In The News / Mar 9

• EPA chief: Mountaintop-removal guidelines coming soon.

  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said Monday her agency is not seeking to halt mountaintop removal, but will "try to minimize, if not end, any environmental degradation to the water" caused by the practice. Charleston Gazette, West Virginia

• Supreme Court won't review decision that closed EPA emissions 'loophole.'

  The Supreme Court declined to review a lower court's ruling prohibiting U.S. EPA from suspending normal emissions standards for major pollution sources during "startup, shutdown and malfunction" periods. Environmental groups praised the decision. Greenwire

• US EPA chief concerned about gas drilling fluids.

  The top U.S. environmental regulator said she was "very concerned" about fluids blamed by some for polluting water supplies near sites where drillers use them to extract natural gas from shale deposits. Reuters

• DeWitt adopts one-year moratorium on hydrofracking.

  The town of DeWitt adopted a one-year moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, in a unanimous resolution. Syracuse Post-Standard, New York

• World’s pall of black carbon can be eased with new stoves.

  With a single, concerted initiative, the world could save millions of people in poor nations from respiratory ailments and early death, while dealing a big blow to global warming - and all at a surprisingly small cost. Yale Environment 360

• Global warming doubts could hamper climate legislation.

  A recent poll suggests that high-profile controversies regarding climate science are weakening public confidence in the validity of global warming. And that could endanger congressional efforts to pass climate legislation. Christian Science Monitor

• Norfolk Southern to pay $4 million.

  Norfolk Southern Railways have agreed to pay $4 million and make substantial repairs to the environmental infrastructure surrounding the immediate area impacted by the January 2005 train wreck and resulting chlorine spill. Aiken Standard, South Carolina

• Vermont questions EPA's plan to send contaminated soil to Moretown landfill.

  The federal government's plan to ship dioxin-contaminated soil from a Massachusetts Superfund site to a landfill in Moretown is facing questions from Vermont regulators about why the soil has not been declared a hazardous waste. Burlington Free Press, Vermont

• Dalton McGuinty bets big on mining, critics fear eco-disaster.

  Premier Dalton McGuinty hopes a massive northern ore deposit will be the motherlode for Ontario's economy but critics are warning of an environmental disaster akin to the Alberta tar sands. At stake is the development of one of the world's largest untapped deposits of chromite, used to make stainless steel. Toronto Star, Ontario

• China's sinking city hopes to rise beyond mining.

  The old mining and power sectors in the sinking city of Fuxin, in northeast China's Liaoning province, left a legacy of pollution, inefficiency and perilous land subsidence, but its mayor said the city -- with government help -- was now finally turning things around. Reuters

• West Africa sets out to protect dying mangroves.

  Salt is precious in poverty-stricken coastal West Africa, but conservation experts say efforts to extract it are laying waste to mangrove swamps, causing erosion and ravaging fish stocks Reuters

• Green areas to the highest bidder.

  Activists in Mexico complain that the deforestation threatening the environmental health of Mexico has been accentuated by the granting of public areas to private companies. Inter Press Service

• Another water project could divide the state.

  The proposed dam and reservoir at Temperance Flat would be the biggest water storage project in CA in more than three decades and that has some people questioning whether taxpayers should keep subsidizing water projects that primarily benefit CA agribusiness. Los Angeles Times, California

• Something for everyone,

  With 90 percent of its water diverted for agricultural and urban use, scientists and managers have to get creative about how they go about habitat restoration on the Colorado River. Miller-McCune

• Carp solution could provide financial benefits.

  Proposals to block Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes have largely focused on the costs. But now business and environmental groups are exploring a possible upside: a broadly based infrastructure investment that would benefit much of northern Illinois. Chicago News Cooperative, Illinois

• Clashing lead laws may derail progress.

  Housing and public health advocates have been trying to get the state to enforce its lead paint law for almost 10 years, and the Attorney General’s office is finally cracking down on landlords who are failing to comply. Brattleboro Reformer, Vermont