Pollution

"Duke Energy has signed an agreement with the US Environmental Protection Agency to have it oversee the cleanup of toxic coal ash that spilled into a North Carolina river earlier this year. For days this February, tens of thousands of tons of coal ash flooded into the Dan River, which flows between North Carolina and Virginia, from a reservoir beside an old Duke power plant. Duke has been cleaning it up in the time since, with the EPA monitoring its progress, and it's now agreed to compensate the EPA for all past and ongoing oversight costs."

"In a big win for environmentalists, the Supreme Court on Monday effectively endorsed the Obama administration’s efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from sources like power plants, even as it criticized what it called the administration’s overreaching."

"Florida taxpayers have been left shouldering most of the $2 billion Everglades water pollution cleanup cost, despite a constitutional amendment passed by nearly 70 percent of voters that calls for the sugar industry to pick up its share of the tab."

"In their refrigerators and kitchen cabinets, residents along Leonard Road strive to keep a steady supply of what has become a staple beverage in their community over the past few months."

"There’s no evidence in reports subpoenaed by a federal grand jury that Duke Energy ever performed a simple test engineers recommended, one that might have prevented the spill this winter at the utility’s power plant near Eden."

"RALEIGH, N.C. — Records subpoenaed by federal prosecutors show engineers working for Duke Energy warned the company nearly 30 years before a massive coal ash spill that a stormwater pipe running under an ash dump was made of corrugated metal and needed to be monitored for leaks."

"Freedom Industries has terminated the contractor in charge of the cleanup of its Elk River chemical tank farm, just days after two incidents in which stormwater overflowed a collection ditch at the high-profile site, sending potentially contaminated runoff pouring into the river."

"Government officials involved in the multistate Chesapeake Bay cleanup pledged Monday to broaden and accelerate the long-running effort, including a vow to address the impacts of climate change on the ailing estuary."

"Despite early progress reducing Chesapeake Bay pollution, levels of a key pollutant, phosphorus, have not come down in many rivers in the past decade — and are actually rising in several, officials say."

"NEW CASTLE, Colo. — Four in 10 new oil and gas wells near national forests and fragile watersheds or otherwise identified as higher pollution risks escape federal inspection, unchecked by an agency struggling to keep pace with America's drilling boom, according to an Associated Press review that shows wide state-by-state disparities in safety checks."