities rise by AP.
      The growing number of deformed frogs is caused by nitrogen and phosphorus runoff from farming and ranching, resulting in a parasitic infection of tadpoles.    The parasites, called trematodes, have a series of host species.    They grow in snails and become infectious when released by the snails into ponds, thus infecting the frogs.    Water birds eat the frogs and then excrete the parasites back into the ecosystem, where they can infect the snails.    The increasing runoff is fueling a boom in algae growth, which snails eat and increase in population.
• 10/5/2007 A half-million items made in China being recalled - Salmonella found in white chocolate by AP.
      Washington - More than a half-million Chinese-made items were recalled because they contained dangerous amounts of lead.    Kraft Foods recalled white chocolate because of possible salmonella contamination, and Campbell's Soup Co., more than 70,000 cans of chunky baked potato soup that contained pieces of hard plastic that could cause cuts of choking.    Toys "R" Us Inc. recalled several toys because of lead paint.
• 10/9/2007 Activists pan Indiana's new mercury waste reduction plan by AP.
      Indianapolis - Environmentalists say a plan to reduce mercury emissions from Indiana's coal-fired power plants by two-thirds in the next two decades isn't enough.    The state required a cut of 66 percent by 2018 in a state that ranks fourth nationwide in mercury emissions and has already contaminated fish in its waterways.
• 10/12/2007 Toys with lead contamination recalled by AP.
      Washington - More than 90,000 children's products, most imported from China by J.C. Penny Co. Inc., were recalled for containing too much lead.
• 10/12/2007 Pot pies linked to salmonella cases by AP.
      Omaha, Neb. - ConAgra Foods Inc. recalled all its Banquet pot pies after they were linked to nationwide salmonella outbreak of at least 30 people in 31 states, and 165 cases.
• 10/12/2007 Infant cold medicines coming off the shelves by AP.
      Washington - Drugstores began clearing their shelves of over-the-counter cough and cold medicines designed for infants amid rising concerns of a pending FDA hearing that they may cause hallucinations, seizures, high blood pressure and breathing problems.
• 10/15/2007 FDA forging partnership with drug makers by AP.
      Washington - Approved by Congress the FDA is moving to launch a drug research center to be paid for by companies it regulates.    Many fear that the agency will still be vunerable to the industry's clout.
• 10/20/2007 DuPont will appeal $196.2 million verdict by AP.
      Clarksburg, W. Va. - DuPont Co. was ordered to pay $196.2 million in punitive damages for deliberately dumping dangerous heavy metals (arsenic, cadmium and lead) on an industrial site.    DuPont said it will appeal and is disappointed by the outcome because they have tried to do the right thing for the community.
• 10/22/2007 Chinese goods still sell by AP.
      Washington - With all the recalls form Chinese made products, consumers are still purchasing Chinese imports.
• 10/28/2007 Nation's freshwater supplies dwindling - 36 states may face shortages in 5 years by AP.
      West Palm Beach, Fla. - An epic drought in Georgia threatened the water supply for millions.    Florida doesn't have enough water for its expected population boom.    The Great Lakes are shrinking.    Upstate New York's reservoirs have dropped to record lows.    And in the West, the Sierra Nevada snowpack is melting faster each year.
      Around 36 states in the next 5 years will face water shortages because of a combination of rising temperatures, drought, population growth, urban sprawl, waste and excess.    The U.S. used more than 148 trillion gallons of water in 2000 - 500,000 gallons per person.    California, Texas and Florida together use a third of the water use.
• 10/29/2007 Seed vault in Arctic is nearly finished - Safe will secure Earth's future by Los Angeles Times.
      Longyearbyen, Norway - Four hundred feet above the Advent Fjord, the vault is almost complete.    Inside a frozen mountain, workers are building three concrete chambers to withstand global warming, floods and fires, wars and nuclear holocaust.
      This Arctic safe, nicknamed the "doomsday vault," will protect millions of crop seeds on the Svalbard archipelago, the northernmost inhabited spot on Earth.
      If there is a total meltdown of Antarctica and the Arctic the seeds are safe in the $6 million vault a library of life.    No genetically modified seed will be allowed in the vault.
• 10/29/2007 Extinction threatens third of primates by AP.
      Bangkok, Thailand - Almost a third of all primates (114 of 394) are in danger of extinction because of rampant habitat destruction, the commercial sale of their meat and the trade in illegal wildlife.    The situation is worse in Asia, where tropical forest destruction and hunting and trading of monkeys occurs more.
• 10/29/2007 Giants of sea may need protection by The Washington Post.
      Twenty-two varieties of beaked whales roam the seas, feeding on bottom-dwelling squid and small fish.    In recent years these whales have signaled mankind of a problem through their confused behavior and beachings.    The threat comes from very loud noises, especially Navy sonar, which has proved fatal to the whales.    The Navy has conceded that it may be causing the problem but has not limited testing around the whales.    In 2000, 17 whales were stranded after a Navy sonar exercise and 6 whales died.
• 11/4/2007 Army depot cited, faces criminal investigation by AP.
      Richmond, Ky. - The Blue Grass Army Depot was sited four times by the state and sent to EPA criminal investigators for violations of disposal storage issues, untrained employees, coverup of employee exposure and monitoring logs.
• 11/5/2007 U.S. toymakers back in play - Recalls of Chinese items spur demand by AP.
      Hollister, Calif. - U.S. toy makers are ramping up manufacturing operations because of increased orders from 11 countries looking for alternatives to Chinese-made toys following a series of recalls.    About 80 percent of toys sold in the U.S. are made in China.
• 11/8/2007 Toys recalled over 'date rape' drug hazard by AP.
      Washington - Millions of Chinese-made toys for children have been pulled from shelves in North America and Australia after scientists found they contain a chemical that converts into a powerful "date rape" drug when ingested.    Two children in the U.S. and three in Australia were hospitalized after swallowing the beads.    The toy was Spin Master Aqua Dots, and the chemical coating when ingested, metabolizes into the drug gamma hydroxy butyrate, which can induce unconsciousness, seizures, drowsiness, comma and death.    Seven more U.S. children were sickened on November 11th.    Also was another recall of toys which contained lead.
• 11/10/2007 Official accused of putting radioactive waste in river by AP.
      Kinshasa, Congo - A government official in Congo suspected of ordering as much as 17 tons of radioactive waste in the Likasi River in the southeast of the country has been arrested.
• 11/12/2007 2017 deadline set for weapons disposal by AP.
      The Pentagon would have a 10-year deadline to destroy lethal chemical weapons stored in Kentucky's Blue Grass Army Depot, Indiana's Newport Chemical Depot and other states in Colorado, Oregan, Utah, Arkansas and Alabama under a bill approved by Congress.    They believe they can achieve that by the deadline of 2017.
• 11/13/2007 Oil from broken tanker is killing birds and fish by AP.
      Port Kavaz, Russia - More than 30,000 birds and countless fish have been killed in an "ecological catastrophe" wrought by thousands of tons of oil from a tanker that broke apart in a storm near the Black Sea.
• 11/19/2007 Poverty, laxity turn China into global dumping ground for e-waste by AP.
      Guiyu, China - The air smells acrid from the gas burners that sit outside homes, melting wires to recover copper and cooking computer motherboards to release gold.    Migrant workers in filthy clothes smash picture tubes by hand to recover glass and electronic parts, releasing as much as 6.5 pounds of lead dust.
      For five years the danger to Chinese workers who dismantle much of the world's junked electronics which occurs in the town of Guiyu in southeastern China is a growing problem.    China now produces more than 1 million tons of e-waste each year, all of it coming from overseas, a business driven by pure economics.    They do not have safety rules as in the West where disposal cost ten times what it cost to export the waste to developing countries.    They recover gold, silver, copper and other valuable metals while spewing toxic fumes and runoff into the air and rivers.    It is estimated that 70 percent of the 20 million to 50 million tons of electronic waste produced globally ends up in China, with the rest going to India and poor African nations.
      Guiyu employees around 150,000 people.    On a visit there you will soon develop a throbbing headache and metallic taste in the mouth.    The groundwater has long been too polluted for human consumption, with the amount of lead in the river sediment is double the safe amount.    Buisness owners are hostile to outside scrutiny.
• 11/22/2007 Child jewelry made in China contains lead, is recalled by AP.
      Washington - More than half a million pieces of Chinese-made children's jewelry contaminated with lead are being recalled, affecting Family Dollar Stores, Michaels Stores Inc., Big Lots Inc., Cherrydale Fundraising LLC, Colossal Jewelry & Accessories Inc. and La Femme NY 2 Inc.
• 11/27/2007 Dioxin pollution could be worst ever by AP.
      Saginaw, Mich. - Dioxin found at the bottom of the Saginaw River could be the most concentrated contamination 1.6 million parts per trillion of water with this chemical ever discovered in the nation's rivers and lakes, according to a federal scientist involved in cleanup efforts downstream from a Dow Chemical Co. plant.    That is about 20 times as much as any other discovery recorded in the EPA archives.
• 11/28/2007 Depot ex-worker says concerns ignored by AP.
      Lexington, Ky. - A former chemical weapons monitoring operator, Donald Van WInkle, at Blue Grass Army Depot testified that he was fired for raising concerns about safety problems with igloos that house deadly chemical weapons.    He is seeking compensation from the Army for the loss of his job and is suing under federal law that protects whistleblowers from retaliation.
• 11/29/2007 12 states sue EPA over toxic chemicals by AP.
      Albany, N.Y. - Twelve states sued the Bush administration to force greater disclosure of data on toxic chemicals that companies store, use and release into the environment.
• 12/6/2007 Investigators study gas leak at Blue Grass by The Courier-Journal.
      Washington - Officials are investigating what may have been the largest leak ever of deadly nerve agent from chemical weapons stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot near Richmond, Ky.    The leak of GB, also called sarin, was discovered Aug. 27 in a storage igloo at a level nearly 85 times the safe exposure limit for the public.    The Army will bring in a special disposal unit next spring to destroy the agent that leaked over 80 days at a cost of $1.7 million.    The local citizen's are in arms why they had not released more details on the leak until now.
• 12/14/2007 Rubbertown DuPont plant closing is set by The Courier-Journal.
      DuPont Co. will stop producing Neoprene synthetic rubber at its western Louisville plant by March, costing 226 jobs in its shutdown and one of the city's biggest pollution problems.
  
      It is obvious that we have not learned from history in that as the Romans did pollute themselves with lead.    We in this age are still making the same mistake.
  
  The year 2008.
  
  
• 1/3/2008 EPA sued on denial of Calif. air rules by The Washington Post.
      New York - California, joined by 15 other states, sued the U.S. EPA over its refusal to allow California to set its own, tougher vehicle emission stnadards to control greenhouse gases and combat global warming.    Their law would require new vehicles to cut tailpipe emissions by a third by 2016, resulting in a fuel-efficency standard of 36.8 mpg.    In December, President Bush signed an energy bill that would raise the standard nationwide to 35 mpg by 2020, four years later than the California mandate.
• 1/6/2008 Bottle's chemistry a concern by Ben Dobbin, AP.
      Rochester, N.Y. - Some are concerned over a hormone-mimicking chemical, bisphenol A (BPA)., used in poly-carbonate plastic containers, baby bottles, child drinking cups and water bottles.    No one will dispute that the chemical can disrupt the hormonal system, but in dispute is whether very low doses found in food and beverage containers can be harmful.    The U.S. FDA sides with the plastics industry that BPA-based products do not pose a health risk.    It is also found in dental sealants, the liners of food cans, CDs and DVDS, eyeglasses and hundreds of household goods.    Critics point to an influx of animal studies linking low doses to a wide variety of ailments - from breast and prostate cancer, obesity and hyperactivity, and miscarriages and other reproductive failures.
• 1/8/2008 Decision on threat to bears is delayed by AP.
      Anchorage, Alaska - Federal officials said after missing the deadline that they will need a few more weeks to decide whether polar bears need protection under the Endangered Species Act because of global warming.
• 1/18/2008 Massey to pay $20 million to settle with EPA by James Bruggers, The Courier-Journal.
      A Virginia-based mining company, Massey Energy, has agreed to pay a $20 million civil penalty to settle allegations that it polluted hundreds of rivers and streams in Kentucky and West Virgina.    The penalty stems from a 300-million-gallon slurry spill in Martin County, Ky., in October 2000 and 4,500 violations of Clean Water Act in two states.    The agreement also requires them to spend additional $10 million to modernize pollution controls at all its mines.
• 1/21/2008 Parkinsonism, solvent studied by AP.
      Paducah, Ky. - At the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant workers often dipped their hands into 55-gallon drums filled with a solvent wearing no gloves or mask as electricians putting capacitors in used to test electrical insulating oil in the drums of tricholoroethylene, or TCE, for cleaning.    At least 13 of these workers now suffer from Parkinson's disease, a neurological condition that may be connected to exposure to TCE, according to a University of Kentucky study.    Four have died from the disease.    As many as 10,000 people have worked at the plant since it opened in 1952, with 3,000 screened workers already screened, that can be reviewed for a possible link.    The electricians were using the chemical to wash their hands, and also would take that home with them.    The plant stopped using TCE in the early 1990s, and investigations found ground water concentrations of TCE beneath the building were 20,000 times greater than the standards for drinking water.
• 1/27/2008 Grocery trends: Plastic bags are geting the sack by Stephen Manning, AP.
      Washington - Some states are pushing to limit use of plastic bags, encouraging consumers to recycle bags or bring their own, which may affect a billion-dollar industry, who oppose the bans.    Environmentalists claim they get tangled in tree branches, waterways, and in general litter.
• 1/28/2008 Study links lead, mental decline by Malcolm Ritter, AP.
      New York - Could it be that the natural mental decline that afflicts many older people is related to how much lead they absorbed decades before?    A new study is suggesting that exposure to pollutants in early life also may promote disease much later on.    EPA said infant mice exposed to chemicals like PCBs show very subtle effects in young adulthood, but have shown harm in movement and learning when they reach old age.    Studying for lead is easy because scientists can measure the amount that has accumulated in the shinbone over decades, and lead in the blood reflects recent exposure.    Lead in gasoline was phased out from 1976 to 1991, but the long term effects of the high-lead era are still being felt.    Their study came from 1,000 Baltimore residents between ages 50-70, with mentalability test, and determined that the lead exposure affected their mental function equivalent of aging by two to six years.
• 2/4/2008 Kentucky, Indiana blamed for polluting Gulf waters by James Bruggers, The courier-Journal.
      The Massachusetts-size "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico that's threatening a $6 billion fishing industry there - and Kentucky and Indiana are getting some of the blame.    The culprit is excess nitrogen and phosphorous in the Gulf, from sources such as farms, sewage treatment plants and power-plant emissions, which sets off rampant algae growth, which then dies and sinks to the bottom, and consumes oxygen, creating a condition called hypoxia that suffocates fish and other aquatic life.    The same issue affected waters in Kentucky and Indiana, and 9 states contributed more than 75 percent of the chemicals to the Gulf.
• 2/7/2008 3 companies charged in pet-food deaths by David Twiddy, AP.
      Kansas City, Mo. - Two Chinese businesses and a U.S. company were indicted on felony counts in the tainted pet-food incidents that may have killed thousands of animals last year and raised worries about products made in China.    The indictments allege that the export broker, mislabeled 800 metric tons of tainted wheat gluten to avoid inspection in China, then did not properly declare the product it shipped to the U.S. as a food ingredient.    The companies then picked up the melamine-tainted product at a port of entry in Kansas City, then sold it to makers of various brands of pet foods.
• 2/9/2008 Court rejects EPA rules on power plants by David A. Fahrenthold and Steven Mufson, Washington Post.
      Washington - A federal appeals court threw out the EPAs approach to limiting mercury emitted from power-plant smokestacks, saying the agency twisted logic and ignored laws when it imposed new standards that were favorable to plant owners.    Thus another judicial rejection of the Bush administration's pollution policies and for refusing to regulate greenhouse gases and ignoring the text of the law.    A win for the environmentalists, as coal-fired power plants are responsible for about a third of the country's total mercury emissions, and the EPA had removed the program that would have reduced mercury emissions by 70 percent, requiring all plants be outfitted with the best available technology to cut emissions.
• 2/17/2008 EPA pressured states over mercury limits by H. Josef Hebert, AP.
      Washington - While arguing in court that states are free to enact tougher mercury controls from power plants, the Bush administration pressured dozens of states to accept a plan that would let some plants evade cleaning up their pollution.    The Nation Academy of Sciences estimates that 60,000 newborns a year could be at risk of learning disabilities because of mercury, a neurotoxin linked to learning disabilities.    The EPA was very aggressive in pressing states to abandon a more protective mercury program, and hassled states that tried to interfere with the federal program.
• 2/18/2008 Indiana's new way of compiling polluted waterway list criticized by Rick Callahan, AP.
      Indianapolis - A shift in how Indiana compiles a federally mandated list of its polluted waterways has removed about 800 stretches of rivers and streams from the list, leaving environmentalists worried that it could hamper watershed restoration efforts.    Officials said they produced a more accurate picture allowing them to focus on cleaning up those most tainted with mercury, PCBs and other contaminants in the tissue of fish caught in those waters.    Environmentalists claim they did that because they do not have data on whether they are polluted or not.    The EPA uses this list to allocated funding, and the de-listing could make the public think some rivers and streams are getting cleaner.
• 2/21/2008 Killer cosmetics? Your lipstick could be toxic by Suzanne D'Amato, The Washington Post.
      Lipstick tainted with lead, mascara that contains mercury, a hairstraighteening treatment that slicks your tresses with protein .. and formaldehyde?    Testing of 33 lipsticks found that 61 percent had detectable amount of lead, and several exceeded the FDA's lead limit.    Traditionally mercury was added to mascara as a perservative, but it is rare in cosmetics these days.    When it exists, its generally in cake mascaras rather than wand versions, and listed as thimersol.    The FDA allows mercury in eye-area cosmetics if no other effective perservative is available.    The Keratin treatment, BKT, as it's known, is a hair-straightening process that contains formaldehyde, a carcinogen.
• 2/22/2008 Staff shortages imperil meat supply by AP.
      Los Angeles - Government inspection crews responsible for examining slaughterhouse cattle for mad cow disease and other ills are so short-staffed they find themselves peering down from catwalks at hundreds of animals at once, looking for signs of bovine illness.    Plus the workers often know when the visits take place and make sure they are on their best behavior.    In the wake of the biggest beef recall in history - 143 million pounds from a California meatpacker due to staff shortages got through into the nation's food supply.    A third of the 143 million pounds went to school lunch programs, and 20 million pounds consumed.
• 3/1/2008 EPA defends rejecting California law by AP.
      Washington - The EPA justified blocking California from cracking down on auto emissions by saying global warming isn't unique to the state, and California did not have the "compelling and extraordinary conditions" required for a waiver under the Clean Air Act.    Critics argued that no other state has its combination of wildfire risks, high smog levels, rising sea level and water shortages.    The EPA director wants a single national solution to address energy security, tailpipe emissions and global climate change.    Twelve other states - Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington - had adopted California's tailpipe standards.
• 3/3/2008 Appeals court upholds sonar ban by AP.
      Los Angeles - The Navy must abide by limits (12 nautical miles) on its sonar training off the Southern California coast and in Hawaii to prevent harm to dozens of species of whales and dolphins, a federal court has ruled.    The Navy is required to limit the decibel levels of its sonar and definitely when a marine mammal is detected within 2,200 yards of a sonar source.
• 3/7/2008 Importer of toxic toothpaste charged by AP.
      Los Angeles - Criminal charges have been files against a company and wholesaler that prosecutors say imported and distributed nearly 90,000 tubes of Chinese toothpaste caontaining a poisonous substance diethylene glycol to distributors nationwide between December 2005 and May 2007.    This chemical is used in antifreeze and as a solvent, Chinese manufacturers have used it as a cheaper alternative to glycerin, which thickens toothpaste, and can cause kidney and liver damage.
• 3/10/2008 Drug traces found in U.S. water supply by AP.
      Trace amounts of pharmaceutical drugs are lurking in our drinking water, including one used to treat people with bipolar disorder and alcohol withdrawal, and another prescribed to combat seizures, and of course caffeine found in 24 major metropolitan area serving at least 45 million people.    There is little known about how those drugs might be affecting people or the environment, or are there any national standards for pharaceutical chemicals in the water supply.    One test found 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water, including sex hormones, medicines for pain, infection, high cholestorol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems.    Just last year the EPA developed three new methods to detect and quantify pharmaceuticals in wastewater.
• 3/10/2008 Mysterious bat deaths by Michael Hill, AP.
      Rosendale, N.Y. - Bats in New York and Vermont are mysteriously dying off by the thousands, often with a white ring of fungus around their noses, and scientists in hazardous-materials suits are crawling into caves to find out why.    The "white nose syndrome," is spreading at an alarming rate for bats, which could have economic implications, because they feed on insects that can damage dozens of crops, including wheat and apples.    The syndrome fungus which has never been seen before has spread from a cluster of four caves last winter to more than a dozen caverns up to 130 miles away, and affecting 200,000 bats.    Scientists will have to find if it is from a bacteria, virus, toxin or other environmental factor.    Afflicted bats are burning through their winter stores of fat before hibernation ends in the spring, and appear to be starving.
• 3/13/2008 EPA tightens standard for ozone by James Bruggers, The Courier-Journal.
      The U.S. EPA tightened the nation's air quality standard for ozone, making many states and counties out of compliance.    The standard is now set at 75 parts per billion measured over eight hours.
• 3/26/2008 Toxic spill into Ohio River nets convictions for 3 men, employer by AP.
      Owensboro, Ky. - A Louisiana barge company, Canal Barge Co., and three of its workers have been convicted by a federal jury of spilling a cancer-causing chemical into the Ohio River and not notifying the Coast Guard.    The barge began leaking benzene on June 16, 2005, in Henderson County, then they concealed the leak, patched it and passed the barge to another barge company for transit without letting them know about the leak.    Four days later, the patch gave way, causing another leak and prompting those on the vessel to seek medical attention.    Benzene is used to make products such as plastics and detergents, and breathing the chemical can cause drowsiness, dizziness and other ailments.
• 4/2/2008 Hundreds of alligators slaughtered by AP.
      Sao Paulo, Brazil - Hunters invaded an environmental 2.5 million-acre Piagacu-purus reserve in northern Brazil and slaughtered more than 700 alligators for their meat, officials said.    Environmental agents discovered 8 tons of alligator meat on several barges during a routine investigation of illegal logging activities.    Apparently the hunters dumped the skins of the slaughtered animals into rivers.
• 4/2/2008 Pet-food maker reaches settlement in numerous deaths by AP.
      Mount Laurel, N.J. - A pet-food maker whose contaminated product may have led to the death of thousands of dogs and cats in North America has agreed to settle lawsuits with pet owners in the U.S. and Canada for an undisclosed amount.    The company lost $53.8 million during its recall of its products.    In March 2007, Menu Foods Income Fund recalled tens of millions of containers when it was discovered that some contained aminopterin, a chemical that has been used to induce abortions, treat cancer and kill rats.    The U.S. FDA later rejected that finding but found melamine, a chemical used to make plastics in its products, which was traced to contaminated wheat gluten from China.
• 4/6/2008 Mineral in North Dakota gravel may be health risk by James MacPherson, AP.
      Killdeer, N.D. - The ballpark in this western North Dakota city is covered with crushed gravel containg erionite, a mineral found in the chalky white rock mined from the nearby Killdeer Mountains.    The rock, used for decades on everything from gravel roads to flower beds, contains fibers that can collect in the lungs of people who breathe it, health officials said.    An EPA coordinator, said studies have shown that erionite causes cancer in lab rats, though the mineral is not regulated by his agency.
      In the nation of Turkey, erionite that was sodium-based has been linked to mesothelioma, an incurable form of lung cancer commonly associated with abestos exposure, but the erionite in Killdeer is more calcium-based.
• 4/16/2008 Concerns over BPA plastic are growing by Matthew Perrone, AP.
      Washington - A chemical used to make baby bottles and other shatterproof plastic containers could be linked to a range of hormonal problems.    The federal National Toxicology Program said that experiments on rats found precancerous prostate tumors, urinary-system problems and early puberty when the animals were fed or injected with low doses of the plastic chemical bisphenol a (BPA).    So the possible effects on humans cannot be dismissed, and most Americans are exposed to trace amounts of BPA, which leaches out of water bottles and other items made with it.
• 4/19/2008 Kentucky among states eyed in supplement probe by AP.
      Atlanta - CDC officials are investigating more than 180 reports of illness in people in 10 states, including Kentucky, who took dietary supplements with toxic levels of the mineral selenium, a mineral considered healthful in small amounts.    The manufacturer recalled the product March 27, but many people are still taking it.
• 4/24/2008 EPA scientists tell of political pressure by AP.
      Hundreds of Environmental Protection Agency scientists say they have been pressured by superiors to skew their findings, according to a survey released by an advocacy group.    The Union of Concerned scientists said more than half of the nearly 1,600 EPA staff scientists who responded online to a detailed questionaire reported they had experienced incidents of political interference.
• 4/30/2008 Polar-bear decision due by AP.
      A federal judge in California has ordered the Bush administration to decide by May 15 whether the polar bear deserves protection under the Endangered Species Act, which would force them to acknowledge whether climate change is pushing polar bears toward extinction.
• 5/2/2008 EPA seeks to tighten airborne-lead standard by AP.
      Washington - The EPA proposed a major tightening of the health standard for airborne lead, saying the current rules do not adequately protect the health of the public, especially children, which has not changed for 30 years.    The proposal, which would cut the allowable concentration of airborne lead by up to 93 percent, is expected to be made final by mid-September.
• 5/22/2008 Bodies of 38 whales wash up on beach by AP.
      Dakar, Senegal - The bodies of at least 38 whales have washed up on a Dakar beach, and wildlife officals said as many as 100 swam up close to the shore.
• 5/25/2008 Quake buried radiation sources by William Foreman, AP.
      Pengzhou, China - Emergency crews worked to secure 15 sources of radiation buried in the rubble of China's devastating earthquake, as the government evacuated survivors downstream from rivers dammed by landslides.    China faces a daunting challenge to prevent environmental contamination from other sources, as officals claimed there had been no leak of radioactive subtances into the environment.    China's vice minister said 50 sources of radiation were buried by debris from the May 12 earthquake, and 35 of which had been secured.    The rest are buried and unreachable under collapsed buildings.    The total death toll from the earthquake rose to 55,740, and 24,960 others remained missing.
• 5/27/2008 Next generation of bug repellants in development by Randolph E. Schmid, AP.
      Washington - Researchers funded by the Defense Department have identified seven possibilites for the next generation of mosquito repellant, some of which may work several times longer than the current standard-bearer, DEET.    The next step is testing them for safety, before becoming commercially available in a couple of years.    Preliminary test on cloth was promising and repelled the bugs for as long as 73 days and many working for 40 to 50 days, compared to an average of 17.5 days with DEET.
• 5/28/2008 Fungus imperils wheat crops by Jim Drinkard, AP.
      St. Paul, Minn. - A federal scientist whose main mission is protecting the $17 billion-a-year U.S. wheat crop from annihilation from a devastating new plant disease is getting his budget cut because of Congress' pet projects.    They have watched in alarm as mutant spores carried by the wind have spread a new strain of fungus from Africa across the Red Sea to infect wheat fields in Yemen and Iran, following a path heading toward South Asia.    Wheat provides 20 percent of the calories for the world's population, and this threat of an epidemic only adds to a global food crisis brought on by drought, floods, high food and fuel prices, and a surge in demand.    This disease is evolving and infecting even wheat strains that had been thought to be resistant.    It takes 10 years to develop a new wheat variety to incorporate new resistant genes, which we may already be too late.
• 6/6/2008 Panel urges early removal of BP refinery pollutants by Tom Coyne, AP.
      Merrillville, Ind. - Removing ammonia and other pollutants from waste water before it reaches the treatment plant at BP PLC's oil refinery in Whiting is likely the best option for keeping pollution from Lake Michigan, scientists said.    BP is spending $3.8 billion so the refinery can increase production of motor fuels by about 15 percent, and they are looking at technologies using membranes to remove solids, salt, and ammonia.
• 6/7/2008 Russia: China chemical leak not a threat by AP.
      Beijing - A chemical leak in China's northeast killed 3 people, 8 were sickened, but the accident was contained and did not pose an environmental threat, Russian authorities said.    This was a phosgene gas leak, from a canister that was dismantled at a plant in Qiqihaer, about 250 miles along the Songhua River from the Russian border, and all the canisters were quickly destroyed.    Phosgene is a colorless volatile liquid that is highly poisonous, used as poison gas, in organic synthesis and in making dyes.
• 6/9/2008 Nanotubes pose same danger as asbestos by AP.
      Microscopic, high-tech "nanotubes" that are being made for use in a variety of consumer products cause the same kind of damage in the body that asbestos does, according to a study in mice.    Within days of being injected into mice, the long nanotubes triggered a kind of cellular reaction that over a period of years typically leads to mesothelioma, a fatal cancer.    This resulted in a new safety warnings and precautions when handling the material in specific cases.    Companies around the world have begun to churn out thousands of tons of nanomaterials per year, which is showing promise in medical diagnosis.    Nanotubes alone are expected to be a $2 billion industry within a few years.
• 6/15/2008 Companies get OK to harm polar bears by Dina Cappiello, AP.
      Washington - Less than a month after declaring polar bears a threatened species because of global warming the Bush administration is giving oil companies permission to annoy and potentially harm them in the pursuit of oil and natural gas.    This occuring in the Chukchi Sea off the northwestern coast of Alaska.    Even Pacific walruses are included in the issue of their activities over the next five years.    Environmentalists said the new regulations give oil companies a blank check to harass the polar bear.    About 2,000 of the 25,000 polar bears in the Arctic live in or around the Chukchi Sea, where the government in February auctioned off oil leases to seven oil companies for $2.6 billion before the bear was classified as threatened.    The oil companies have been doing this kind of exploration for 15 years and have not been a threat to the species yet.    The real threat is the ice melting and their habitat going away that is the problem.    Polar bears are already protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which is more stringent than the Endangered Species Act.    As you might know this was the government's way of not having to acknowledge global warming and regulate it due to polar bears.
• 6/21/2008 Flooding could broaden Gulf's 'deadzone' by Seth Borenstein, AP.
      Washington - Floodwaters loaded with farm runoff are heading down the Mississippi River, and scientists fear the deluge will increase this summer's dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, covering an area the size of Maryland.    It may grow bigger than 10,000 square miles before it is over, and they are just starting to study how the increasing size is affecting fish.    Last year it was only 7,900 square miles.    The jump in corn production triggered heightened demand for ethanol fuel which could worsen the dead zone because of the increased use of fertilizers.
• 6/25/2008 Lead-extraction jobs linked to death of kids by AP.
      Dakar, Senegal - A cottage industry that employed people, including many mothers, to extract poisonous lead from used car batteries for resale has been blamed for the deaths of 18 children in a Senegalese fishing town.    The WHO pressed for quick action to decontaminate the town of Thiaroye sur Mer.
• 6/27/2008 Honeybee loss threatens food by Stephanie S. Garlow, AP.
      Washington - Food prices could rise even more unless the mysterious decline in honeybees is solved, farmers and businessmen told lawmakers.    Some growers had to cut their growing acreage in half because of the lack of bees available to rent.    About three-quarters of flowering plants rely on birds, bees and other pollinators to help them reproduce.    Bee pollination is responsible for $15 billion annually in crop value.    In 2006, beekeepers began reporting losing 30 to 90 percent of their hives to a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder.    Some explantions include pesticides: a new parasite or pathogen; and the combination of immune-suppressing stresses such as poor nutrition, limited or contaminate water supplies and the need to move bees long distances for pollination.    Food prices have gone up 83 percent in three years, and if the trend continues there is no way our nation's farmers can continue to grow the high-quality, nutritious foods our county relies on.    The House approved $780,000 for research on the disorder and $10 million for bee research, Congress must now approve it.
• 7/7/2008 Potential cancer risk from cell-phone use is still a matter for study, experts say by Shari Roan, Los Angeles Times.
      Drivers who use hands-free cellular devices may be doing themselves a favor.    Scientists are not certain that placing a cell phone against the head is completely safe, in that the phones' emit radiation called non-ionizing radio frequency, a form of energy at the high end of the spectrum which is like that from an X-ray machine and may have a risk of developing brain cancer.    No reason to panic just yet since no link has been found.
• 7/7/2008 Rising acidity puts Pacific Coast shellfish in peril by Dan Catchpole, AP.
      Seattle - Scientists are warning that the Pacific Coast's increasing acidity could disrupt food chains and threaten the Pacific Northwest's shellfish industry.    The increasingly corrosive water threatens the survival of many organisms, and is appearing along the coast decades earlier than expected, moving closer to shallow waters containing the bulk of marine life.    The acidified water does not pose a threat to humans, but could dissolve calcium carbonate of the shells of snails, clams, oysters, corals and other shellfish.    In time this would not only wipe out the shellfish industry but potentially the entire marine food chain.
• 7/18/2008 Lawsuit claims the U.S. violating Clean Water Act by AP.
      West Palm Beach, Fla. - Five environmental groups sued the U.S. EPA claiming the federal government is violating the Clean Water Act by failing to set standards for farm and urban runoff that is polluting Florida's waterways.    Their hope is the ruling would force the EPA to set standards for every state.
• 7/21/2008 Fish virus threatens Midwest by Kari Lydersen, the Washington Post.
      Chicago - a deadly fish virus has been found for the first time in southern Lake Michigan and an island Ohio reservoir, spurring fears of major fish kills and the virus' possible migration to the Mississippi River.    Illinois prompted emergency fishing regulations to stop the spread of viral hemorrhagic septicemia (VHS), often described as "fish Ebola," found in round gobies and rock bass in the Wisconsin border, then Milwaukee, and Ohio all outside the Great Lakes basin.    In 2005 and 2006, VHS caused major fish kills in Lake Ontario, Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair, then Lake Michigan.    So now there is concerns that it may get into the Mississippi River and carried to other rivers and hatcheries along its way.
• 7/30/2008 Congress agrees to ban toxic chemicals in toys by Lyndsey Layton, The Washington Post.
      Washington - Parents and health experts who have been urging the government to require removal of harmful chemicals from toys might get their wish.    Congressional negotiators have agreed to a ban on a family of toxins found in children's products, which would take effect in six months.    Children have been ingesting these toxins by simply chewing on a rubber duck, from the chemicals used in plastic that act as hormones and cause reproductive problems.    The chemical industry will no longer be able to fend off federal regulation, which bans three types of phthalates from children's toys and products.    Phthalates make plastics softer and more durable and are added to perfumes, lotions, shampoo and other items.
• 8/11/2008 Calif. considers ban on chemical by Samantha Young, AP.
      Sacramento, Calif. - California lawmakers are considering enacting the first statewide restrictions on a chemical found in plastic baby bottles and infant formula cans.    The bill would require all products or food containers for children 3 years old and younger contain only trace amounts of bisphenol A.    Animal studies have given concern the chemical can cause changes in behavior and the brain.
• 8/12/2008 Humpback whale back from near extinction by AP.
      Geneva - The humpback whale nearly hunted into history four decades ago, is no longer at a high risk of extinction, an environmental group said.    The population had dropped to the low thousands when it was banned from commercial hunts in 1966, and its numbers have since risen to at least 60,000.
• 8/15/2008 Ocean dead zones expanding by Randolph Schmid, AP.
      Washington - Like a chronic disease spreading through the body, "dead zones" are expanding in the world's oceans.    Hypoxia is not a local problem, it is global problem of such magnitude that it is affecting the resources we get from the sea.    There are now more than 400 dead zones around the world, double what the U.N. reported just two years ago.    We could end up with no crabs, no shrimp, no fish unless we stop their growth.    The newest dead area are being found in South America, Africa, parts of Asia.
• 8/16/2008 FDA says disputed chemical in plastics is safe by Matthew Perrone, AP.
      Washington - Federal regulators said the chemical used in canned food, baby bottles and other items isn't dangerous, eventhough trace amounts of bisphenol A leach out of those products.    The plastic-hardening chemical, similar to the hormone estrogen, is used to seal canned food and make shatterproof bottles, sunglasses to CDs.    The FDA is siding with the chemical industry based on industry-funded studies instead of the studies funded by the National Institutes of Health.    About 93 percent of Americans have traces of bisphenol in their urine, according to the CDC.
• 8/20/2008 Arsenic in water may link to diabetes by Carla K. Johnson, AP.
      Chicago - A new analysis of government data is the first to link low-level arsenic exposure, possibly from drinking water, with Type 2 diabetes, researchers say.    New drinking water standards may be needed if the findings are duplicated in future studies, which is preventable.    Arsenic can get into drinking water naturally when minerals dissolve, or by industrial pollutant from coal burning and copper smelting.    Utilities use filtration systems to get it out of drinking water.
• 8/31/2008 Oil group sues over polar bear protection by AP.
      Chicago - The American Petroleum Institute and four other business groups have filed suit against Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and the U.S. fish and Wildlife service Director, joining Alaska Gov. sarah Palin's administration in trying to reverse the listing of the polar bear as a threatened species.
• 9/12/2008 State officials issue new warning on eating fish by AP.
      Somerset, Ky. - High levels of mercury in some popular fish caught in Lake Cumberland have prompted a new warning from state health officials.    Kentucky is on of at least 21 states that have advisories
• 9/12/2008 Tests indicate more cities have problem water by Martha Mendoza, AP.
      Testing for trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in drinking water supplies now show that at least 46 million Americans have been affected.
• 9/12/2008 FDA warns of tainted Chinese infant formula by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, AP.
      Washington - Tainted infant formula from China may be on sale at ethnic groceries in this country, and the FDA are urging consumers to avoid all infant formula from China, which may have melamine.
• 9/20/2008 China's dairy safety crisis grows by Gillian Wong, AP.
      Shijiazhuang, China - China's food safety crisis widened after the industrial chemical melamine was found in milk produced by three of the country's leading dairies.    The recalls come as evidence is mounting that adding chemicals to watered-down milk was a widespread practice in China.    The tainted milk has been blamed in the deaths of four infants and for sickenening 6,200 others, which can lead to kidney failure.
• 9/21/2008 China cleaning up tainted milk crisis by AP.
      Beijing - China's leaders scrambled to contain public dismay over widespread contamination of milk supplies, recalled from 22 companies in one of the worst product safety scandals in years.
• 9/22/2008 Freshwater Peril by Seth Borenstein, AP.
      Washington - About four out of 10 freshwater fish species in north America are in peril, according to scientists.    The number of subspecies of fish population in trouble has nearly doubled since 1989, in a silent extinction, caused by people from pollution and damming.    Over 700 fish populations are vulnerable, and 457 entire species are in trouble or already extinct, another 86 species are OK as a whole.
• 9/23/2008 Chinese official quits over milk by AP.
      Beijing - The head of the Chinese agency that monitors food and product safety has resigned, pushed out by a scandal over tainted baby formula that killed four babies and sickened nearly 53,000.    Authorities also found that China's biggest producer of powdered milk had known for months that its baby formula was tainted with melamine, due to complaints as early as December.    Nine countries banned imports of Chinese dairy products and the WHO warned of possible smuggling of melamine tainted infant formula across borders.
• 9/25/2008 House votes to end offshore drilling ban by AP.
      Washington - The House voted to end a quarter-century ban on oil and natural gas drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, giving Republicans a major victory on energy policy.    It now goes to the Senate, likely to be approved.    Coastal states long have worried that offshore drilling might cause spills, soil beaches and threaten tourism, in giving them access to an estimated 18 billion barrels of oil to become energy independent.
• 9/25/2008 Tainted supplies found in Chinese exports by AP.
      Beijing - Melamine has been found in numerous Chinese-made exports - from candies to yogart to rice balls.    The EU banned imports of baby food.
• 9/26/2008 Nuclear trash is piling up by Seanna Adcox, AP.
      Barnwell, S.C. - Tubes, capsules and pellets of used radioactive material are piling up in the basements and locked closets of hospitals and research installations around the country.    A South Carolina law that took effect July 1 ended nearly all disposal of radioactive material at the landfill, leaving 36 states with no place to throw out some of the stuff.    So labs, universities, hospitals and manufacturers are storing more of it on their own property, in urban locations.    State and federal authorities say the waste is being monitored, but only once every five years, but already thousands of these small radioactive items have already 4,363 sources have been lost, and offered up on eBay, flea markets, sent to landfills, or metal-recycling plants, where they should not be.    Some items are industrial gauges that use radioactive material, another one has tiny capsules of radioactive cesium isotopes implanted to kill cancerous cells; cobalt-60 pellets that power helmet-like machines used to focus radioactive beams on diseased brain tissue; and cobalt and powered cesium inside irradiation machines that sterilize medical equipment and blood.
• 10/1/2008 48 species proposed for endangered list by AP.
      Honolulu - The federal government allowed an all-at-once addition of 48 species, including 45 plants, two birds and a fly, that only lives on a Hawaiian island to the endangered species list.    They would only designate about 43 square miles as critical habitat for all the species than considering each.
• 10/2/2008 Melamine found in candy imported from China by AP.
      Hartford, Conn. - A test on White Rabbit Creamy Candy imported from China found melamine.
• 10/15/2008 Study: Bottled water tainted, too by Jeff Donn, AP.
      Tests on leading brands of bottled water turned up a variety of contaminants, including cancer-linked chemicals three times higher than California's health standard, according to an environmental advocacy group.    So bottle water may not be purer than tap water, although all the brands met federal standards for drinking water and most of the contaminants are common in tap water, too.    Lab tests detected 38 chemicals in 10 brands, with an average of eight contaminants found in each kind.    Tests showed coliform bacteria, caffeine, the pain reliever acetaminophen, fertilizer, solvents, plastic-making chemicals and the radioactive element strontium.    Arsenic and the solvent touluene have been found in some, probably from leaching from the plastic bottles, some had chlorine byproducts, known as trihalomethanes, which links to cancer; another one is bromodichlormethane.    The environmental group just wants the labels to report the amounts of such contaminants in their products.
• 10/17/2008 EPA tightens standard for airborne lead by 90% by Dina Cappiello, AP.
      Washington - The EPA after three decades is finally taking steps to reduce pollution by slashing the amount of the toxic metal that will be allowed in the air by 90 percent, just before presidental elections, and under a federal court order to set a new standard.    The new limit - 0.15 micrograms per cubic meter, compared to the old at 1.5 micrograms, which puts 18 counties in 12 states in violation of the standard.
• 10/18/2008 Chinese sweets shown to contain melamine by AP.
      Panama City, Panama - Panama says Chinese cookies and candy pulled from the stores have tested positive for melamine.    Dozens of Panamanians died last year after taking tainted, Chinese-made medicine.
• 10/19/2008 Canada: Bisphenol A is a toxic substance by AP.
      Toronto - Canada will be the first to declare a chemical Bisphenol A used in food packaging a toxic chemical and will now move to ban plastic baby bottles containing it.
• 10/19/2008 Fish deaths blamed on power plants by Jim Fitzgerald, AP.
      Buchanan, N.Y. - Fish who drift a little too close to a power plant can mean a quick and turbulent death, sucked in by the cooling systems.    Environmentalists say the nation's power plants are needlessly killing fish and fish eggs with their cooling systems, which opponents disagree.    The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on a lawsuit related to this matter, with more than 1,000 power plants and factories around the country use water from rivers, lakes, oceans and creeks as a coolant.    The technology exists to reduce the fish kill by 90 percent in recycling the water than continuosly pumping it in, but at a huge cost.    It takes thousands of fish eggs to result in one adult fish.
• 10/20/2008 Change could revolutionize how we light our lives by Peter Svensson, AP.
      Niskayuna, N.Y. - An industry on the Mohawk River hides something that could make floor lamps, bedside lamps, wall sconces and every other household lamp obsolete.    It's a machine made by General Electric Co., that prints lights, the size of a truck trailer, it coats an 8-inch-wide plastic film with chemicals, then seals them with a layer of metal foil.    Apply electric current to the sheet, and it lights up with a blue-white glow.    The sheet could be tacked to a wall, wrapped around a pillar, or a translucent version could be taped to your windows, but still require to be plugged into an outlet.    The sheets owe their luminance to compounds known as organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs.    The technology is beginning to be used in televisions and cell-phone displays, and looked at as a lighting source.    The goal is to make larger machine to print panels, and make it commercially available by 2010, at a cost of less than a dollar per square foot, and lighting sales of $5.9 billion by 2015.    What were the chemicals used on the sheets?    Are you listening EPA?
• 10/29/2008 China pulls tainted egss in new food scare by AP.
      Beijing - Wal-Mart pulled the "Select" brand of eggs from all its stores in China after tests in Hong Kong found they were tainted with melamine.
• 11/13/2008 Public interest trumps wildlife, Roberts says in majority opinion by Pete Yost, AP.
      Washington - The Supreme Court ruled that military training trumps protecting whales in a dispute over the Navy's use of sonar in exercises off southern California.    The Cheif Justice claimed forcing the Navy to deploy an inadequately trained anti-submarine forces jeopardizes the safety of the fleet, and and overall public interest tips strongly in favor of the Navy.    So the Bush administration shows its muscle at the Whales demise.
• 11/21/2008 Kentucky plans own rules on mercury emissions by James Bruggers, the Courier-Journal.
      Kentucky enviromental regulators intend to press for the states's first rules designed to curb mercury emissions.    They decided they cannot wiat for the EPA to adopt new rules after the agency threw out the standards, which could take 10 years, where the state could do it by the middle of next year.
• 11/26/2008 Formula's melamine levels safe, U.S. says by Martha Mendoza and Justin Pritchard, AP.
      Traces of the industrial chemical melamine have been detected in samples of top-selling U.S. infant formula, but federal regulators insist the products are safe.    The FDA said last month it was unable to identify any melamine exposure as safe for infants, but a top official said it would be a "dangerous over-reaction" for parents to stop feeding formula to babies who depend on it.    The levels they detected are extremely low, the FDA said, as compared to the Chinese infant formula which had larger concentrations.    Not only did the FDA detect the presence of melamine, but also cyanuric acid, a chemical relative of melamine in some formulas in the companies that manufacture 90 percent of formula for the U.S.
• 11/29/2008 Safety threshold set for melamine by FDA by AP.
      Washington - Federal regulators set a safety threshold for the industrial chemical melamine that is greater than the amount of contamination found so far in U.S.-made infant formula.    The FDA officials set a threshold of 1 part per million of melamine in formula so long as a related chemical isn't also present.    Studies so far show dangerous health effects only when both chemicals (cyanuric acid) are present.
• 12/3/2008 U.S. backs power plants over fish by AP.
      Washington - The Bush administration asked the Supreme Court to let the nation's older power plants draw in billions of gallons of water for cooling without installing technology that would best protect fish.    Lawyers for the government and electricity producers urged the justices to overturn a lower court ruling that says the Clean Water Act does not let the government pit the cost of upgrading power plants against the benefits of protecting fish and aquatic organisms when limiting water use.
• 12/8/2008 Oceans acidity threatens some sea life by Dan Hogan, Science News Daily.
      Scientists have documented that the ocean is growing more acidic faster than previously had been thought.    Also found is that the increasing acidity correlates with increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.    The increasing acidic water harms certain sea animals and could reduce the ocean's ability to absorb carbon dioxide.    The acidity increased more than 10 times faster than had been predicted by climate change models.    When atmospheric carbon dioxide dissolves in water, it forms carbonic acid, increasing the acidity of that water.    Photosynthesis removes some of it during the day, but at night it increases again.    Nothing has been done to change this, they just want to study the pH balance to understand the effect on the marine life.
• 12/11/2008 Bush ends effort to ease coal pollution rules by Dina Cappiello, AP.
      Washington - Six weeks before leaving office, the Bush administration is giving up on an effort to ease restrictions on pollution from coal-burning power plants, one that put him at odds with environmentalists his entire eight years in the White House.    President George W. Bush had hoped to make both changes to air-pollution regulations, but the EPA did not have time to complete the rules changes, undermined by federal court decisions.    Now the Obama administration must grapple over this issue.
• 12/14/2008 Study: Strong link between hormone use, breast cancer by Marilynn Marchione, AP.
      San Antonio - Taking menopause hormones for five years doubles the risk for breast cancer, according to a new analysis of a big federal study that reveals the most dramatic evidence yet of the dangers of these still-popular pills.    Even women who took estrogen and progestin pills for as little as a couple of years had a greater chance of getting cancer.    So the risks outweigh the benefits for most women, and breast cancer rates plunged in recent years nmainly because millions of women quit hormone therapy and fewer newly menopausal women started on it.    In 2002 researchers saw higher risks of heart problems and breast cancer in hormone users.    The risk acculates with each year of use, and decreases the same way.   
• 12/27/2008 Toxicity, slurry pond safety are questioned by James Bruggers, The Courier-Journal.
      The fallout from this week's giant coal-ash slurry spill is reaching far beyond the blackened Tennessee valley that's now buried in power plant waste.    The spill has reignited the national debate over whether federal standards should be established to store and dispose of the waste left from burning coal.    It's also fueling a debate in Kentucky, which leads the nation in coal-ash production.    They want to renew emergency action plans for about 200 dams and impoundments (4 that contain coal ash) that are considered high-risk and could cause death or serious damage if they fail.    This comes just as the new Congress and President-elect Obama prepare to rewrite the nation's energy policy to tackle climate change.
  
      Comment: In the year 2000 this country became very greedy, companies were outsourcing jobs to countries with cheaper labor, chemical scientists created miracle substances to improve mankind's lifestyle, engineering scientists built dams, power plants to provide more energy to mankind, and the list goes on.    My point here, is that each one got there perks for their discoveries with no forethought on its effect on the environment or people.    About this year of 2008, ending an Eight-Year term of an administration that did it their way to appease the special interest groups, the energy companies, the military and diplomats to conquer the world with democracy, the financial system to give control of our economy to banks and investors, the world trade going unchecked for hazards from exports incoming, but the worst is the total disregard for what mankind is doing to its environment by polluting or killing off every resource to its disposal.
  
  The year 2009.
  
  
• 1/4/2009 Lead poisons town in Senegal by Heidi Vogt, AP.
      Thiaroye Sur Mer, Senegal - First it took the animals.    Goats fell silent and refused to stand up.    Chickens died in handfuls, then in masse.    Street dogs vanished.    Then it took the children.    Toddlers stopped talking and their legs gave out.    Women birthed stillborns.    Infants withered and died.    Some said the houses were cursed, others said the families were cursed.
      The mysterious illness killed 18 children in this town on the fringes of Dakar, Senegal's capital, before anyone in the outside world noticed.    When they did -- after TV news aired parent's angry pleas for an investigation, when more tests were ordered, when the West sent health experts -- they didn't find AIDS, malaria or polio, or any of the diseases that kill Africa's poor.
      The found lead, the dirt here is laced with lead left over from years of extracting it from old car batteries.    So when the price of lead quadrupled over five years, residents began digging up the earth to get at it.    The WHO says the area is still severely contaminated 10 months after a government cleanup.
      This was a glimpse at how the globalization of a modern tool, the car battery, can wreak havoc in the developing world.    As demand for cars increased in China and India, so has demand for lead-acid car batteries.    Of the lead manufactured globally, about 70 percent goes into car batteries, which are also used to power TVs and cell phones in some areas.
      Manufacturing and recycling of these batteries has moved mostly to the Third World, where labor is cheaper and environmental protection regulations are more lenient.
      Thiaroye Sur Mer is a town of 100,000 where yearly rains leave people wading through knee-deep water inside their cement-block houses.    The sea used to supply a livelihood, but fishing hasn't been good in the past few years.    So for years, the town's blacksmiths extracted lead from car batteries and remolded it into weights for fishing nets.
      When the price of lead climbed, traders offered to buy lead by the bag for 60 cents a kilogram, so people stated digging up dirt with shovels and taking it back to their houses to separate out the small lead particles with a sifter.    In one hour they could make more than in one day of work elsewhere.    The deaths came over the five months from Oct. 2007 through Mar. 2008, and when the WHO ran tests they found lead levels of 1,000 micrograms per liter, where 100 micrograms per liter is enough to impair brain development in children.    About 950 people have been exposed to lead dust in the neighborhood, and many children show signs of neurological damage.
• 1/12/2009 Mercury high near Ind. power plants by Rick Callahan, AP.
      Indianapolis - Rain and snow that fall near a cluster of coal-burning power plants in southeastern at Madison, Indiana are laced with some of the highest concentrations of atmospheric mercury in the nation, a federal study by the U.S. Geological Survey has found.    In 80 percent of their samples the most toxic form of the metal, methylmercury, was found in streams statewide, and Indiana gets about 95 percent of its electricity from coal-fired power plants, which accounts for much of the state's mercury emissions.
• 1/15/2009 Tennessee's toxic sludge spill by AP.
      The people of Harriman, Tenn., got coal in their stockings three days before Christmas.    That's when 1.1 billion gallons of coal plant sludge loaded with pollutants such as lead and arsenic burst from a containment pond at the TVA's Kingston Fossil Plant and spread over 302 acres, destroying three homes and damaging more than three dozen others.    What was bad about this is they found out that such pools of pollutants are not federally regulated.
      Fly ash is the byproduct of burning pulverized coal, leaving a fine, glassy particles which are disposed of in ponds to reduced the spread of dust.
      The EPA in 2000 tried to classify fly ash a hazardous material to be regulated but was rejected by the influence of the industry.    The EPA claims there are nearly 100 "wet dumps" with the same toxic material in them, which could include arsenic, chromium, lead, nickel, selenium and thallium.
      Recently a wasted pond at a TVA facility near Stevenson, Ala., ruptured but was contained.
• 1/23/2009 Creepy caterpillars eat crops, scare villagers by AP.
      Rome - Hordes of voracious caterpillars are destroying crops and prompting terrified villagers to flee their homes in northern Liberia in what is described as the West African country's worst plague in 30 years, a U.N. agency said.
      The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization said the about 1-inch-long caterpillars -- described by villagers as "black, creepy and hairy" -- are advancing in the tens of millions.
      The invasion is likely to spread to neighboring Guinea, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast unless it is quickly contained, said entomologist Winfred Hammond, the agency's representative in Liberia.
      Maybe nature decided to strike back at the pollution put in the Earth.
• 1/23/2009 2 get death in China tainted milk scandal by AP.
      Shijiazhuang, China - A Chinese court condemned two men to death and gave a dairy boss life in prison in the first sentences handed down in the tainted milk scandal.    Investigations showed that middlemen who sold milk to dairy companies were watering down raw milk, then mixing the banned industrial chemical melamine in dairy products to make them appear to have higher protein content, and blamed in the deaths of at least 6 babies and the illnesses of nearly 300,000.
• 1/25/2009 Trees in Western forests dying at increasing rate by Jeff Barnard, AP.
      Grants Pass, Oregon - Trees in old-growth forests all over the American West are dying at a small, but increasing rate that scientists conclude is likely caused by longer and hotter summers from a changing climate.    The death rate is doubling every 17 to 29 years, according to a 52-year study to trees of all ages, species and locations.    In time trees would be smaller and store less carbon than present, adding to global warming, as do the dead trees which release carbon dioxide.    They also considered other causes such as air pollution, overcrowding of young trees, the effects of logging, large trees falling on small trees and lack of forest fires, but the trend showed young and old trees were affected, and concluded that a warmer average temperature across the West, about 1 degree was the likely cause.
• 2/6/2009 Unsafe food can go unreported by AP.
      Washington - Lawmakers reacted angrily when told that food makers and state safety inspectors are allowed to keep tests results secret, keeping federal health officials in the dark even when products have been contaminated by salmonella or other dangerous bacteria.    So a very serious loophole, as to the issue of the Peanut Corp. of America had received a series of private tests dating back to 2007 showing salmonella in their products from the Georgia plant, but later shipped the items after obtaining negative test results.    So Congress is trying to find the gaps in the system and remedy them.
• 2/14/2009 Court overturns ruling on mountaintop removal mining by Tim Huber, AP.
      A federal appeals court overturned a ruling that required more extensive environmental reviews of mountaintop removal in Appalachia that blasts away whole peaks.    The Army Corps of Engineers had the authority to issue Clean Water Act permits for mountaintop removal coal mines without more extenisve reviews.    This is a blow to environmentalists and coalfield neighbors who oppose the destructive practice that dumps debris into streams.
      Mountaintop mines generate electricity for 24.7 million U.S. customers and employ some 14,000 people across 4 states in a time when it faces sluggish demand in a weak economy.
• 2/14/2009 Satellite collision's debris called threat by AP.
      Moscow - The collision of two satellites has generated an estimated tens of thousands of pieces of space junk that could circle Earth and threaten other satellites for the next 10,000 years, space experts said.    Experts want President Barack Obama's administration to address the long-ignored issue of debris in space.
• 2/15/2009 Official: Coal ash spill was 'catastrophe' by Duncan Mansfield, AP.
      Knoxville, Tenn. - The TVA acknowledged the massive sludge flood was worse than the agency's public relation staff initially said.    It was a catastrophe instead of a sudden accidental release as first reported.    The TVA told the board of directors that cleaning up the 5.4 million cubic yards of ash that surged into the river and neighborhood near the Kingston Fossil Plant in December will take many months and cost up to $825 million, excluding fines and litigation.    They are still investigating the cause of the breach in an earthen containment wall that led to the spill, as well as ash storage areas at its 10 other coal-fired power plants.
• 2/15/2009 Finally, some good news on the ocean front by Randolph E. Schmid, AP.
      Chicago - Some Pacific island nations are protecting their reefs, haddock and scallops are recovering in New England waters and a few types of whales are even making a comeback, which is good news for the oceans.
• 2/17/2009 Obama wants pact to reduce mercury by AP.
      Nairobi, Kenya - The Obama administration called for a treaty to cut mercury pollution to begin this year and conclude within three, which it called the world's gravest chemical problem.    Some 6,000 tons of mercury enter the environment each year, about a third generated by power stations and coal fires.    Much settles into the oceans where it enters the food chain, mostly in predatory fish like tuna.
• 3/2/2009 Whales, dolphins stranded on beach by AP.
      Sydney - Nearly 200 whales and several dolphins were stranded on a beach in the southern Australian island state of Tasmania, the latest in a string of beachings in recent months.    Rescuers were headed to Naracoopa Beach on Tasmania's King Island to try to save some of the 194 pilot whales and half a dozen bottlenose dolphins that began beaching themselves last night.
• 3/3/2009 EPA to monitor levels of toxic air at schools by James Bruggers, The Courier-Journal.
      The U.S. EPA will quickly monitor for toxic chemicals at up to 100 schools nationwide at a cost of $2.5 million and may expand the study later.
• 3/8/2009 Heaters might help sick bats survive by Michael Hill, AP.
      Albany, N.Y. - Bats afflicted with a mysterious and deadly disorder might be able to make it through winter with the help of heated boxes placed in hibernation caves, according to biologists from Indiana State University.    The "white-nose syndrome" has killed more than a half-million bats in three winters from New England to West Virginia, and the heated boxes may help stricken bats preserve enough precious energy to survive hibernation season.    Bats play an important role in controlling the populations of insects that can damage wheat, apples and dozens of other crops.    The pilot study is funded with a $28,000 grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but some worry that the infected bats that survive will spread the fungus during the summer, but this fungus needs cold to thrive.    On 3/27/09 A request was made to stay out of caves to guard against people unwittingly spreading the affliction.
• 3/8/2009 Judge may order dams removed to save salmon by AP.
      Portland, Oregon - The federal agency in charge of saving salmon in the Columbia River Basin from extinction should have a plan to remove dams on the lower Snake River is necessary.    The dispute over how to balance energy and utility needs in the Columbia Basin with salmon and steelhead may result that the hydroelectric dams could come down to ensure restoration and survival of imperiled salmon and steelhead.
• 3/14/2009 Oil soaked beaches declared disaster zone by AP.
      Brisbane, Australia - Authorities declared a disaster zone along a stretch of some of Australia's most popular beaches after tons of oil that leaked from a ship blackened the creamy white sand for miles.    The government of Queensland state denied it had acted too slowly to stop an environmental disaster, and threatened the shipping company with a multimillion-dollar lawsuit.
• 3/15/2009 Obama names FDA leaders, targets food safety by Dan Eggen, The Washington Post.
      Washington - President Obama accused the Bush administration of creating a "hazard to public health" by failing to curb food contamination problems, and announced new leadership and other changes aimed at modernizing food-safety laws.    He is forming a "Food Safety Working Group" to upgrade our food safety laws and named Margaret Hamburg his new FDA commissioner and will ask Congress for $1 billion to modernize its labs.    They also permanently banned the slaughter of cows too sick or weak to stand on their own, to minimize the chance that mad cow disease could enter the food supply, after last years biggest beef recalled in U.S. history in Chino, California.
• 3/15/2009 Study: 2 chemicals in kids' items of little threat by David Brown, The Washington Post.
      Washington - Extensive studies of two toxic chemicals in children's bath and personal care products suggest that if they pose any health hazard, it is likely to be extremely small.    Trace amounts of the two chemical compounds - 1,4-dioxane and formaldehyde - were found in shampoos, bath gels, lotions and wipes in 48 products where two-thirds contained 1,4-dioxane and 80 percent with formaldehyde, neither is listed as an ingredient in the product.    Previous studies had shown diozane may cause cancer when inhaled, and formaldehyde may cause cancer when ingested, but no determination pertaining to skin exposure.    The FDA concluded they did not require the chemicals to be removed since the products are washed off before the body absorbs them.
• 3/21/2009 Report: Hawaii's birds in danger of extinction by AP.
      Honolulu - Hawaii's native avian population is in peril, with nearly all the state's birds in danger of becoming extinct, a federal report says.    One-third of America's endangered birds (31) are in Hawaii mainly from destruction of their habitats by invasive plant species and feral animals, and diseases borne by mosquitoes.
• 4/11/2009 Region key source of 'dead zone' pollutants by James Bruggers, The Courier-Journal.
      Kentucky and Indiana are among nine states contributing 75 percent of excess nutrients into the Gulf of Mexico's oxygen-depleted "dead zone" according to a new federal study by the U.S. Geological Survey.    This oxygen-depleted area has grown to the size of New Jersey, where fish and other aquatic life suffocate, and threatening the Gulf fishery that supplies many restaurants and kitchens.    The blame is sewage that doesn't get fully treated, lawn fertilizers and runoff tainted by agricultural manure with nutrients and phosphorus pollution.
• 4/12/2009 Drywall from China might pose risks by AP.
      Parkland, Fla. - At the height of the U.S. housing boom, when building materials were in short supply, American construction companies used millions of pounds of Chinese-made drywall because it was abundant and cheap in more than 100,000 homes and houses rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina.    Now that decision is haunting hundreds of homeowners and apartment dwellers who are concerned that the drywall gives off fumes that can corrode copper pipes, blacken jewelry and silverware, and possibly sicken people.    The drywall apparently causes a chemical reaction that gives off a rotten-egg stench, which grows worse with heat and humidity.    They suspect the cause as fumigants sprayed on the drywall and material inside it, made from a coal byproduct called fly ash that is less refined than the form used by U.S. drywall makers.
• 6/15/2009 Abestos prompts EPA to call emergency in Montana town by Matthew Daly, AP.
      Washington - The Obama administration said it will pump more than $130 million into a Montana town where abestos contamination has been blamed for more than 200 deaths.    The EPA said the agency has determined there is a public health emergency in a contaminated community, targeting Libby and Troy, Mont., for immediate attention for 2,600 and 1,000 residents.    This will require a home-by-home cleanup, which was caused by the now-closed vermiculite mine in 1990 which has been cited in the deaths of more than 200 people and illnesses of thousands more.    The miners carried abestos home on their clothes, and they used the material to cover the school running tracks, and residents had used it for mulching their gardens.
• 6/22/2009 Wheat's 'time bomb' by Karen Kaplan, Los Angeles Times.
      The spores arrived from Kenya on dried, infected leaves ensconced in layers of envelopes.    In a bio-secure greenhouse, government scientists at the Ceral Disease LAboratory in St. Paul, Minn., sprayed the spores onto thousands of healthy wheat plants.    After two weeks, the stalks were covered with reddish blisters characteristic of the scourge known as Ug99, a fungus called stem rust, and the plants died.    Crop scientists fear the Ug99 fungus could wipe out more than 80 percent of worldwide wheat crops as it spreads from eastern Africa.    It has already jumped the Red sea and traveled as far as Iran.    Its a time bomb and its a matter of how long it's going to take.    Already they are working on developing wheat varieties immune to Ug99 by identifying genes useful to corporate into crops.    Farmers have been battling stem rust for as long as they have grown wheat, even in biblical times, when a spore lands on wheat it forms a pustle that hijacks the plant's water and nutrients to produce new spores, and can mutate to evade the plant's defense.
• 6/26/2009 TVA ash dikes long near failing by AP.
      Knoxville, Tenn. - The earthen dikes supporting a huge ash landfill at a TVA power plant were on the verge of failure long before they collapsed and sent tons of toxic muck into a river and lakeside community, an engineering consultant said.    The cause was a thin layer of fly ash slime deep in the pile that moved and put pressure on the dikes probably due to the high water content of the ash and the increasing height of the ash pile along with the construction of sloping dikes over wet ash.    This could have been prevented if they had done a $25 million conversion to dry storage or install a $5 million landfill liner.
• 7/21/2009 Faulty monitoring found at Army depot by Jeffrey McMurray, AP.
      Lexington, Ky. - Army inspector general's report concludes a deadly nerve agent at Kentucky's chemical weapons stockpile at the Blue Grass army Depot was inadequately monitored for two years, although it found no evidence any workers were exposed or any agent escaped the storage igloos into the atmosphere.
• 7/26/2009 Alert issued on eating Ky. fish by Joe Biesk, AP.
      Frankfort, Ky. - State officials are warning people to limit their intake of fish taken from some Kentucky waters, since high levels of mercury or polychlorinated biphenyls - PCBs - found in some fish species could pose a health hazard to women who are pregnant or of childbearing age and small children.    This includes carp, white bass, black bass, rock bass, catfish, flathead catfish and crappie.
• 8/20/2009 Challenge to Army's chemical arms disposal method fails by AP.
      Washington - The U.S. Army fended off a court challenge to its plan to incinerate chemical weapons at four storage sites at Pine Bluff, Ark.; Tooele, Utah; Umatilla, Ore.; and Anniston, Ala, over objections from a Kentucky-based watchdog group that says the practise releases toxic pollution.    More than half of the U.S.'s aging cache of 31,500 tons of nerve agents and mustard gas has been destroyed so far, with a 2017 deadline for completion.
• 8/20/2009 Mercury in fish is widespread by AP.
      Washington - No fish can escape mercury pollution according to a federal study that tested 1,000 fish from nearly 300 streams across the country.    Only about a quarter of the fish tested had mercury levels exceeding what the EPA says is safe for people to eat.    The highest levels were found in fish were in the remote black water streams along the coasts of the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida and Louisiana, where bacteria in surrounding forests and wetlands help in the conversion.    They even found it in fish from isolated areas in Alaska and Canada, and species that live in the deep ocean.    Mercury was also found in high concentrations in western streams that drain areas mined for mercury and gold.
• 8/21/2009 1,300 kids suffer lead poisoning in China by AP.
      Beijing - China detained two factory officials from the Wugang Manganese Smelting Plant in Wenping after 1,300 children were poisoned by pollution from a manganese processing plant, days after emissions from a lead smelter in another province sickened hundreds.
• 8/28/2009 Scientists: Pacific garbage patch killing marine life by AP.
      San Deigo - Researchers say a Texas-sized garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean is possibly killing marine life and birds that are ingesting the trash.    Scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography announced findings from an August expedition to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, about 1,000 miles west of California.    The patch is a vortex fomed by ocean currents and collects human-produced trash.    Among findings are confetti-like plastic shards and barnacles clinging to water bottles.    They worry marine life is dying from ingesting plastic.
• 9/12/2009 EPA limits pesticides in effort to aid salmon by AP.
      Seattle - The EPA disclosed new limits on three pesticides commonly used on Western farms that are aimed at protecting endangered and threatened Pacific salmon.    The restrictions apply to the use of chlorpyrifos, diazinon and malathion near salmon waters in Washington, California, Oregon and Idaho.    These chemicals interfere with salmon's sense of smell, making it harder for the fish to find food, avoid predators and return to native waters to spawn.
• 9/15/2009 3 groups plan to sue EPA over coal-ash ponds by James Bruggers, The Courier-Journal.
      Three environmental groups have put the U.S. EPA on notice that they intend to sue the agency, alledging it has failed to regulate water pollution from the nation's electric utilities, including discharges into rivers and lakes from hundreds of coal-ash ponds as far back as 1982.
• 9/16/2009 Cleanup of Great Lakes is lagging, report says by AP.
      Traverse City, Mich. - Cleanup of the most polluted sites in the Great Lakes is moving so slowly it will take 77 more years to finish the job at the existing pace, according to a federal report.    The highly contaminated spots were identified two decades ago, resulting in a toxic sediment cleanup of a $20 billion Great Lakes restoration plan developed by government agencies and non-profit groups in 2005.
• 10/3/2009 Toxic chemical found at U.S. schools by USA Today.
      Outside15 schools in eight states, including 3 in Ashland, Ky. government regulators have found elevated levels of a substance acrolein that - in a more potent form - was used as a chemical weapons during World War I.    The acrolein levels outside of the schools ranged from 1.5 micrograms per cubic meter to 5.3 micrograms per cubic meter, or more than 200 times higher than the EPA considered safe for long-term exposure, and can worsen asthma and irritate the eyes and throat.
• 10/11/2009 Pollution still plagues old nuclear missile sites by AP.
      Cheyenne, Wyo. - Communities in Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Oklahoma, California, New Mexico, New York and Texas are still grappling with the legacy of deployment of nuclear missile sites 50 years ago, from groundwater pollution from chemicals used to clean and maintain the weapons in nine states, and spent $116 million at 44 former Atlas and Titan IBM sites and 19 former Nike anti-aircraft missiles sites from the early Cold War.    The problem is a chemical called trichloroethylene, or TCE, which was used to keep missiles clean was dumped in the silo's blast pits.    Exposure to the chemical may cause nervous system problems, liver and lung damage, abnormal heartbeat, coma and death.    The EPA set a drinking water standard for the chemical in 1989, resulting in a new search and a cleanup program of $306 million a year which will nationwide cost $17.8 billion.
• 10/17/2009 Cod disappearing from European waters by AP.
      Brussels - Cod is closer to disappearing from key European fishing grounds that officials warned that only steep catch cuts will prevent the disappearance of a species prized for its flaky white flesh.    The EU's executive body called for sharp cuts up to 25 percent in some areas in cod catches next year.    Scientists estimated that in the 1970s there were more than 250,000 tons of cod in fishing grounds in the North Sea, eastern English Channel and Scandinavia's Skagerrak strait.    In recent years stocks have dropped to 50,000 tons.
• 10/23/2009 'Critical habitat' for polar bears designated in Alaska by AP.
      The Obama administration said it is designating more than 200,000 square miles in Alaska and off its coast as 'critical habitat' for polar bears to stave off extinction, an action that could add restrictions to future offshore drilling for oil and gas.
• 11/23/2009 Radiation leak detected at Three Mile Island plant by AP.
      Middletown, Pa. - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is sending investigators to the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant after a small amount of radiation was detected there.    About 150 employees were sent home after the radiation was detected, and officials said there is no public health risk and the radiation was contained.    Of course a partial meltdown occurred here in March 1979, so we should not worry.
• 11/29/2009 Horrors of 1984 Bhopal disaster linger by Rama Lakshmi, The Washington Post.
      Bhopal, India - Twenty-five years after poisonous plumes of chemicals leaked from the Union Carbide factory in central India, killing more tham 15,200 people, survivors are protesting a government plan to open the site to the public as a tourist mecca, which does not make since since it is still contaminated by pure mercury and other deadly chemicals.    Residents in the area still claim the soil and groundwater contamination are still causing diseases and birth defects from the factory of death.
• 12/8/2009 EPA: Pollution pose health threat by AP.
      Washington - The Obama administration took a major step toward imposing the first federal limits on climate-changing pollution from cars, power plants and factories declaring there was compelling evidence that global warming from man-made greenhouse gases endangers American's health.    The EPA announcement was clearly timed to build momentum toward an agreement at the international conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark.    So the battle begins.
  
  The year 2010.
  
  
• 1/12/2010 U.S. warns Asians on toxins use -Toys, jewelry get lead substitutes by Justin Pritchard, AP.
      Los Angeles - The top U.S. consumer product regulator is warning Asian manufacturers not to subsititute other toxic substances for lead in children's items, followed by the launch of a government investigation into Chinese-made jewelry that lab tests showed was laden with the heavy metal cadmium.    This includes antimony and barium also.    Some of the most contaminated piece of children's jewelry contained 91 percent cadmium by weight, and other trinkets tested at between 84 and 89 percent, not only containing some lead.    Cadmium is a known carcinogen, like lead it can hinder brain development in the very young, where they could get persistent, low-level doses by regularly sucking or biting jewelry with a high cadmium content.
  
• 1/17/2010 FDA revives health concerns about ingredient in plastic by Lyndsey Layton, The Washington Post.
      Washington - The FDA has reversed its position on the safety of bisphenol A (BPA), a chemcial found in plastic bottles, soda cans, food containers and thousands of consumer goods, saying it now has concerns about health risks.    Growing scientific evidence has linked the chemical to a range of problems, such as cancer, sexual dysfunction and heart disease, and now the development of fetuses, infants and young children.    BPA leaches into food, and it is used to harden plastic and is so prevalent that more than 90 percent of the U.S. population has traces of it in its urine, according to the CDC.    The FDA had long maintained that BPA is safe, relying largely on two studies funded by the chemical industry, but in 2008 they were faulted because they ignored more than 100 published studies that raised health concerns about BPA.    [Bet there was a pay off somewhere in that one].
      The chemical industry which produces more than 6 billion tons of BPA annually and the plastics it is used in provide durability, clarity and shatter-resistance and protects the safety of packaged foods.    So the choice is between convenience or health.
  
• 1/24/2010 Ships collide, spill up to 450,000 gallons of oil by AP.
      Port Arthur, Texas - As much as 450,000 gallons of crude oil spilled in a southeast Texas port after two vessels collided, the U.S. Coast Guard said.    The area was evacuated because of hydrogen sulfide - a hazardous gas with a rotten egg smell - emanating from the oil.
  
• 2/3/2010 Cadmium is found in adult jewelry by AP.
      Concern about the heavy metal cadmium in jewelry grew as a California environment group said new testing of adult necklaces and bracelets bought at three leading retailers, including Saks Fifth Avenue and Aeropostale, detected high levels of the toxic material - as much as 75 percent of weight.    One of the pieces was made in China, and another was made in India.
  
• 2/5/2010 Evansville soil cleanup nears start - 52 sites still lack consent by AP.
      Evansville, Ind. - The federal government has yet to get permission from more than 50 property owners for a project to remove contaminated soil from an Evansville neighborhood starting next month.    The contamination came from air pollution from several industries in the Jacobsville neighborhood during the early 1900s.    The $5 million cleanup is expected to take four to five years with a contractor removing lead and arsenic contaminated soil about 12 inches in the yards of about 350 homes and replace it with clean soil to be seeded or covered with sod and replaced shubbery, bushes, flowers or fences.    Sixteen refused permission, some owners can't be found or they are vacant lots possible in foreclosure, or died.    A proposed third phase of the cleanup would affect up to 4,000 properties which would begin as early as 2011.
  
• 2/5/2010 Chemicals caused asthma attack - Incident occurred in area of plant leak by James Bruggers, The Courier-Journal.
      A doctor has diagnosed a 13-year-old boy who suffered an asthma attack with chemical exposure from a hazardous-materials incident involving the Nuplex Resins plant in southern Louisville.    Residents said they have experienced burning eyes, headaches and other symptoms, which may have affected as many as 50 homes.    Nuplex makes resins for industrial paints and it is unclear how the vapors are getting in the sewer lines.
  
• 2/5/2010 Tritium soars at nuclear plant - Carcinogen found in groundwater by Dave Gram, AP.
      Montpelier, Vt. - A radioactive substance recently found in groundwater monitoring wells at a Vermont nuclear plant has turned up again at levels more than nine times those previously reported and more than 37 times higher than a federal safe drinking water limit, officials said.    A newly dug well at the Vernon reactor had a reading of nearly 775,000 picocuries per liter at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, as the safety limit is 20,000 picocuries per liter.
  
• 2/9/2010 China recalls 170 tons of tainted milk powder by AP.
      Beijing - China recalled more than 170 tons of milk powder after authorities found some batches of tainted dairy products ordered to be destroyed in 2008 had instead been redistributed.    Ningxia Tiantian Dairy was shut after an investigation found it had repackaged and sold more than 164 tons of milk powder tainted with the chemical melamine.    About 170 tons of tainted milk powder that should have been destroyed in 2008 was given to Tiantian by an unidentified company as payment for debt.    The recall undermines China's efforts to restore confidence in its dairy industry after melamine-tainted formula killed at least six babies and sickened about 300,000 children in 2008.
  
• 2/11/2010 Military halts cleanup of tire reef - Officials: Forces stretched too thin by Brian Skoloff, AP.
      West Palm Beach, Fla. - With the job undone, U.S. military divers won't return this summer to Florida to clean up a failed artificial reef made of thousands of old tires.    The Army and Navy crews are stretched too thin by conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the war on terror and earthquake relief in Haiti.    About 700,000 tires, some bundled with nylon and steel, were sunk in 1972 a mile off Fort Lauderdale in about 70 feet of water with the good intention of creating an artificial reef.    But it became an ecological blunder: Little sea life formed on them and many tires came loose and scoured a huge patch of the ocean floor.    Divers were cleaning it up since 2007 but only 10 percent of the tires are removed and it will be 2012 before they can return.
  
• 2/18/2010 Report on Marines' water omitted cancer chemical by Kevin Maurer, AP.
      Wilmington, N.C. - An environmental contractor under reported the level of a cancer-causing chemical found in tap water at Camp Lejeune, then omitted it altogether as the Marine base prepared for a federal health review.    The Marine Corps had been warned nearly a decade earlier about the dangerously high levels of benzene, which were traced to massive leaks from fuel tanks at the base on the North Carolina coast, according to recently disclosed studies.    For years, Marines at Camp Lejeune have blamed their families' cancers and other ailments on tainted tap water, and many accuse the military of covering it up.    In July of 1984, scientists found benzene in a well near the base's Hadnot Point Fuel Farm at levels of 380 parts per billion, which exceeds the federal safety limit of 5 parts per billion.    It has gotten worse since then in August 2009 it was 3,490 parts per billion.
• 2/22/2010 Massive plan aims to reinvigorate Great Lakes by AP.
      Washington - The EPA unveiled a five-year, $475 million plan called the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative Action Plan to revitalize the Great Lakes, including cleaning up polluted water and beaches, restoring wetlands and fighting invasive species such as Asian carp.    By 2014, it sets a goal to collect or prevent the release of 45 million pounds of electronic waste, 45 million medicine pills and 4.5 million pounds of household hazardous waste in the Great Lakes basin.    It also set out to reduce harmful algal blooms and to clean out 9.4 million cubic yard of toxic sediment.
  
• 2/27/2010 Pneumonia outbreaks kill hundreds of bighorn sheep by AP.
      Reno, Nev. - Pneumonia outbreaks that have killed hundreds of bighorn sheep this winter in several Western states have wildlife officials grappling with how to minimize the impact.    The disease shows up sporadically in wild herds, but it's unusual to have so many outbreaks in so many states.    More than 400 bighorn sheep in Nevada, Montana, Utah and Washington have died or been killed by wildlife officials this winter.
  
• 3/7/2010 Larger ocean 'dead zones' worry scientists by Les Blumenthal, McClatchy Newspaper.
      Washington - Lower levels of oxygen in the oceans, particularly off the Pacific Northwest coast, could be another sign changes linked to global climate change, scientists say.    They warn that the oceans' complex undersea ecosystems and fragile food chains could be disrupted.    In some spots off Washington and Oregon, the almost complete absence of oxygen has left piles of Dungeness crab carcasses littering the ocean floor, killed 25-year-old sea stars, crippled colonies of sea anemones and produced mats of petentially noxious bacteria that thrive in such conditions.    Areas of hypoxia, or low oxygen, have long existed in the deep ocean.    These areas - in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans - appear to be spreading, however.    On the Southern California coast, oxygen levels have dropped roughly 20 percent over the past 25 years, and elswhere the levels might have declined by one-third over 50 years.    Other says the changes are consistent with climate-change models, as the oceans are becoming more acidic as they absorb more carbon dioxide and other greenhous gases, which if continues we will have lower and lower oxygen levels.
      Ocean "dead zones" have been linked to agricultural runoff and other pollution from major rivers such as the Mississippi or the Columbia.....
  
• 3/18/2010 Mercury emissions not seen dropping - worst coal-fired plants in Texas by Renee schoof, McClatchy Newspapers.
      Washington - Many of Ameirca's coal-fired power plants lack widely available pollution controls for the highly toxic metal mercury, and mercury emissions recently increased at more than half of the country's 50 largest mercury-emitting power plants.    Five of the 10 plants with the highest amount of mercury emitted were in Texas, and plants in Georgia, Missouri, Alabama, Pennsylvania and Michigan also were in the top 10.    The EPA found that mercury emissions increased at 27 of the top 50 plants from 2007 to 2008.    The technology exists to reduce it but the U.S. power industry had delayed cleanup and barely made a dent in the emissions.
  
• 3/23/2010 EPA plans tighter contaminant rules for water by AP.
      The EPA is tightening drinking water standards to impose stricter limits on four contaminants that can cause cancer, these are tetrachloroethylene, trichloroethylene, acrylamide and epichlorohydrin.
  
• 4/1/2010 Obama will approve new coastal drilling - Plan to secure U.S. supplies by Juliet Eilperin and William Branigin, The Washington Post.
      Washington - Ending a longstanding moratorium, President Obama announced his adminstration will approve oil and gas exploration off America's coasts, from Delaware to central Florida.    Obama vowed the plan would protect the environment and certain industries.
  
• 4/3/2010 Feds: Gut houses with Chinese drywall - Corrosion, possible health woes cited by Cain Burdeau, AP.
      New Orleans - Thousands of U.S. homes tainted by Chinese drywall should be gutted, according to guidelines that the Consumer Product Safety Commission released.    The guidelines say electrical wiring, outlets, circuit breakers, fire alarm systems, carbon monoxide alarms, fire sprinklers, gas pipes and drywall need to be removed.    About 3,000 homeowners, mostly in Florida, Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana, have reported problems with the Chinese-made drywall, which was imported in large quantities during the housing boom and after a string of Gulf Coast hurricanes.    The drywall has been linked to the corrosion of wiring, air conditioning units, computers, door knobs and jewelry, as well as possible health effects.    The Chinese-made product release 100 times as much hydrogen sulfide as drywall made elsewhere.    It may cause throat, nose and lung irritation and high levels of of hydrogen sulfide gas which when combined with formaldehyde, which is commonly found in new houses.
      So they are going after the Chinese government to pay for the repairs, and 2,100 homeowners have filed suit in federal court against the culprits.
  
• 4/22/2010 Lawsuit over leaks from uranium plant settled - Property owners get $1.75 million by Brett Barrouquere, AP.
      A group of 70 to 80 landowners have accepted $1.75 million to settle a long-running lawsuit over allegations that water leaks from a Western Kentucky uranium enrichment plant lowered property values.    The attorney representing the landowners near the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, about 10 miles west of Paducah, confirmed the settlement.    In 1997 they sued multiple companies, including Lockheed Martin and Union Carbide contending that radiation contamination by air and water had ruined their land and well water and sickened residents, plants, crops, livestock and wildlife.    They received 11 percent of the value of their land based on a 1999 appraisal.
  THE BEGINNINING OF THE GREAT OIL DISASTER WHEN THE DEEPWATER HORIZON OIL RIG EXPLODED, AND BY THE WAY IT IS NOT AN OIL SPILL
  
• 4/29/2010 Crews try fire to keep oil from reaching shore by Cain Burdeau and Brett Martel, AP.
      Over the Gulf of Mexico - It's a hellish scene: Giant sheets of flame racing across the Gulf of Mexico as thick, black smoke billows into the sky.    A plan just 20 miles from the Gulf Coast in a last-ditch effort to burn up an oil spill before it washes ashore and wreaks environmental havoc.    The Coast Guard started a test burn of an area about 30 miles east of the Mississippi River delta.    Crews planned to use hand-held flares to set fire to sections of the spill.    Crews turned to the plan after failing to stop a leak at the spot where a deepwater oil platform exploded and sank.    A 500-foot boom was to be used to corral several thousand gallons of the thickest oil on the surface.    It will be towed to a more remote area, set on fire and allowed to burn for about an hour.
      About 42,000 gallons of oil a day are leaking into the gulf from the blown-out well drilled by the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.    Eleven workers are missing and presumed dead.
  
• 4/30/2010 Oil spill, larger than first thought, menaces shore by Cain Burdeau, AP.
      New Orleans - The edge of a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was expected to reach the Mississippi river delta soon, and a new technique to break up the oil a mile underwater could be tried, officials from BP PLC said.    The slick was about 3 miles from the Louisiana shore and is too late to srop the spill from reaching the coast.    The company has asked the Department of Defense if it can help with better underwater equipment than is available commercially, said Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer.    They are also reviewing research on using chemicals to break up the oil, which has been done before but never at these depths, with the well almost a mile underwater.    The government says 5,000 barrels of oil a day are spewing from the well underneath it, and BP assured everyone the spill was manageable, not catastrophic, and they let the company handle the mess.
      Then government scientists realized the leak was five times larger than they had been led to believe and emergency response was called in.    President Barack Obama dispoatched his bigwigs to help with the disaster with any resources at their disposal.
  
• 5/1/2010 Tighter limits on mercury proposed by AP.
      The Obama administration says 5,000 deaths could be prevented each year under prposed new rules to limit the amount of mercury and other harmful pollutants released by industrial boilers and solid waste incinerators.    The rules would reduce mercury emissions more than 50 percent by requiring steep and costly cuts from companies operating some 200,000 industrial boilers, heaters and incinerators.    The EPA must seek public comment before the rules are made final.    Industrial boilers and heaters are the second-largest source of mercury emissions in the U.S., after coal-fired power plants.    The boilers burn coal and other fuels to generate heat or electricity and are used by petroleum refiners, chemical and manufacturing plants, paper mills, municipal utilities and even shopping malls and universities.
• 5/3/2010 Oil spill expands as efforts to stop flow and spread struggle by Allen G. Breed and Seth Borenstein, AP.
      Venice, LA. - BP's chairman defended his company's safety record and said that "a failed piece of equipment" was to blame for a massive oil spill along the Gulf Coast, where Obama was headed for an update on the oil slick creeping toward American shores.    Lamar McKay, BP PLC chairman said he can't say when the well a mile beneath the sea might be plugged.    But he said he believes a 74-ton metal and concrete box - 40 feet tall, 24 feet wide and 14 feet deep - could be placed over the well on the ocean floor in six to eight days.    They are also working on a blowout preventer mechanism meant to seal off the geyser of oil which is being done at 5,000 feet in the dark, with robot-controlled submarines.    It is hoped that oil will be sucked through a tube into a tanker ship at the surface.    They stated that the blowout preventer was the failed equipment that caused the April 20 blast at the Deepwater Horizon rig, which should have activated after a blast to cut off the flow of oil.
      The churning slick of dense, rust-colored oil is now roughly the size of Peurto Rico, and will greatly affect the region's economy and environment, and the Obama administration has been slow in handling the largest U.S. crude oil disaster in decades.
  
• 5/4/2010 BP offers to pay for oil cleanup some damages by Holbrook Mohr and Alen G. Breed, AP.
      Venice, La. - BP PLC gave some assurance to shrimpers, oil workers and scores of others that they will be paid for damage and injuries from the explosion of a drilling rig and the resulting massive oil spill in the Gulf.    Others such as Inns and Hotels are concerned about the loss of tourism and commercial fishing.
• 5/5/2010 First traces of oil may have reached La. island by AP.
      Mobile, Ala. - People along the beaches and bayous waited anxiously to find out just how badly oil might damage the delicate coast.    The Coast Guard forecasts showed that the oil wasn't expected to come ashore for at least three more days, and put out more containment equipment and repair some of the booms damaged in the rough weather.    The oil has lingered in the Gulf for two weeks, despite an uncapped seafloor gusher.    BP's plan is to cover the leak with a 98-ton concrete-and-metal box structure known as a cofferdam, and funnel the oil to the surface.    Plus they claimed that chemical dispersants being used on the oil have significantly reduce the amount coming to the surface.    The undersea well has been spewing 200,000 gallons a day since an April 20 explosion, and fishing has been shut down in federal waters from the Mississippi River to the Florida Panhandle, leaving boats idle in the middle of the prime spring season.    The effect on wildlife is still unclear.
  
• 5/6/2010 Oil may be wreaking havoc beneath the Gulf by Cain Burdeau and Harry R. Weber, AP.
      New Orleans - The oil you can't see could be as bad as the oil you can.    Globules of oil are already falling to the bottom of the sea, where they threaten virtually every link in the ocean food chain, from plankton to fish, which is happening now.    Crews have set fires on the surface to burn off oil.
      Scientists say bacteria plankton and other tiny, bottom-feeding creatures will consume oil, and will then be eaten by small fish, crabs and shrimp.    They, in turn, will be eaten by bigger fish and marine mammals like dolphins.    The petroleum substances that concentrate in the sea creatures would kill them and render them unsafe for eating.
      The leaking well's location is near the continental shelf of the Gulf where a string of coral reefs flourishes.    Coral is a living creature that excretes a hard calcium carbonate exoskeleton, and oil globs can kill it.
  
• 5/7/2010 Oil-well topper ready for drop; drill permits halted by Harry R. Weber and Tamara Lush, AP.
      Over the Geulf of Mexico - Workers gathered to begin lowering a giant concrete-and-steel box over the blown-out oil well at the bottom of the sea in a risky and untested bid to capture most of the gushing crude and avert a wider environmental disaster.    It must be accurately placed to prevent further damage to the leaking pipe.    Other risks include ice clogs in the pipes, which is to be solved by pumping in warm water and methanol.    BP is also drilling sideways into the blown-out well in hopes of plugging it from the bottom.
      Interior Secretary Ken Salazar ordered a halt to all new offshore drilling permits nationwide until as least the end of the month, and said lifting the moratorium on new permits will depend on the outcome of the investigation of the oil disaster and the recommendations to be delivered to the president May 28.
  
• 5/8/2010 Big box lowered over well in Gulf by Harry R. Weber, AP.
      On the Gulf of Mexico - A BP chartered vessel lowered a 100-ton concrete-and-steel vault onto a ruptured well in an attempt to stop the gushing crude.    Underwater robots guided the 40-foot-tall box into place, but it will take another 12 hours for it to settle and make sure it is stable before the robots can hook up a pipe and hose that will funnel the oil up to a tanker.
• 5/9/2010 Icy crystals foil effort to contain oil in box by Sarah Larmer and Harry R. Weber, AP.
      On the Gulf of Mexico - Icelike crystals encrusting the 100 ton box forced crews to back off the long-shot plan, while more than 100 miles away, blobs of tar washed up at Dauphin Island an Alabama beach full of swimmers.    This crushed hope of a short-term solution to what could grow into the worst oil disaster in the nation's history.    More than 3 million gallons of crude have spewed into the Gulf since April 20.
  
• 5/9/2010 Top hopefuls oppose bill on cap, trade by Joseph Gerth, The Courier-Journal.
      The list of major issues that all four of Kentucky's top candidates for U.S. Senate agree on starts and ends with one topic - the cap-and-trade legislation now before Congress.    The proposal, a key initiative of the Obama administration, would restrict greenhouse gas emissions as a way to deal with global warming - establishing a cap on pollution and allowing polluters who clean up their operations to sell credits to those that don't.    And because of the potential harm it might inflict on Kentucky's coal industry, the top Democrat and Republican in the May 18 Senate primary all oppose the idea.    It would amount to political suicide for a candidate to support it.
  
• 5/10/2010 BP mulls options to cap oil leak by Harry R. Weber and Ray Henry, AP.
      On the Gulf of Mexico - A day after icy slush clogged the box to contain the oil gusher, BP officials said they may try again, but with a smaller box.    They will be cutting the riser pipe, and use larger piping to get the oil to a drill ship on the surface.    Also considered is shooting mud and concrete directly into the well's blowout preventer, a device that was suppose to shut off the flow of oil but failed.    That technique know as a "top kill," to plug up the well and would take two to three weeks.    And last try again using the containment box that failed after a way to keep the crystals from building up.    An estimated 3.5 million gallons of oil have spilled since the explosion.    At that pace, the spill would surpass the 11 million gallons spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster by next month.    BP is drilling a relief well that is considered a permanent fix, but will take several weeks to complete.
  
• 5/11/2010 More dispersant sprayed into oil leak - EPA: Environmental impact unclear by AP.
      On the Gulf of Mexico - A remote-controlled submarine shot a chemical dispersant into a maw of a massive undersea oil leak, which means BP expects the gusher to keep erupting for weeks or more.    Of course the EPA stated that the effects of the chemicals were still widely unknown.    At least 4 million gallons were believed to have leaked since the explosion.
  
• 5/14/2010 BP to try tube on oil leak by AP.
      Washington - BP officials said they would thread a small tube into a jagged pipe on the seafloor to suck oil to the surface before it can spew into the Gulf.    The smaller tube will be surrounded by a stopper to keep the oil from leaking into the sea, and then be siphoned to a tanker at the surface.    The costs from the spill so far totals $450 million and is at least $10 million a day.
  
• 5/17/2010 Fatal Fungus - Plague in frog populations may be key to saving humans in the future by Mark Grossi, The Fresno Bee.
      Scientists have been alarmed for years about a mysterious fungus that wipes out frogs around the globe - even in wildlife sanctuaries.    The fungus blitzes frog populations allowing little chance for natural defenses to protect amphibians.    Now scientists wonder if some new plague might do the same thing to humans.
      Emerging diseases for humans are cropping up much faster than before, and they might move like this one.    We need to understand this.    The frog disease, called chytrid fungus, which is only one cause regarding more than 40 percent of the 6,500 known amphibian species to disappear in the last few years.    Pollution, pesticides, predators, habitat loss and ultraviolet radiation also are involved.    One species such as tree frogs did not suffer die-offs even though they were exposed to the fungus.    Scientists do not know the origins of the disease.
  
• 5/17/2010 Mile-long tube helps to contain oil leak in Gulf by Jeffrey Collins and Jason Dearen, AP.
      New Orleans - Oil company engineers finally succeeded in keeping some of the oil gushing from the well by hooking up a mile-long tube to funnel the crude into a tanker.    The black ooze may have entered a major current that could carry it through the Florida Keys and around to the East Coast.
  
• 5/18/2010 BP hopes tube siphons half of oil to tanker by AP.
      New Orleans - BP said it hopes to siphon as much as half of the oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico and is getting ready to shoot mud into a blownout well later this week to try to stop the leak.    At present the mile-long tube is funneling a little more than 42,000 gallons of crude a day from the well into a tanker ship.    That is about a fifth of the 210,000 gallons they have estimated are gushing out each day, but others claim it could be much bigger.    President Obama has decided to have a presidential commission investigate the cause of the rig explosion and the safety of offshore oil drilling and the effectiveness of regulations.
      Researchers have discovered miles-long underwater plumes of oil that could poison and suffocate sea life across the food chain, with damage that could endure for a decade or more.    Environmentalists have filed federal lawsuits to close a government loophole for new oil and gas exploration seeking to curb oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
  
• 5/21/2010 Oil hits La. marshes amid fears for wildlife by Kevin McGill, AP.
      Grand Isle, La. - The spectacle many had feared for a month finally began unfolding as gooey, rust-colored oil washed into the marshes at the mouth of the Mississippi for the first time, stoking public anger and frustration with both BP and the government.    The sense of gloom deepened as BP conceded what scientists have been saying for weeks: that the oil leak is bigger than the company previously estimated.    Chocalate brown and vivid orange globs, sheets and ribbons of foul-smelling oil the consistency of latex paint began coating the reeds and grasses of Louisiana's wetlands, home of rare birds, mammals and a rich variety of marine life.
      A live video feed of the underwater gusher, posted online after lawmakers exerted pressure on BP shows what appears to be a large plume of oil and gas still spewing into the water next to the stopper-and-tube combination that BP inserted.    This is sure to fuel anger at BP as at least 6 million gallons have gushed into the Gulf.
  
• 5/23/2010 Ire grows as oil seeps into Gulf wetlands by Greg Bluestein, AP.
      Robert, La. - Anger grew along the Gulf Coast as oil oozed into the wetlands, with many wondering how to clean up the mess, since it has not been stopped as of yet.    Many wondered why the government did not step in and not taken BP's word for it, but the problem is Congress dictated that oil companies be responsible for dealing with major accidents, including paying for all cleanup.    BP updated that the milelong tube is sucking about 92,400 gallons of oil a day to the surface.
• 5/24/2010 Anger builds as oil fouls marsh by AP.
      Barataria Bay, La. - As officials approached to survey the damage the oil spill has caused in coastal marshes, some brown pelicans couldn't fly away and they could only hobble.    Several pelicans were coated in oil, and were jet black, and their eggs were glazed with rust-colored gunk, and new hatchlings and nests were also coated with crude.    The state has begun work on a chain of berms, reinforced with containment booms, that would skirt the state's coastline for 65 miles.
  
• 5/25/2010 U.S. still calls BP best hope to end spill by AP.
      Covington, La - The Obama administration rejected the notion of removing BP and taking over the crisis, saying the government has neither the expertise nor its deep-sea equipment.
  
• 5/26/2010 BP cautiously optimistic 'top kill' will seal oil leak by AP.
      Washington - BP prepared for another attempt to slow the oil gusher by force feeding heavy drilling mud and cement into the well to plug it, called a "top kill," which has never been tried a mile beneath the sea with a success rate at 60 to 70 percent.    The 11 men who died on April 20 were honored at a somber memorial service.
  
• 5/30/2010 BP says 'top kill' attempt failed by AP.
      Robert, La - BP admitted defeat at pumping 1.2 million gallons of mud into a broken well, but it is preparing yet another approach to fight the spill.
  
• 6/1/2010 BP oil-spill plan 'overpromised' by Bloomberg News.
      Washington - BP said in permit applications for drilling that it was prepared to handle an oil spill more than 10 times larger that the one now spewing crude into the Gulf waters.    They even listed as its worst-case scenario a blowout in an exploratory well as an example, and therefore show BP overestimated its ability to control an oil spill in waters where it's the biggest player in a Gulf energy extraction industry worth $52 billion a year.
      BP now says its best chance of sealing the leak is two relief wells being drilled diagonally into the gushing well that will not be ready until August.
  
• 6/2/2010 Oil leak to worsen .. at first by AP.
      New Orleans - BP engineers tried to recover from a failed attempt to stop the oil spill with an effort that will initially make the leak worse.    They will be using robotic machines to carve into the twisted appendages of the crippled well, as an end to position a cap over the opening.    If they succeed it will temporarily increase the flow of the leak by 20 percent or 100,000 gallons more a day.    They will pump warm water through the pipes into the smaller dome to prevent icing.    To date 20 million to 40 million gallons of oil has spewed, eclipsing the 11 million of the Exxon Valdez disaster.
  
• 6/2/2010 U.S. opens investigation of BP spill by AP.
      New Orleans - The Obama administration responeded to criticism that it hasn't been forceful enough in its response to the largest oil spill in U.S. history, announcing a civil and criminal investigation into the dealy explosion.    They will be looking at possible violations of the Clean Water Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Oil Pollution Act against BP which owned the well and is responsible for the spill, and Transocean, which owned and operated the rig.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 45
  
• 6/3/2010 Oil slick closing in on Florida, Microbes may eat oil spill, U of L expert says by AP.
      Pensacola, Fla. - The BP oil slick drifted close to the Florida Panhandle's famous sugar-white beaches while at the same time the risky gambit to contain the leak by shearing off the well pipe ran into trouble a mile under the sea when the diamond-tipped saw became stuck.    The saw had sliced through about half of the pipe when it snagged, and it took 12 hours to free it.    They will resume cutting on it.    BP CEO Tony Hayward has promised to clean up every drop of oil off the shore.    A University of Louisville professor Ronald Atlas who pioneered what is called bioremediation, which increases the appetite of oil-eating bacteria and other micro-organisms, done by adding nutrients.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 46
  
• 6/4/2010 BP trying to put lid on Gulf oil leak by AP.
      Metairie, La. - BP is ready to put a lid on the oil gusher since the main pipe has been sheared off but the cut was jagged, and a looser fitting cap will be needed.    The inverted funnel-like cap, slightly wider than the severed pipe, will be placed over the spewing oil.    A rubber seal on the inside will attempt to keep the oil from escaping, though engineers acknowledge some crude will still come out.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 47
  
• 6/5/2010 Obama shares in Gulf anger, anguish by AP.
      Grand Isle, La. - Obama unleashed frustration for all to see, warning BP it had better do right by the people whose lives it has wrecked.    His visit was about the workers with no government titles, the shrimpers and the shopkeepers, the fishermen whose lives have been upended and are running out of people to blame.    The crisis has made his poll ratings slip so he is having sharper words for BP.
  
• 6/5/2010 Lead poisoning from gold search kills 160 by AP.
      Lagos, Nigeria - More than 160 villagers in the north died from lead poisoning while trying to leach gold from rock deposits, sparking evacuations, authorities said.    Dr. Henry Akpan, Nigeria's chief epidemiologist, said 100 of the dead were children from five villages in Zamfara state.    Akpan said the children either played near the leaching process or took part in it, swallowing the lead by putting their hands in their mouths or breathing it in.
      The existence of gold deposits in the area had long been known, but it was not until gold prices soared that the villagers began searching for it.    Since it was at $23 a gram a huge sum in a country where most people live on less that $1 a day.    Extracting gold from the ore is simple by bashing the rocks with hammers, then grind the smaller pieces into a powder.    The powder is then added to a mixture of water and mercury - itself a dangeraous substance - to draw the gold particles together.    This time the ore brought back to the village contained high levels of lead.    The villagers were doing the work in their on homes also.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 49
  
• 6/7/2010 THE NEW GULF COAST by Scott Coffman, Courier-Journal cartoonist.
      His carton showed a map of the Gulf states.
  Louisiana was renmaed Ooze-Iana, and I added that its new capital was called New Oil-Leans.
  Mississippi was called Mississlippery.
  Alabama was called Oilabama.
  Florida was called Flowrate-A.
  
• 6/8/2010 Indian court convicts seven in deadly Bhopal gas disaster by Prakash Hatvaine, AP.
      Bhopal, India - A court convicted former senior employees of Union Carbide's Indian subsidiary of "death by negligence" for their roles in the 1984 leak of toxic gas that killed an estimated 15,000 people in the world's worst industrial disaster.    On the morning of Dec. 3, 1984, a pesticide plant run by Union Carbide leaked about 40 tons of methyl isocynate gas into the air of Bhopal quickly killing about 4,000 people.    Lingering effects of the poison raised the death toll to about 15,000 in the next few years, according to government estimates.    In all, at least 500,000 people were affected, the Indian government says.    More than 25 years later, activists say thousands of children are born with brain damage, missing palates and twisted limbs because of their parents' exposure to the gas or water contaminated by the chemical.    The Union Carbide subsidiary's former employees, all Indian nationals and many in their 70s, were sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to pay fines of $2,175 apiece, and all were released on bail shortly after the verdict.
      Union Carbide was bought by Dow Chemical Co. in 2001.    Dow says the legal case was resolved in 1989 when they settled with the Indian government for $470 million.
  
• 6/9/2010 Scientists suspect oil leak heavier than stated by AP.
      New Orleans - While BP is capturing more oil from its blown-out well with every passing day, scientists analyzing the flow crude still escaping may be considerably greater than what the government and the company have claimed.    BP said the flow should decrease to a relative trickle soon, and said a second pumping ship should improve the process.    Also a new containment cap being built will seal better and reduce leakage.    The cap that was put on the well collected about 620,000 gallons of oil supposedly capturing half of the oil based on the government's estimate that around 600,000 to 1.2 million gallons a day are leaking.    Another source says the rate of flow is around 798,000 to 1.8 million gallons, and also estimates of oil lost to 23.7 million to 51.5 million gallons.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 53
  
• 6/11/2010 La. wants drilling to resume by AP.
      New Orleans - While they are venting their fury on BP over the spill and its calamitous environmental effects, Louisiana politicians are rushing to the defense of the oil-and-gas industry and pleading with Washington to bring back offshore drilling, which is affecting 33 rigs.    Obama's administration temporary six-month ban on drilling in the Gulf has sent Louisiana's most lucrative industry into a death spiral.    They contend that drilling is safe overall and that the moratorium is a knee-jerk reaction, akin to grounding every airplane in America because of a single crash.    Scientists said that BP was spewing as much as 2.1 million gallons of oil per day, which was twice of the worst-case estimate, as the most credible daily flow rate is now between 840,000 gallons and 1.68 million gallons.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 54
  
• 6/12/2010 New leak estimates mean bigger threat by AP.
      Houston - New numbers showing that twice as much oil as thought may be gushing from the well to threaten more birds and other wildlife.    This means that 40 million to more than 100 million gallons of oil have already fouled the Gulf's ecosystem.    BP's stock is sinking fast too, as this new information may quadruple the situation.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 55
  
• 6/13/2010 Coast Guard rejects BP plan as too small by Tribune Washington Bureau.
      Washington - The Coast Guard has told oil giant BP that its proposal for containing the well doesn't take into account new higher estimates of how much oil is gushing and demanded that the company provide a more aggressive plan with 48 hours.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 56
  
• 6/14/2010 Obama steps up efforts in Gulf by AP.
      Washington - President Barack Obama demaded that BP set up a compensation fund for the oil-tainted Gulf Coast and prepared for his first Oval Office address to the nation as he worked to wrest control of the environmental disaster threatening to overwhelm his administration.    The government did not require oil companies to have relief-well plans in place ahead of time, and BP began that 12 days after the disaster.    The plan offers no details outlining the effort or what dangers might lurk at those depths, and could result of problems caused by the original well to blow out, and creating a worse spill if engineers were to accidnetly damage or teat a hole in the undersea oil resovoir.    So we resolve that BP has been making things up as they go.    The relief well plan is to dig the well 18,000 feet below the surface and then drill sideways into the blown-out well and plug it with cement.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 57
  
• 6/15/2010 BP cut corners, documents allege by AP.
      New Orleans - BP made a series of money-saving shortcuts and blunders that greatly increased the danger of a destructive oil spill according to the House Energy and Commerce Committee.    The breached well has dumped as much as 114 million gallons of oil into the Gulf, and BP has collected 5.6 million gallons of oil through the containment cap.    Investigators have identified several mistakes by BP before the disaster.
  
  • The company saved $7 million to $10 million using a more risky option for the well casing, or steel tubing.    A safer option would have provided more barriers to prevent the flow of natural gas between the steel tubes and the well wall.
  • BP failed to install enough devices to center the pipe in the hole, increasing the danger of cracks in the cement around the pipe.
  • BP decided against a nine-to-12-hour procedure known as a "cement bond log" that would have tested the integrity of the cement.
  • BP did not fully circulate drilling mud, which would have taken as long as 12 hours.    That would have helped detect any pockets of gas, which later shot up the well and exploded on the deck of the drilling rig.
  • BP did not secure the connections, or casing hangers, between pipes of different diameters.
    
      Asked to comment BPs main concern is to stop the flow of oil.
  
• 6/15/2010 TVA to pay $11.5 million in ash spill by Bill Poovey, AP.
      Chattanooga, Tenn. - The Tennessee Valley Authority has been hit with penalties totaling $11.5 million for the December 2008 coal ash spill at one of its plants, partly to pay for oversight of the cleanup.    The breach in an earthen dam at TVA's Kingston plant 40 miles west fo Knoxville sent 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic muck into the Emory River and surrounding landscape.    The EPA is slowly deciding how to regulate coal plant ash, which contains arsenic, selenium, mercury and other substances that are defined as hazardous.    The recovery has progressed for more than 17 months since the event occurred by dredging about 3 million cubic yards of ash from the river, much of it shipped by rail to a landfill in Alabama.    TVA has nearly 9 million consumers in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 58
  
• 6/16/2010 Obama accuses BP of'recklessness' by AP.
      Washington - President Barack Obama accused BP of "recklessness" in the first Oval Office address of his presidency and pledged to make the company pay for the massive damage its oil spill has caused to lives, businesses and shorelines.    He has asked for Ray Mabus secretary of the Navy to develop a long-term Gulf Coast Restoration Plan, to be funded by BP PLC as soon as possible.
  
• 6/19/2010 Couple awarded $2.4 million for defective Chinese drywall by Curt Anderson, AP.
      Miami - A Florida couple, Armin and Lisa Seifart, who fled their dream home because of foul-smelling, runious Chinese drywall was awarded $2.4 million in damages in the nation's first jury trial over the defective wallboard that could have legal ramifications for thousands of similar cases.    The jury ruled they should recieve more than the costs of gutting and renovating, but also for loss of enjoyment of the $1.6 million house but also its resale value.
      The defendant, drywall distributor Banner Supply Co., is named in thousands of other lawsuits, as Banner was 55 percent liable, and Knauf Plasterboard Tianjian the rest.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 63
  
• 6/21/2010 Crews drill deep into Gulf to halt leaking oil by Ray Henry, AP.
      On the Gulf of Mexico - Drilling crews are grinding ever deeper to create the relief wells that are the best hope of stopping the massive oil leak.    They finished pouring cement on a section of metal casing lining one of two relief wells now at roughly 5,000 feet, and when that cement is firm the rig's crew will keep extending the well.    The spill has gushed 125 million gallons since April 20, and a separate rig had drilled to a depth of nearly 11,000 feet, and BP projects by late June it will keep nearly 90 percent of the flow from the broken pipe from hitting the ocean.    It will be August before crews finish drilling the relief wells.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 64
  
• 6/22/2010 Judge asked to lift drilling ban by Michael Kunzelman, AP.
      New Orleans - Companies that ferry people and supplies to offshore oil rigs asked a federal judge to lift a six-month moratorium on new deepwater drilling project imposed after the disaster.    The judge will review it.    BP said it has spent $2 billion fighting the spill for the last two months and compensating victims.    They had already put $20 billion in a fund for Gulf residents and businesses hurt by the spill.    BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward has received stinging criticism for attending a yacht race off the coast of southern England while the people of the Gulf are in desperate financial straits and need immediate relief.    They complain that the six-month suspension of drilling work could prove more economically devasting than the spill itself.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 65
  
• 6/23/2010 Judge blocks Gulf drilling moratorium by Michael Kunzelman, AP.
      New Orleans - A federal judge struck down the Obama administration's six-month ban saying that the government assumed that because one rig exploded, the others also also pose an imminent danger.    The White House promised an immediate appeal, as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will issue a new order imposing the moratorium and additional information making clear why the ban was necessary.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 67
  
• 6/25/2010 Judge won't delay ruling on drill ban by AP.
      Oil is approaching the fertile barrier islands in Mississippi and Florida officials to close a popular section of beach near the Alabama line.    The federal judge Martin Feldman has refused to delay his ruling until a federal appeals court could review it.    BP PLC's wotk to clean up the mess already has generated more than 1,300 tons of solid waste, and companies it hired to dispose is being handled professionally and carefully.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 68
  
• 6/26/2010 Storms may force teams to abandon oil cleanup by Carol Rosenberg, McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
      Miami - Gale force winds could force at sea workers to abandon oil collection efforts for two weeks, unleashing another half-million barrels (840,000 barrels / 35 million gallons) of oil into the sea.    Hurricane contingencies have become major concerns for clean up from the tropical wave in the west-central Caribbean kicking up thunderstorms from the eastern coasts of Honduras and Nicaragua to Mexico's northeastern Yucatan Peninsula.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 69
  
• 6/27/2010 Alex may threaten cleanup efforts by AP.
      Everyone is keeping an eye on Alex, the seaon's first tropical storm, which formed in the Yucatan Peninsula, which could move into the southern Gulf of Mexico by Sunday night, and should miss the northern Gulf Coast.    Also all the thousands of feet of protective boom ringing numerous islands and beachfronts, as to winds and waves could hurl the material that is soaked with oil deep into the marshes and woodlands.
  
• 6/27/2010 Toxic metals threatening whales, report says - Sign of growing ocean pollution by Arthur Max, AP.
      Agadir, Morocco - U.S. scientists who spent five years and 87,000 miles shooting nearly 1,000 sperm whales with tissue-sampling darts discovered stunningly high levels of toxic and heavy metals in the animnals.    The levels of cadmium, aluminum, chromium, lead, silver, mercury and titanium could affect the health of ocean life and people who eat seafood, the scientists said in their report.    The analysis of cells from the sperm whales showed pollution is reaching the farthest corners of the oceans, from deep in the polar region to the middle of nowhere in the equatorial regions, said biologist Roger Payne, founder of Ocean Alliance.    All these pollutants have been relased by human beings, and will threaten the human food supply of animal protein for 1 billion people and the animals that live in the ocean.    The researchers' 93-foot ketch "Odyssey set out in March 2000 from San Diego to document the oceans' health.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 71
  
• 6/29/2010 BP's cost of cleanup now tops $2.6 billion by AP.
      New Orleans - BP's costs for capping and cleaning up the spill have reached $2.65 billion and denied reports that CEO Tony Hayward is resigning.    Th[e tropical storm was expected to miss the oil-spill area but could still generate disruptive waves and winds.    BP said it had received more than 80,000 claims and made almost 41,000 payments, totaling more than $128 million.    Work on a relief well progressed.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 73
  
• 7/1/2010 Storm pushes oil ashore - Apple-size tar balls washing up in La. by AP.
      Grand Isle, La. - Rough seas generated by Hurricane Alex pushed more oil from the massive spill onto Gulf Coast beaches.    Six-foot waves and 25-mph winds were forecast just offshore from the Mississippi Delta in Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle.    In Louisiana, the storm pushed an oil patch dumping tar balls as big as apples on the beach of its Islands.    Lightning kept cleanup workers at bay and a boom got loose.    Tar balls and oil splattered Alabama beaches.    Long stretches of beach were stained brown as far as 60 yards from the water's edge.    In Florida, tar lumps the size of dinner plates littered a large swath of beach east of Pensacola in Navarre Beach.    The EPA officials say their first round of testing on chemicals used to break apart the oil shows all of the available dispersants are generally equally toxic, but far less toxic than oil which takes years to biodegrade.
      An effort to save thousands of sea-turtle hatchlings from dying in the oily Gulf will begin in the coming weeks to keep an entire generation of threatened species from vanishing.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 74
  
• 7/2/2010 Gulf disaster hits 140 million gallons, rising by AP.
      New Orleans - The oil that has spewed for 2 ^1/2 months from a blown-out well a mile undersea hit the 140.6 million-gallon mark eclipsing the record-setting, 140 million-gallon Ixtoc I spill off Mexico's coast from 1979 to 1980.    BP will be fined per gallon spilled minus the barrels per day they say it collected which was at 969,000 gallons.    By measuring the spill helps scientists figure out where the missing oil is, hidden below the water surface with some even stuck to the seafloor.    This is not the biggest since Iraqi forces opened valves at a terminal and dumped as much as 336 million gallons of oil during the 1991 Persian Gulf war.    The government has pinned its latest cleanup hopes on a huge new piece of equipment: the world's largest oil-skimming vessel, which arrived Wednesday.    The vessel looks like a typical tanker, but it takes in contaminated water through 12 vents on either side of the bow.    The oil is then supposed to be separated from the water and transferred to another vessel.    The water is channeled back into the sea.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 78
  
• 7/6/2010 BP's cost in Gulf hits $3 billion by AP.
      BP's cost climbed nearly half a billion dollars this past week, to a total just over $3 billion.    So far the bad weather has not slowed drilling on two relief wells which are on schedule for mid-August.    Tar balls hit Texas which means it has reached all Gulf states.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 79
  
• 7/7/2010 Crude reaching inland La. waters by AP.
      New Orleans - The oil spill was trickling deeper inland and toward the shores of New Orleans.    Oil sheen and tar balls have been spotted in Lake Pontchartrain, the huge lake that forms the northern boundary of the city.    Crews placed boom at a natural choke point with hopes of stopping more from entering the lake.    Nineteen skimmers and four containment vessels also were sent to the affected area.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 80
  
• 7/8/2010 Groups urge action on Gulf wells by AP.
      Leading environmental groups and a U.S. senator called on the government to pay closer attention to more than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells in the Gulf of Mexico and take action to keep them from leaking even more crude into water tainted by the BP spill.    Apparently these wells are improperly plugged and may be leaking, and many are abandoned without the full safeguards of permanent abandonment.    Engineers claim that even properly sealed wells the cement plugs can fail over the decades and the metal casing that lines the wells can rust.    No one has been conducting investigations or checks on them, nor is it budgeted to do it for a possible environmental disaster.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 81
  
• 7/9/2010 'Bottom kill' may come soon by Washington Post.
      The end could be near for the runaway gulf oil well according to BP said the "bottom kill" could occur before the end of July between the July 20 and July 27.
  
• 7/11/2010 Tougher chemical discharge rules sought by The Courier-Journal.
      Legislation in Washington, D.C., and Frankfort, Ky., seeks to reduce pollution by pharmaceuticals and other chemicals.    A bill was introduced to prohibit health care facilities form flushing drugs into toilets, which died in committee, but Kentucky state Rep. Joni Jenkins, D-Louisville, will bring it back next year with a different approach of an unwanted-drug collection program.    Kentucky Pharmacists Association said hospitals are not flushing drugs down the toilet, they either return the drugs to the manufacturer for disposal or have them incinerated.    They would like to work on the program with Jenkins and develop an incinerator to encourage proper disposal.    In Washington there is a push to bring federal Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 up to date.    The law offers little control over the 83,000 chemicals used in industry and consumer goods, which is also making it into our bodies.    The EPA has only been able to use the law to control just five of them, as they are required to prove a chemical is unsafe.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 83
  
• 7/11/2010 Robot 'surgeons' begin delicate repair operation by AP.
      New Orleans - Robotic submarines working a mile underwater removed a leaking cap from the gushing oil well, starting a painful trade-off: Millions more gallons of crude will flow freely into the Gulf for at least two days until a new seal can be mounted to capture all of it.
  
• 7/11/2010 Low levels of contaminants in water supply by The Courier-Journal.
      Dozens of chemicals and pharmaceuticals - antidepressants, veterinary hormones, even cocaine - have been detected in the Ohio River upstream from Piittsburgh and downstream from Louisville to Paducah.    Researchers who conducted the study downplayed the potential effects for the 5 million people along the 981-mile river who use it for drinking water.    The contaminants are in extremely low concentrations taken from 22 locations.
      But outside scientists who reviewed the data noted that some of the pollutants have been tied to feminization of male fish, effects that should serve as a warning to people.    "When we see something this basic being altered in fish, we should be concerned about what it's doing to our own health," said biologist Peter Defur, a research associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University who specializes in chemical contaminants in the environment and was not involved in the study.
      The following are examples of these contaminants:
  
  • Caffeine, stimulant in coffee and other beverages.
  • Sulfamethoxazole, antibacterial.
  • Meprobamate, anti-anxiety medication.
  • Dilantin, anticonvulsive.
  • Carbamazepine, andticonvulsive and mood stabilizer.
  • DEET, insect repellant.
  • lopromide, radiographic contrast agent.
  • Ibuprofen, antiinflammatory.
  • Gemfibrozil, reduces cholesterol and triglycerides in the blood.
    And a few others:
    
  • Benzoylecgonine, breakdown product of cocaine.
  • Atenolol, reduces blood pressure and angina.
  • Metformin, anti-diabetic.
  • PFPeA, breakdown product of stain-and-grease-proof coatings on food packaging, couches and carpets.
  • PFOA, used in chemical manufacturing, and to make products resist fore and repel oil, stains, grease, and water, and provide non-stick surfaces on cookware.
    
  OIL SPILL - DAY 85
  
• 7/13/2010 BP puts tighter-fitting cap on well - Obama issues new deep-water drill ban by AP.
      New Orleans - As the Obama administration issued a fresh moratorium on deep-water drilling in effect until Nov. 30, while robots successfully maneuvered a new, tighter-fitting cap into place on the leaking well, offering hope of containing the gusher for the first time.    Next they will run tests to see if the cap can withstand pressure.    A permanent fix will await completion of two relief wells in August.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 88
  
• 7/16/2010 BP shuts off well leak, but will the cap hold?    Engineers begin a 48-hour watch by AP.
      New Orleans - BP finally choked off the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico - almost 90 days and up to 184 million gallons after the crisis unfolded - then began a tense 48 hours of watching to see whether the capped well would hold or blow a new leak.    To the relief of millions of people along the Gulf Coast, the big, billowing brown cloud of crude at the bottom of the sea disappeared from the underwater video feed for the first time.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 89
  
• 7/17/2010 Despite mystery, cap seems to work by AP.
      New Orleans - So far so good.
  
• 7/18/2010 Oil endangers migratory birds by USA Today.
      The piping plovers already are flying toward peril.    These endangered, sparrow-sized birds are among the first of millions that will migrate this fall to the Gulf of Mexico - and to oily areas that could kill them.    Some birds, including the common loon and lesser scaup, spend winters along the Gulf Coast.    Others, like the blue winged teal, stock up on food at the Gulf before flying to Latin America.    Its safe to say thousand of birds will die, as the oil will kill food sources on beaches and in tidal and marshy areas, making them dangerous for years.    It's almost impossible to steer migrating birds away from their instinctive destinations and oily water and vegetation won't prevent them from landing.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 91
  
• 7/19/2010 U.S. at odds with BP over opening cap - Company wants well to stay sealed by AP.
      New Orleans - BP and the Obama administration offered significantly differing views about whether the capped well will have to be reopened.    But the government's plan is to eventually pipe oil to the surface, which would ease pressure on the fragile well but would required up to three more days of oil spilling into the Gulf.    BP said that a seep and possible methane were found near the broken oil well.    The concern all along - since pressure readings on the cap weren't as high as expected - was a leak elsewhere in the well bore, meaning the cap may have to be reopened to keep the environmental disaster from getting worse if methane is building.
  OIL SPILL - DAY 92
  
• 7/20/2010 BP, government monitor leaks from well cap - rupture site not seen as problem by AP.
      New Orleans - BP is monitoring the pressure and seismic readings to see whether the well would hold or spring a new leak, perhaps one that could rupture the seafloor and make the disaster even worse.
  
• 7/21/2010 Panel may let more mercury into river by The Courier-Journal.
      A multistate commission that sets water-quality standards for the Ohio River is considering allowing more mercury in the water, most likely from power plants.    Utilities have been taking more and more mercury out of their air emissions.    The process of "scrubbing" the flue gases passes the mercury to an effluent that gets into the river.    So they say that complying with current water-quality is not always possible.    Environmentalist are against the proposal, since more fish that people eat have mercury levels in their flesh that is at or close to unhealthy limits.
  OIL SPILL DISASTER - DAY 101
  
• 7/29/2010 Well is prepared for static kill by AP.
      New Orleans - Crews took another step toward readying the relief well expected to kill the Gulf of Mexico oil gusher, removing a plug they had popped in before clearing the area ahead of Tropical Storm Bonnie.    Drilling the relief well has been a monthslong task, and BP has finally plug the gusher from below.    Now that the plug is out, the relief well must be flushed out with drilling mud before the casing can be dropped in and cemented.    Once in place, crews will begin a static kill, pumping heavy mud straight down the well though the temporary cap and failed blowout preventer.    If the well casing is intact, the mud will force the oil back into the natural petroleum reservoir.    Then workers will pump in cement to seal the casing.
      The static kill is on track for next week.    Then comes the bottom kill where the relief well will be used to pump in mud and cement; that process will take days or weeks.
  
• 8/6/2010 BP finishes pumping cement into Gulf well by AP.
      New Orleans - BP finished pumping fresh cement into its blown-out oil well as it aimed to seal for good the ruptured pipe.    A day before, crews forced a slow torrent of heavy mud down the well head from ships a mile above for the static kill to assure us that there will be no chance of oil leaking into the environment.
  
• 9/5/2010 BP well's threat to Gulf ends by Los Angeles Times.
      New Orleans - With a new blowout preventer in place and a 5,000-foot column of cement filling its core, the BP well is no longer in danger of leaking oil.    But it must be plugged from the bottom to be complete.    The old blowout preventer was brought to the surface to be studied in hopes of learning more about the explosion.
• 9/9/2010 BP spreads blame for oil spill by AP.
      New Orleans - BP took some of the blame for the Gulf oil disaster in an internal report issued, acknowledging that it misinterpreted a key pressure test of the well.    But it also pointed the finger at its partners on the rig, Transocean and cement contractor Halliburton as it deals with hundreds of lawsuits, billions of dollars in claims and possible criminal charges.
  
• 9/13/2010 Crews working to find source of oil pipeline leak by AP.
      Chicago - Crews believe they're closing in on the source of a leak that has forced the closing of a Chicago-area oil pipeline, which has caused a sharp spike in gas prices across the region.    Enbridge Energy Partners has been given until noon to stop the flow of oil, raising oil prices more than $2 a barrel.
  
• 9/14/2010 Oil found on Gulf sea floor by AP.
      New Orleans - Far beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, deeper than divers can go, scientists say they are finding oil from the broken BP well on the sea's muddy and mysterious bottom.    Oil at least 2 inches thick was found about a mile beneath the surface, and under it was a layer of dead shrimp and other small animals (tube worms, tiny crustaceans and mollusks, single-celled organism and Halloween-scary fish with bulging eyes and skeletal frames).    They found oil as far as 80 miles from the spill site.
  OIL SPILL DISASTER END SUPPOSEDLY - DAY 154
  
• 9/20/2010 BP well is finally declared sealed by Harry R. Weber, AP.
      DING DONG the well is dead.    Finally.
      A permanent cement plug sealed BP's well nearly 2.5 miles below the sea floor after five agonizing months.
• 9/22/2010 Kentucky plant violations lead to $800,000 payment by AP.
      A Texas-based chemical company will pay $800,000 to the federal government and the state of Kentucky under an agreement to settle accusations of environmental violations at a Western Kentucky plant.    Under a consent decree, Westlake Vinyls doesn't admit any wrongdoing or liability.    But the Houston company agrees to take corrective actions.    Federal and Kentucky environmental officials said in court filings that the company, which has two plants in Calvert City, had hundreds of violations of laws governing clean air and water.    The plants produce PVC pipe and related products.
  
• 10/6/2010 Hungary toxic sludge flood called 'disaster' by AP.
      Devecser, Hungary - Hungary declared a state of emergency in three countries after a flood of toxic red sludge from an alumina plant engulfed several towns and burned people through their clothes.    Officials called it an ecologocal disaster that may threaten the Danube and other key rivers.    The toll rose to four dead, six missing and at least 120 injured after a reservoir failed at the Ajka Timfoldgyar plant in Ajka, a town 100 miles southwest of Budapest.    Several hundred tons of plaster were being poured into the Marcal river to bind the toxic sludge and prevent it from flowing further.    So far, about 35.3 million cubic feet of sludge has leaked from the reservoir, affecting about 15.5 square miles, with 390 residents had to be relocated and 110 were rescued from the flooded towns.    The sludge, a waste product in aluminum production, contains heavy metals and is toxic if ingested.
  
• 10/7/2010 EU wants Danube saved from sludge by AP.
      Kolontar, Hungary - Hungary opened a criminal probe into the toxic sludge flood, and the European Union urged emergency authorities to do everything they can to keep the contaminated slurry from reaching the Danube and affecting a half-dozen other nations.    It was still not known why part of the reservoir failed and no irregularities were found when the plant and reservoir were inspected two weeks earlier.
  
• 10/8/2010 Toxic red sludge reaches Danube, prompts tests by AP.
      Kolontar, Hungary - The sludge reached the Danube River after wreaking havoc on smaller rivers and creeks.    Nations downstream rushed to test their water.    The EU and environmental officials fear a catastrophe affecting a halfdozen nations as it reached the Danube but tests showed it was unlikely to cause damage or have any dead fish been found.    The Danube flows through Croatia, Sebia, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Moldova before emptying into the Black Sea.
• 10/10/2010 Hungary fears second wave of sludge flood by AP.
      Devecser, Hungary - The cracking wall of an industrial plant reservoir appeared on the verge of collapse, and engineers were working to blunt a possible second wave of the caustic red sludge by building retaining walls around the breach.    Red sludge is a byproduct of the refining of bauxite into alumina, the basic material for making aluminum.
  
• 10/11/2010 Hungarians expect sludge-lake wall to give by AP.
      Kolontar, Hungary - The reservoir will inevitably collapse and unleash a new deluge of the material.
  
• 11/3/2010 BP's oil spill cost still growing by AP.
      BP PLC is once again reporting profits even with an estimated $40 billion price tag for the blown-out well, which dragged down their third-quarter profit by more than 60 percent.
  
• 12/19/2010 Likely carcinogen found in water in 31 U.S. cities - EPA, California may limit hexavalent chromium by The Washington Post.
      Washington - An environmental group that analyzed the drinking water in 35 cities around the country found that most contained hexavalent chromium, a probable carcinogen that was made famous by the film "Erin Brockovich."    The study, which will be released by the Environmental Working Group, is the first nationwide analysis of hexavalent chromium in drinking water to be made public.    It comes as the EPA is considering whether to set a limit for Hexavalent Chromium in tap water, which was deemed a "probable carcinogen" in 2008.
      The federal government restricts the amount of "total chromium" in drinking water requires water utilities to test for it, but that includes trivalent chromium, a mineral that humans need to metabolize glucose, and hexavalent chromium, the metal that has caused cancer in laboratory animals.    California was the first to set a limit of 0.06 parts per billion which was used as an industrial chemical until the early 1990s.    It is still used in some industries such as chrome plating and the manufacturing of plastics and dyes.    The chemical can also leach into groundwater from natural ores.    Oklahoma water contained more than 200 times the California goal, and Washington D.C. three times.
      Erin Brockovich on the behalf of the residents of Hinkley, Calif., against Pacific Gas & Electric in the 2000 film, leaked for more than 30 years into the groundwater and PG&E paid $333 million to more than 600 persons and cleaned up the contamination.
      Obviuously we learned nothing from that issue and it is very disturbing now that all we can do is limit it.    It can cause lung cancer when inhaled and recently discovered that it causes cancer when ingested by lab animals, including liver and kidney damage as well as leukemia, stomach cancer, etc.
  
• 12/26/2010 Bunkers might help fight bat disease by AP.
      Concord, N.H. - In a world War II-era military bunker and a flashlight among the old pipes were bats hanging from cracks in the cement walls and ceiling.    It was an unusual place for the bats to hibernate, but none of them had the white-nose syndrome, a fungus that's killing bats across the country.
  
  
  Return each year for updates for 2011 and on.
  
  

Created on January 31, 2006, and updated on November 30, 2006, December 31, 2006, August 17, 2007, February 29, 2008, March 7, 2009, January 1, 2010, August 20, 2011, and October 12, 2011.