Latest U.S. Environmental Protection Agency News
Key moments in Flint, Michigan’s lead-tainted water crisis
FLINT, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan judge's order dismissing charges against seven people in the Flint water scandal is the latest development in a crisis that started in 2014. That was when the city began taking water from the Flint River without treating it properly, resulting in lead contamination....
Montana site fouled by copper smelter to get final cleanup
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A subsidiary of London-based oil giant BP agreed to finish its cleanup of a 300-square mile (776-square kilometer) site in Montana that's contaminated with arsenic and other pollutants from decades of copper smelting, and to repay the U.S. government $48 million in response...
EPA doubles money for electric school buses as demand soars
WASHINGTON (AP) — Responding to “overwhelming demand,” the Environmental Protection Agency is nearly doubling the money available to states to buy electric models of the familiar yellow school buses that millions of children ride every school day. The EPA made $500 million...
Illinois firm OKs $2.5M for alleged Louisiana violations
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — An Illinois company has agreed to pay $2.5 million to settle safety charges from an explosion that killed three welders and injured seven at a Louisiana containerboard mill in 2017, as well as other alleged safety violations, the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday. ...
Hawaii fines US Navy for unauthorized sewage release
HONOLULU (AP) — The Hawaii Department of Health said Tuesday it has fined the U.S. Navy $8.8 million for repeatedly discharging untreated or partially treated sewage into state waters from Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. The department said in a news release that it recorded 766...
NAACP says Jackson's water problems are civil rights issue
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — In a federal complaint Tuesday, the NAACP said Mississippi officials “all but assured” a drinking water calamity in Jackson by depriving the state’s majority-Black capital city of badly needed funds to upgrade its infrastructure. The organization asked the...
EPA preparing plan to help fix Jackson's water system
JACKSON, Miss (AP) — The federal government wants to work with officials in Mississippi's capital city to reach a legal agreement that ensures Jackson can sustain its water system in the future, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan said Monday. Federal...
Civil rights law targets 'cancer alley' discrimination
RESERVE, La. (AP) — Sprawling industrial complexes line the drive east along the Mississippi River to the majority-Black town of Reserve, Louisiana. In the last seven miles the road passes a massive, rust-colored aluminum-oxide refinery, then the Evonik chemical plant, then rows of white tanks at...
Biden administration launches environmental justice office
WARRENTON, N.C. (AP) — President Joe Biden’s top environment official visited what is widely considered the birthplace of the environmental justice movement Saturday to unveil a national office that will distribute $3 billion in block grants to underserved communities burdened by pollution. ...
Northern Colorado air quality downgraded by EPA
Stricter air quality regulations are coming for northern Colorado businesses after the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday downgraded the area to a category for “severe” violators of ozone standards. Drivers may have to be pay higher gas prices too. That's...
