A common purchase in the United States is a car, something necessary for many of us to get to work, travel to the grocery store, pick-up kids at school — among the thousands of destinations where Americans use their car. When we buy a car, we often do an investigation, so to speak. We do online research on the vehicles that peak our interest, we inspect the vehicle at the dealership, we ask questions of the dealer, and we test-drive the car. We …
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In recent weeks, we’ve written about the documented environmental effects of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. The recovery periods for those disasters will take substantial time, and even then the ramifications of those powerful hurricanes will be felt long after. Unfortunately, we have seen yet another natural disaster in Hurricane Maria — the destructive Category 4 storm that made landfall on the southern coast of Puerto Rico at around 6:15 AM EDT last Wednesday, since causing much havoc to the territory. As late as September 23, …
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Hurricane Harvey has decimated the great city of Houston, displacing residents from their homes — and in many cases — destroying homes, investments, and in some scenarios, taking the life of a loved one. It will take billions of dollars to repair Harvey’s destruction, and many people will never replace what the hurricane took. Even with that, the event has more bad news. Not only did Harvey destroy property, and in some instances take human life, it also has created a toxic environmental nightmare.
Houston’s …
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On July 25, 2017, the EPA’s recently created Superfund Task Force released a number of recommendations on how to “streamline and improve the Superfund program.” These recommendations (e.g., recommendation number one is “Target NPL Sites That Are Not Showing Sufficient Progress Towards Site Cleanup and Completion”) were generated after the EPA director criticized the cleanup time involved in the Superfund process. Has the process been taking too long?
The Superfund program involves both an identification and investigation process that’s been time consuming. To …
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A few weeks ago, we outlined the Trump administration’s rollback of the Clean Water Rule — an Obama era proposal that expanded the definition of “waters of the United States” under the Clean Water Act. This past week saw the administration continue on that theme, deregulating the Obama era agenda. On Thursday, July 20, 2017, the administration released its semi-annual Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions — a report on the actions that administrative agencies plan to issue in the near and long term …
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President Trump recently got the ball rolling on rescinding or revising The Clean Water Rule (the Rule) — a President Obama-era environmental regulation that sought to expand the federal government’s reach under the Clean Water Act (CWA).
For background, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, enacted in 1948 and later reorganized and expanded in 1972, is known today as the CWA. The CWA establishes a structure for regulating discharges of pollutants into the waters of the United States and regulates quality standards for surface …
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Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA), also known as C-8, is a synthetic man-made chemical that is both toxic and persistent in the environment. It has been used in the manufacture of commercial products like non-stick cookware, stain-resistant clothing and carpets, food wrappers, dental floss, electrical insulation, fabrics, firefighting foam, as well as many industrial products. PFOA has raised health concerns because long-term exposure has been linked to testicular, kidney, and thyroid cancer, as well as high cholesterol, and pregnancy-induced hypertension. Our readers familiar with PFOAs likely have …
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New York City is 305 square miles and about 72 percent of that space is covered with impenetrable surfaces like rooftops, roadways, and playgrounds. So when it rains in the metropolis, the precipitation floods storm drains and sewers. With what some call an antiquated sewer system that treats about 1.3 billion gallons of city wastewater on a dry day (and twice that during moderate rainfall) coupled with a growing population, the Big Apple is experiencing increasing problems in treating the bacteria found in the City’s …
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