Environmental Health News

California Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to build two giant water tunnels, along with legislation in Congress, could ultimately spoil the last of Northern California's wild and scenic rivers.

The Dolphin Conservation Society warns noise and pollution from construction sites has created 'dire' situation for Hong Kong's pink dolphins. There were just 61 found last year, which is the fewest in a decade and less than half the number seen back then.

Authorities late Tuesday still were trying to determine what caused a 30-inch natural gas line explosion in Washington Parish, La., but so far have said the blast does not appear to be suspicious.

Based on estimates of rainfall-fed runoff the first five months of the year, researchers project that the extent of oxygen-starved water in the Chesapeake Bay is likely to be "at the low end" of previously measured "dead zones."

The U.S. Coast Guard and Indiana environmental officials continued Tuesday to investigate the origins of a silvery substance that was found in southern Lake Michigan, causing some Indiana beaches to clear bathers from the water.

The Obama administration is making a second attempt to systematically account for the dollar damage from greenhouse gas pollution, even with no consensus on how to forestall global warming or whether to do so.

Japan's nuclear watchdog formally approved a set of new safety requirements for atomic power plants Wednesday, paving the way for the reopening of facilities shut down since the Fukushima disaster.

The smoking rate for adults in the United States dipped last year after a seven-year stall, a new government report says. It's too early to tell why.

Several hundred permits to drill for oil have been approved in Wyoming’s southern Powder River Basin. It is common practice to burn off excess natural gas at such sites, spurring concern among nearby residents that dangerous pollutants will get into the air near homes and neighborhoods.

High levels of a toxic substance called strontium-90 have been found in groundwater at the devastated Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, the utility that runs the facility said on Wednesday.

Instead of railing against pollution restrictions, this state's leaders should analyze the economic change that is sweeping West Virginia, and begin intelligent planning for a different future.

Americans pay several times for sugar subsidies. Then federal and state taxpayers shell out again for the multibillion-dollar cleanup of the Everglades, long a dumping ground for the runoff from the sugarcane fields in South Florida.

A new experiment with dogs finds that bisphenol A can be absorbed in the mouth and pass directly into the bloodstream, just as nitroglycerin under the tongue.

Scientists are predicting a big summer "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico unless a tropical storm hits the area shortly before or during the annual measurement. In the Chesapeake Bay, scientists expect a smaller-than-average area where there's too little oxygen to support fish, shellfish and other aquatic life.

Hong Kong’s famed population of pink dolphins is dwindling faster than ever, environmentalists say, shrinking 60 percent in the past decade because of heavy pollution and construction work in the waters they inhabit.

A swine virus deadly to young pigs, one never before seen in North America, is spreading rapidly across the United States and proving harder to control than previously believed.

Arsenic, cadmium, mercury and other potentially toxic chemicals would be phased out of some children's products under a bill approved Tuesday in the Oregon House.

Poisoning more than 30 people or causing the evacuation of over 5,000 as a result of pollution will lead to criminal charges, China said yesterday as it announced measures that included harsher punishments for breaches of environmental protection rules.

California state legislators on Tuesday told regulators and oil industry lobbyists they wanted more information about the use of acid to increase flows in wells in a technique that is used more often in the state than the controversial fracking method.

Los Angeles on Tuesday became the newest and by far the largest city to back a ban on plastic grocery bags, approving an ordinance that applies not just to food stores and mini-marts but also big retail chains with their own groceries, such as Target and Wal-Mart.