Largely Unregulated Petrochemical Barge Industry Is Taking Over a Texas River

SAN JACINTO RIVER, Texas — Over the past 30 years, federal and state agencies in Texas have allowed hundreds of oil and chemical barges to amass in a once-tranquil section of the San Jacinto River, just east of Houston. Only about 100 barges were on the six-mile stretch of water in 1990, according to a Public Health Watch analysis of archival satellite imagery. Today, at least 600 crowd the…
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After a Billion-Dollar Oil Disaster, a Louisiana Community Fights for Relief

Four months have passed since a Louisiana oil facility burst apart, spewing a dense black sludge that drifted across homes, farms, and waterways as far as 50 miles away. Since then, the U.S. Department of Justice and Louisiana environmental regulators have filed a sweeping lawsuit against Smitty’s Supply, the company that ran the facility storing oil and vehicle lubricants.
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Trump EPA Plan Would Restrict Public’s Right to Know About Climate Pollution

Since 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has required large industrial facilities to report their greenhouse gas emissions. The data, which the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program has been collecting since 2011, is essential in efforts to reduce emissions and provides vital information to the public about climate pollution from the largest U.S. polluters. However, the Trump EPA has…
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Study Finds PFAS in Drinking Water Puts Pregnant People and Their Babies at Risk

When pregnant women drink water that comes from wells downstream of sites contaminated with PFAS, known as “forever chemicals,” the risks to their babies’ health substantially increase, a new study found. These risks include the chance of low birth weight, preterm birth and infant mortality. Even more troubling, our team of economic researchers and hydrologists found that PFAS exposure…
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Ecuador Ordered to Pay Amazon-Polluting Chevron $220 Million

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here. Over a quarter century in the Ecuadorian Amazon, oil giant Texaco (now Chevron) perpetrated an ecological disaster: It dumped 3.2 million gallons of toxic waste, spilled 17 million gallons of crude oil and flared…
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Secretive New Mexico Data Center Plan Races Forward Despite Community Pushback

At the very Southeastern tip of New Mexico bordering Texas and Mexico, a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center is gearing up to be a greenhouse gas and air pollution behemoth, an additional water user in a drought-afflicted region, and a sower of community discontent. Project Jupiter is one of five sites in the $500 billion Stargate Project, a national pipeline of massive AI systems…
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