US Government Accountability Office http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-13-249 Since 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has made progress implementing its new approach to managing toxic chemicals under its existing Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) authority; particularly by increasing efforts to obtain chemical toxicity and exposure data and initiating chemical risk assessments..The results of EPA’s data collection activities, in … Continue reading »
Tagged with Toxic Substances …
Analysis of Recent Proposals to Amend the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) to Create a Coal Combustion Residuals Permit Program
Congressional Research Service bit.ly/Yu6XtE [InsideEPA.com, sub. req'd] The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is outlining a host of unanswered questions about the efficacy and regulatory impacts of legislation to circumvent EPA’s pending coal ash disposal rule with state-crafted standards, which environmentalists say raises potential new hurdles that could further dampen the bills’ prospects for approval. But … Continue reading »
National Rivers and Streams Assessment: a Collaborative Survey, 2008-2009 Report — Draft
US EPA http://1.usa.gov/YG8IQT National Aquatic Resource Survey site: http://water.epa.gov/type/watersheds/monitoring/aquaticsurvey_index.cfm [EPA Press Release email] Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released the results of the first comprehensive survey looking at the health of thousands of stream and river miles across the country, finding that more than half – 55 percent – are in poor condition for … Continue reading »
EPA’s Chemical Data Access Tool (CDAT)
US EPA, Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics http://java.epa.gov/oppt_chemical_search/ [ResourceShelf.com] [On Monday the] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the 2012 Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) information on more than 7,600 chemicals in commerce. The CDR database contains comprehensive use and exposure information on the most widely used chemicals in the United States. Companies are now … Continue reading »
Generation, Transport, and Disposal of Wastewater Associated with Marcellus Shale Gas Development
Duke Univ., Nicholas School of the Environment / by Brian D. Lutz, Aurana N. Lewis and Martin W. Doyle http://ecowatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Lutz_WRR_2013_OnlineAheadofPrint.pdf [Abstract] Hydraulic fracturing has made vast quantities of natural gas from shale available, reshaping the energy landscape of the United States (US). Extracting shale gas, however, generates large, unavoidable volumes of wastewater, which to date … Continue reading »
Science Applications in the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill — a Free Special Feature in 12/10/12 issue of “PNAS”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (published online before print: Dec. 3, 2012, v109 n50) This feature is free online. http://www.pnas.org/content/109/50.toc Contains the following articles: Applications of science and engineering to quantify and control the Deepwater Horizon oil spill Chemical data quantify Deepwater Horizon hydrocarbon flow rate and environmental distribution Review of flow rate … Continue reading »
Persistent Environmental Pollutants and Couple Fecundity: The LIFE Study
Environmental Health Perspectives (November 14, 2012) / by Germaine M. Buck Louis et al. http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/2012/11/1205301/ Background: Evidence suggesting that persistent environmental pollutants may be reproductive toxicants underscores the need for prospective studies of couples for whom exposures are measured… Conclusions: In a couple-based prospective cohort study with preconception enrollment and quantification of exposures in both female and … Continue reading »
Increasing Cropping System Diversity Balances Productivity, Profitability and Environmental Health
PLoS One (2012; v7 n10 : e47149. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0047149) / by AS Davis, JD Hill ,CA Chase, AM Johanns and M Liebman bit.ly/RRC6TI [Aguanomics] Very important USDA study: researchers set up three plots: one replicated the typical Midwestern cycle of planting corn one year and then soybeans the next, along with its routine mix of chemicals. On another, they planted a three-year cycle that included … Continue reading »
The World’s Worst Pollution Problems: Assessing Health Risks at Hazardous Waste Sites
Blacksmith Institute | Green Cross Switzerland http://www.worstpolluted.org/files/FileUpload/files/2012%20WorstPolluted.pdf [Guardian] Waste from mining, lead smelters, industrial dumps and other toxic sites affects the health of an estimated 125 million people in 49 low- and middle-income countries. This unrecognised health burden is on the scale of malaria or tuberculosis (TB), a new report has found… The health impact … Continue reading »
What Do Property Values Really Tell Us? A Hedonic Study of Underground Storage Tanks
US EPA, National Center for Environmental Economics / by Dennis Guignet http://yosemite.epa.gov/ee/epa/eed.nsf/WPNumber/2012-01 Hedonic property value models are widely used, but are susceptible to omitted variable bias and potentially invalid conjectures regarding the assumed measure of environmental quality. This paper focuses on an application where both are of particular concern: leaking underground storage tanks. I estimate … Continue reading »
