Public

"Carbon dioxide will soon be declared a dangerous pollutant - a move that could help propel slow-moving climate-change legislation on Capitol Hill, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Monday."

"U.S. Senate Democrats announced on Monday a new delay on climate change legislation, which could make it more difficult for President Barack Obama to win progress on that front before a global environmental summit in December."

"LOS CABOS, Mexico – Emergency workers struggled to evacuate thousands of reluctant slum dwellers as extremely dangerous Hurricane Jimena approached Mexico's resort-studded Baja California Peninsula on Tuesday."

"A major problem facing municipalities around Albany County: sewer systems that are often overrun by heavy rain and governments that don't have the millions of dollars needed to upgrade often antiquated systems."

Shallow rivate wells in part of West Palm Beach, drilled illegally by contractors, may be exposing homeowners there to drinking water contamination. People there fear a possible cancer cluster.

A University of Tennessee at Chattanooga study shows that the metals and organic chemicals found in used cigarettes can leak out, contaminating water and killing microorganisms.

With the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository now dead, "local leaders and lawmakers from the sites where the waste is now stored, however, are increasingly concerned that the Energy Department will leave it in place, even though that might violate legally binding cleanup agreements."

A dramatic rise of birth defects in India's Punjab breadbasket seems to be caused by uranium pollution, which in turn seems to be caused by ash from coal-burning electric power plants.

Perry County, Alabama, which is very poor and almost 70 percent black, is landfilling the coal ash from a spill in Tennessee in December 2008. County leaders are glad of the revenue and jobs it will bring, but some think the community "has been too easily persuaded to take on a wealthier, whiter community’s problem."

The Democratic Party of Japan, which won that nation's elections Sunday, is poised to slash Japan's greenhouse emissions by up to 25 percent, which could have an impact on climate treaty negotiations.