New Orleans restaurants’ oyster shells helped save the coast; can they again?
The shells are cast-asides from the heady days before the coronavirus pandemic, back when New Orleans’ vaunted seafood restaurants were crammed with customers. The eateries were producing about 75 tons of shells per month for the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, which runs New Orleans’ 7-year-old oyster recycling program. The vast majority of oyster shells […]
‘Forever chemicals’ pollute water from Alaska to Florida
Tom Kennedy learned about the long-term contamination of his family’s drinking water about two months after he was told that his breast cancer had metastasized to his brain and was terminal. The troubles tainting his tap: per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a broad category of chemicals invented in the mid-1900s to add desirable properties such […]
HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF FIREFIGHTING FOAMS
WRITTEN BY: MICHAEL G. STAG The first firefighting foam was developed in 1902 by Russian engineer and chemist Aleksandr Loran. Loran was working in the oil and gas industry trying to find a substance to combat petroleum-based fires for which water is wholly ineffective. Loran’s solution was the first firefighting foam which was able to […]
A Plan Made to Shield Big Tobacco From Facts Is Now E.P.A. Policy
Nearly a quarter century ago, a team of tobacco industry consultants outlined a plan to create “explicit procedural hurdles” for the Environmental Protection Agency to clear before it could use science to address the health impacts of smoking. President Trump’s E.P.A. has now embedded parts of that strategy into federal environmental policy. On Tuesday Andrew […]
St. Landry Parish, Cankton, sue oil companies over possible aquifer contamination
The St. Landry Parish government and the village of Cankton are suing more than 25 companies, including Chevron, Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips, over alleged groundwater contamination from a former 80-acre oilfield waste disposal site about 15 miles from Lafayette. Lafayette attorney William Goodell, representing the parish and village, alleges the former Cankton Tank Farm/MAR Services […]
E.P.A.’s Final Deregulatory Rush Runs Into Open Staff Resistance
President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency was rushing to complete one of its last regulatory priorities, aiming to obstruct the creation of air- and water-pollution controls far into the future, when a senior career scientist moved to hobble it. Thomas Sinks directed the E.P.A.’s science advisory office and later managed the agency’s rules and data around […]
Special Report: U.S. air monitors routinely miss pollution – even refinery explosions
When explosions ripped through a Philadelphia oil refinery last year, the shock waves knocked Felicia Menna’s front door frame out of place. Then came the black smoke. “My throat was closing shut,” recalled Menna, who lives about a mile away. “My nostrils felt like they were on fire.” She went to an emergency room, where […]
Scientists link record-breaking hurricane season to climate crisis
Paddling in a canoe through the flood waters left by Hurricane Eta in his rural village near the north coast of Honduras, Adán Herrera took stock of the damage. “Compared with Hurricane Mitch, this caused more damage because the water rose so fast,” said Herrera, 33, a subsistence farmer who is living on top of […]
Judge delays crucial permit for Formosa plastics plant
[BY DAVID MITCHELL] A state district judge sent critical air permits for a $9.4 billion Formosa Plastics complex back to state environmental regulators so they can take a closer look at the St. James Parish facility’s emissions impacts on Black residents living nearby. Nineteenth Judicial District Judge Trudy White issued the finding during a hearing […]
Marathon Petroleum, accused of fraudulently seeking tax exemption
[BY: SARA SNEATH] A state board deferred consideration of $43 million in tax breaks for Marathon Petroleum Friday after claims that the company falsified public records to avoid going to St. John the Baptist Parish officials for approval. Marathon went before the Board of Commerce and Industry Friday for a tax break for an expansion […]