Week of November 28

Toxic Levels of Arsenic Found in Popular Juice Brands
Yahoo! Health
Arsenic has long been recognized as a poison and a contaminant in drinking water, but now concerns are growing about arsenic in foods, especially in fruit juices that are a mainstay for children.

Daily Diet: Consumer Reports on Arsenic-Contaminated Apple Juice
HealthNews
Consumer Reports has released a report finding high levels of arsenic in apple and grape juice, both common and plentiful drinks that we give our children… Last July, CR reported on protein drinks that had heavy metal contamination, including that of arsenic.

Pet waste harmful to food supply
Yuma Sun
Contamination of fresh, ready-to-eat fruits and vegetables with fecal-oral pathogens is a significant issue for industrialized agriculture in the United States. In recent years, contaminated irrigation water used for crop production has often been ...

Agency to Set Standards on Fracking Waste Water
The Wall Street Journal
The Environmental Protection Agency, responding to concerns about potential water contamination from natural-gas drilling…The decision comes amid questions involving the drilling practice known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which involves injecting large amounts of water and chemicals deep underground to unleash natural gas trapped in shale formations.

Toxic Coal Wastes Need Effective Treatment
Waste Management World
A report into the technology deployed at a number of projects treating waste from coal mining, beneficiation and combustion in Australia, the UK and the U.S. has been published…"These wastes contain a variety of contaminants, including known carcinogens like arsenic, chromium, mercury and selenium…also contain polonium, thallium and radioactivelead..."

EPA OKs Zanesville superfund site work
Zanesville Times Recorder
United Technologies, which occupied the property at the time, began remediation work after it was discovered the debris had contaminated three city water wells on the east side of the river. The initial remediation efforts included pumping the ...

Petroleum-eating mushrooms
EurekAlert (press release)
By using bacteria to stimulate the exceptional growth capacity of certain plants and microscopic mushrooms, Hijri and Lang believe they are able to create in situ decontamination units able to successfully attack the most contaminated sites on the ...

Suncor ordered to test air in wastewater plant
CBS News
(AP)  DENVER — State health officials on Thursday ordered Suncor Energy to immediately begin testing the air inside the Denver Metro Wastewater Treatment Plant to ensure worker safety near where a gasoline-like substance from the company's refinery was detected seeping into Sand Creek earlier this week.

Asbestos water spurs call for Mont. mine cleanup
CanadianBusiness.com
Those showed low levels of contamination. Low levels also were found in a sandbar on the Kootenai just below Rainy Creek, Progess said. EPA contractors over the past decade have hauled hundreds of truckloads of contaminated soil from residences in ...

Officials consider moving creek away from toxic slag pile at former Asarco ...
The Republic
Jim Ford of the Montana Environmental Trust Group said moving portions of Prickly Pear Creek is part of a plan that involves moving water away from waste materials so workers can focus on removing contaminated soils at the former Asarco lead plant. ...

Week of November 21

Cluster's last stand‎
The Economist
CLUSTER munitions caused at least 60 casualties in at least seven countries in 2010, according to the latest Cluster Munitions Monitor, though inadequate data collection in many places means the total was probably much higher.

On arsenic-tainted ground‎
Stuff.co.nz
Hundreds of Thames residents may be tested for arsenic contamination after soil on 212 properties was found to contain up to 235 times the safe limit of the ...

Minister Borbely: Romania must spend about 4-5 bln euros for site decontamination
ACTmedia
Romania must spend about 4-5 billion euros to decontaminate the nearly 1200 contaminated sites, Minister of Environment and Forestry Laszlo Borbely told the conference The Green Economy - The New Challenge of the Contemporary World on Tuesday. ...

Toxic Landscape: Dangerous chromium spreads through Garfield groundwater
NorthJersey.com
Residents live in fear that hexavalent chromium is infiltrating their basements, that their families could get cancer and that their property values have been destroyed. And state officials allowed it all to happen. What occurred in Garfield over the ...

Toronto site remediation entails removal of 600 tons of soil‎
Daily Commercial News
Environmental remediation experts generally oversee projects on properties belonging to clients. Occasionally, all the pieces fall into place for the ...

Herald News: How the state failed a community
NorthJersey.com
Nearly three decades after 3 tons of chromium leaked from a tank at EC Electroplating into the groundwater of the surrounding neighborhood, the cancer-causing chemical is still showing up in area basements. All it takes, it seems, is a heavy rain.

EPA Proposes Plan to Remove Contaminated Sediment from Bottom of Pompton Lake ...
U.S. EPA.gov (press release)
The manufacturing operations and waste management practices contaminated soil, sediment, and ground water both on and off-site. Lead and mercury from its operations were released into Acid Brook, which flows through the eastern part of the facility and ...

Md. Considers Health, Environmental Risks of Shale Gas Drilling
Southern Maryland Online 
... or "fracking," for environmental disturbances including landscape degradation, air pollution and groundwater contamination -- conditions which may ... 

Companies slacking in clean coal technology‎
UW Badger Herald
Medical consequences are attributed primarily to heavy metals and ... are an inherent public health hazard due to particulate emissions and air pollution. ... 

Start-up date to be set for Orica plant
ABC Online
Orica's ammonia plant was shut down in August after a toxic leak of hexavalent chromium. The rest of the Newcastle site was closed earlier this month after an ammonia leak. The Orica start up committee met yesterday and the Environment Protection ...

Week of November 14
Chevron hid scope of Brazil oil spill, group says
‎San Francisco Chronicle - Stan Lehman 
The Brazilian Federal Police on Thursday began investigating an oil spill in an offshore field operated by Chevron Corp. of San Ramon, ...

Michigan Department of Environmental Quality diverting water in Talmadge Creek ...
Kalamazoo Gazette - MLive.com
To get to oil in Talmadge Creek, crews thought it would be more efficient if there wasn't any water. Water in a half-mile section of the creek has been diverted through a 16-inch pipe so crews can remove oil-contaminated soil over the winter. ...

Basic Problems of Human and Environmental Consequences of Toxic Chemicals ...
Salem-News.Com
Global Environmental Facilitate (GEF) in cooperation with United Nations Development Programme is financing Office of National Steering Committee 33 to implement the project “Environmental Remediation of Dioxin Contaminated Hotspots in Vietnam”....

Arsenic endangers Fairfield residents' health
Daily Herald
Residents had questions about the safety of private wells, irrigation water and the health effects of arsenic contamination in standing surface water, soil and air, especially on children. "I had my own well tested to make sure it was safe for my ...

State fund helps pay to mop up leaking oil tanks
Richmond Times Dispatch
But it will pay for environmental remediation and most or part of the costs, depending on the contamination level. "Every state fund is different," said Marybeth Glaser, a reimbursement team coordinator with the DEQ. "What I do know is not all states ...

Pollution Concerns Grow Alongside Economy in China
‎2point6billion 
The soil contamination in the lower Pearl River Delta area is a result of frequent industrial activities, while the pollution in northern Guangdong Province ...

Potential New Tenant, Contamination Cleanup at Waldbaum's Site
Patch.com
"No one is expected to drink contaminated groundwater because the surrounding area is served by public water," the DEC statement reads. "No one should be exposed to contaminants in indoor air because a soil vapor extraction system is currently planned ...

Arsenic found in soil near Andover school
Boston.com
“Not only do they have to be concerned about increased storm water running through their property because of the way the [new school] site is being restructured and resloped, now they have to worry about the fact that it's running from contaminated ...

Cheshire Industrial Firm to Pay EPA Penalty
Patch.com
The manufacuturer will pay more than $100000 to settle a claim by the EPA that the business failed for two years to report the on-site presence of the toxic chemicals chromium and nickel. The company also failed to have a policy on safely storing ...

Chemical fears after warehouse fire
TVNZ
Specialist decontamination units will today return to the site of a massive warehouse fire in Christchurch. The fire started around 9pm last night, when a large truck and trailer caught alight at transport operators Daily Freight, in Wigram. ...

Week of November 7

China farms: 10% of land polluted, officials say
BBC News
State-owned media quoted the report as saying the pollution was due to contaminated water and poisonous waste seeping into the soil. The report did not say what level of heavy metals was considered excessive. China's economic growth has led to it having

Soil contamination in Washington Township
NorthJersey.com
Nearly 800000 people pay United Water to drink and bathe with water from the Oradell Reservoir. Groundwater contamination is not unknown to the township. A native of the township and her family, who lived on Pascack Road, downhill from the municipal ...

Suit seeks to stop alleged pollution by CA farmers
San Jose Mercury News
That polluted groundwater, according to the suit, is harmful to threatened fish species and contaminates the drinking water used by millions of Californians. Soils and groundwater in the area are contaminated with selenium and other chemicals such as ...

Uranium summit brings news of work to be done
Farmington Daily Times
Navajo residents built homes from contaminated soil or lived for decades in radioactive sites. "When you go into the hogan, it's real intense to talk about exposure," Etsitty said. "They've lived it and we want to change it." Crews taking meters and ...

The toxic legacy of Thailand's 'Great Flood' will remain long after the waters ...
Environmental Expert (press release)
The floods will also have a toxic legacy in the form of soil, sediment and groundwater contamination which will continue to represent a risk to human health and the environment long after the floodwaters have receded. Groundwater resources may be ...

Toxic mine dumps threaten Joburg
Independent Online
They are causing radioactive dust fallout, toxic water pollution and soil contamination, according to the final draft of a new report by the Gauteng Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (GDARD) on mine residue areas (MRAs), called for by ...

EPA orders investigation into pollution in SE Kan.
BusinessWeek
The EPA says the site is contaminated with several toxic chemicals, including benzene, lead and hexavalent chromium. The agency says those chemicals may have affected groundwater, surfacewater and soil. The settlement in part requires Frontier and ...

Contaminated groundwater from the old Texfi site still a threat to PWC water ...
Fayetteville Observer
So were soil samples taken along the riverbank, he said. A nonprofit watchdog group called CleanWater for North Carolina said one potential risk is that contamination might reach the river during low-flow conditions, with little hope of the river ...

Faegre Files Suit Against BP on Behalf of Gulf Fishermen
Twin Cities Business (blog)
According to the suit, the contracts give BP control over the participating fishermen's boats until the vessels have been decontaminated and require BP to compensate the boat owners at a daily rate until the decontamination occurs. ...

Decontamination: Is Water King?
FireEngineering.com
We spent little time or resources thinking about ways to respond to and decontaminate from the exotic weapons the military favored. If we were contaminated by and exposed to a chemical release, we would use soap and water to wash and decontaminate at ...