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Arsenic and Old Delays

Under threat of a lawsuit from enviros, the U.S. EPA yesterday proposed strict new regulations that would cut by 90 percent the permissible levels of arsenic in tap water. Arsenic, which can cause cancer and other health problems, is currently found at harmful levels in at least 10 percent of the nation’s community water supplies. […]

Take That Smog and Shove It

New York Gov. George Pataki (R) signed a controversial bill yesterday that aims to limit pollution drifting into New York from coal-burning power plants in the Midwest and South. The measure will fine New York companies that sell pollution allowances, which they earn by cleaning up their own emissions, to polluting facilities in Midwestern and […]

The Bonus Collector

A man enviros love to hate, Charles Hurwitz, chair and CEO of Maxxam Inc., got a good deal richer last year when he finally acceded to a government buyout of the Headwaters stand of ancient redwoods in Northern California. Filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show that Hurwitz, whose company owns Pacific Lumber, was […]

Zion Tamer

Zion National Park in Utah yesterday became the first national park in the lower 48 states to ban automobiles from its most popular area. The National Park Service launched a shuttle-bus system that requires most visitors to leave their vehicles at the park entrance; people are also encouraged to bicycle and walk in the park. […]

Poor: Salt on Their Wounds

Minorities and low-income residents in the Indianapolis metropolitan area are at the most risk from toxic chemicals, according to a study released yesterday by the Indianapolis Urban League Environmental Coalition. A non-white Indianapolis resident is 26 percent more likely than the average resident to live within 550 yards of a company releasing toxic chemicals, and […]

Good Clean Fun

Clothes-washing machines are going greener under an agreement unveiled yesterday between the U.S. government and major home appliance manufacturers. By 2007, Whirlpool, Maytag, General Electric, and other companies will make washing machines that use less water and 50 percent less energy than current models. More modest energy efficiency gains will be achieved by 2004. Manufacturers […]

Putin on the Fritz

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday abolished the nation’s environmental protection agency, the State Committee on the Environment, ostensibly to help save money and cut bureaucracy. The agency’s functions will be turned over to the Ministry on Natural Resources, which oversees oil and gas development, logging, and mining. Putin has made it clear that he […]

Court and Spark

The U.S. Supreme Court set the stage yesterday for a landmark environmental ruling by announcing its decision to hear a case that will determine whether the government went too far in 1997 in setting tough national clean-air standards. Last year, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., invalidated EPA standards that could have forced a […]

Going Smog Wild

More than 132 million Americans live in areas that ought to receive a flunking grade for their dangerously high smog levels, according to an American Lung Association report released today. The report graded metropolitan areas based on the number of days they had unhealthy smog levels in 1996, 1997, and 1998, the most recent years […]

They Otter Be Ashamed

Sea otters in Alaska’s Prince William Sound have experienced long-term negative effects from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In some areas polluted by the spill, otter densities are now about half what they were before the accident. Much of the apparent […]