A study released on Thursday finds that 39 sites in 21 states where coal-fired power plants dump their coal ash are contaminating water with toxic metals such as arsenic and other pollutants, and that the problem is more extensive than previously estimated.The analysis of state pollution data by the Environmental Integrity Project, the Sierra Club and Earthjustice comes as the Environmental Protection Agency is considering whether to impose federally enforceable regulations for the first time. An alternative option would leave regulation of coal ash disposal up to the states, as it is now.
The EPA will hold the first of seven nationwide hearings about the proposed regulation Monday in Arlington, Va. A public comment period ends Nov. 19.
The electric power industry is lobbying to keep regulation up to individual states. Environmental groups say the states have failed to protect the public and that the EPA should set a national standard and enforce it.
"This is a huge and very real public health issue for Americans," said the director of the study, Jeff Stant of the Environmental Integrity Project. "Coal ash is putting drinking water around these sites at risk."
A mother whose daughter is suffering a rare form of cancer at an area hospital could be asked to leave early next month. Barbados resident Petrah Gooding brought her 7-year-old daughter Niamh Stoute to Atlanta in November to be treated for neuroblastoma at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta’s Aflac Cancer center.
Most reports about seasonal influenza cite an average of about 36,000 deaths in a typical season, but that number is both too high and grossly misleading, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.
When police arrested Anthony Graber for speeding on his motorbike, the 25-year-old probably did not see himself as an advocate for police accountability in the age of new media. But Graber, a sergeant with the Maryland Air National Guard, is now facing 16 years in prison, not for dangerous driving, but for a Youtube video he posted after receiving a speeding ticket.
The planned mosque and Islamic center blocks from ground zero got a new boost Wednesday from a coalition of supporters that includes families of Sept. 11 victims. New York Neighbors for American Values rallied for the first time at a municipal building near ground zero.
Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway - and no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking your movements.
The aide to President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan at the center of a politically sensitive corruption investigation is being paid by the Central Intelligence Agency, according to Afghan and American officials.
Two packages of radioactive material sat under a counter in the main lobby of Walter Reed Army Medical Center for 44 hours, possibly exposing patients and staff to elevated radiation, according to an investigation by federal regulators. The packages were delivered May 1 to the hospital's concierge, who stored them under the counter, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
