Chemicals

"A group of Benton Harbor residents filed a federal class action lawsuit Wednesday against city and state officials, saying they didn’t do enough to protect them against lead in some of the city’s drinking water."

"The Biden administration on Veterans Day announced a series of new support options for veterans who had been exposed to 'contaminants and environmental hazards,' such as burn pits, while serving."

"A judge on Wednesday approved a $626 million deal to settle lawsuits filed by Flint residents who found their tap water contaminated by lead following disastrous decisions to switch the city’s water source and a failure to swiftly acknowledge the problem."

"A few hundred meters from the huge furnaces of the Chinese-owned Smedrevo steel mill in central Serbia, the village of Radinac is covered in thick red dust. Cancer rates have quadrupled in under a decade, and residents want the plant to clean up or shut down."

"Since 2019, more than 320 toxic substances have been detected in U.S. drinking water systems, according to a new analysis by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization."

"Officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will soon start testing the water in 300 homes in a Michigan city where there’s been a lead crisis to check certified filters given area residents by the state to remove lead from the drinking water."

"In pollution hotspots like western Pennsylvania — where petrochemical facilities are proliferating — local residents, distrustful of companies and government, are taking advantage of low-cost technologies to do their own monitoring of air, water, and noise pollution."