Pollution

"A giant aquifer below an eastern Idaho federal nuclear facility is as free of radioactive contamination and other pollutants as it has been in more than six decades of monitoring but the water level of the aquifer is at its lowest ever recorded, according to a U.S. Geological Survey report released this week."

"Three metropolitan areas in Northeast Ohio were among 72 areas in the U.S. that suffered through more than 100 days of unhealthy air pollution in 2015, according to a report released today by the Environment America Research & Policy Center."

"The Trump administration has hit the pause button on an Obama-era regulation aimed at limiting the dumping of toxic metals such as arsenic and mercury by the nation’s power plants into public waterways."

"On the Navajo Nation, kids with the most severe developmental disabilities attend a school called Saint Michael's Association for Special Education."

"A spill at the U.S. Steel plant in Portage this week leaked a toxic chemical into Burns Waterway, a Lake Michigan tributary, forcing the closure of beaches in and around the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and leaving officials scrambling to determine the extent of damage caused to the local environment."

"Twin Cities is a hot spot in a national study of lakes and road-salt runoff. It showed that salt concentrations in the Mississippi, mostly from road salt, have increased 81 percent since 1985."

"In a win for environmentalists, a federal court [Tuesday] tossed a George W. Bush-era rule exempting animal feeding operations from certain pollution reporting requirements."

"The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted the Environmental Protection Agency’s request Tuesday to delay oral argument in a case over its 2015 smog standard, allowing the agency time to reconsider the Obama-era rule."

"The Trump administration has given its strongest indication to date it may not stand in the way of lawsuits aimed at undoing Obama-era environmental protections for smog-forming pollutants."

"The owner of a pipeline leaking natural gas into Alaska's Cook Inlet is dealing with another potential gas leak on a different line. It is the third such incident this year for Hilcorp Alaska in an area that has been declared a "critical habitat" for endangered beluga whales."