Pollution

"Environmentalists are warning the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that its draft plan to continue allowing oil and gas companies to dump unlimited amounts of fracking chemicals and wastewater directly into the Gulf of Mexico is in violation of federal law."

"Colonial Pipeline announced Wednesday that the company has restarted its Line 1, which had been shut down for more than 12 days, causing gasoline shortages and price increases, felt most in places like Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee."

"ExxonMobil Corp. has agreed to pay $12 million to Montana and the U.S. government to restore natural resources damaged or destroyed by a pipeline rupture in 2011 that spilled oil into the Yellowstone River, according to a settlement proposed on Wednesday."

"The U.S. Coast Guard is now saying it is responding to reports of two oil sheens in San Pablo Bay near the Phillips 66 refinery. Officials have not said how much oil has spilled, and investigators have not determined the source of either spill."

"As cities across the nation overhaul their aging, increasingly fragile drinking water systems, some municipal leaders are digging deeper to erase a toxic legacy that endangers millions of Americans: lead water pipes connecting homes to street mains." Not Chicago.

"Meet U.S. EPA's new standards for airborne lead, which are the same as the agency's existing standards for the toxic metal."

"U.S. EPA [Monday] released the final version of closely watched guidelines intended to make it easier for states to get a pass on air pollution violations outside their control because of 'exceptional events.'"

Florida environmental agencies said they are not legally required to notify homeowners whose well water was contaminated by a sinkhole at a major phosphate operation.

"MENOMINEE RESERVATION, Wisc. — Guy Reiter was an archaeologist before he was an activist. But the two merged after a dream six years ago. 'I was in a van and when we drove by the White Rapids I looked over and saw an elder sitting on a dam, in full Indian regalia,' Reiter says. 'He flagged me down, I climbed the dam, and he started talking to me in Menominee.'"

"Indonesian forest fires that choked a swath of Southeast Asia with a smoky haze for weeks last year may have caused more than 100,000 deaths, according to new research that will add to pressure on Indonesia's government to tackle the annual crisis."