Chicago's affluent Lincoln Park neighborhood has low levels of air pollution now -- and will have even lower levels when a nearby steel mill moves to the poorer part of town.

The EPA’s new regional administrator, Jared Blumenfeld,  joined California officials deep inside an otherworldly realm of deadly caustic waste deemed the most toxic place on earth, reports Peter Fimrite of the San Francisco Chronicle. The Iron Mountain Mine lies nine miles from the city of Redding at the north end of the Sacramento Valley. It was first tapped in the 1890s as a source of sulfuric acid and later for copper.  When miners uncovered vast deposits of pyrite, exposing it to oxygen, water and bacteria, it began breaking down and creating poisonous runoff.

The Environmental Protection Agency has started to regulate coal ash, a toxic byproduct of burning coal to produce electricity.  However, Micah Maidenberg of Progress Illinois suggests that the initial regulations are too limited. EPA did not deem coal ash as a hazardous material fit for regulation until December 2008, when 5.4 million cubic yards of ash spilled through the retaining wall of an Eastern Tennessee power plant. The sediment destroyed nearby homes and seeped into the Emory River, producing elevated levels of lead and thalium.

Who knew?  Turns out there's an oil company called BP that is responsible for releasing petrochemicals into the environment without telling people.  James C. McKinley, Jr. reports in the New York Times on BP's latest travesty in Texas (they're good at creating disasters over in Louisiana, but in Texas they've outdone themselves -- it's all about being consistent). 

Obama administration lawyers have asked the US Supreme Court to dismiss a lawsuit filed by eight states including California, New York City and three land trusts six years ago, seeking tougher restrictions on carbon dioxide releases by utilities than those set by the federal government, according to the San Francisco Chronicle's Bob Egelko. Justice Department lawyers argue that federal primacy, in the form of recent EPA regulations, give the federal agency and Congress the sole power to regulate greenhouse gases.

The dumping of sewage and other bilge water by cruise ships and other large sea-going commercial vessels will soon be outlawed within three miles of the California coast, Paul Rogers of the San Jose Mercury-News reports. The new regulations, expected to be unveiled at a press conference Wednesday, settle a four year long kerfuffle between state officials and the federal government.

The Environmental Protection Agency unveiled new regulations Monday requiring a sharp reduction in emissions of various pollutants from the nation's Portland Cement plants, riling California producers who say the stricter rules will force more operations overseas. The new rules require plants by to cut the amount of brain damaging mercury and lung harmful particulate matter released into the atmosphere by

Here’s why industry self-policing doesn’t work when it comes to dangerous chemicals. Last month the Environmental Working Group found that those shiny grocery and gas station receipts contain high levels of the chemical, bisphenol A ("BPA"), which is absorbed into our skin.  The Food and Drug Administration is already considering whether to regulate BPA found in plastic food containers – including baby bottles – but only after a public outcry.

Last week's oil spill in Michigan's Kalamazoo River is effectively being cleaned up, the AP reports. The good news will perhaps quell the escalating feud between Illinois and Michigan. Between 800,000 and more than a million gallons of oil leaked from a broken pipeline into southern Michigan's Kalamazoo River, 80 miles east of Lake Michigan. The EPA continues to fault the clean-up plan of Calgary-based Enbridge Energy Partners, which runs the Indiana-to-Canada pipeline. But the federal agency says that air and water quality

The Obama administration has deployed the 'BP Squad' of federal investigators to the Gulf to probe whether there was any wrongdoing on the part of government regulators or private companies related to the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig. As Peter Henning points out in The New York Times, the criminal probe focuses mostly on