Environment | WPN World People News

Market stalls with little farm produce due to restrictions in movement in Ebola-affected Kolahun City, Lofa County, Liberia.

Long-awaited draft plans to allow EU member states to restrict, or ban, the cultivation of crops containing genetically modified organisms on their own territory even if it is allowed at EU level won the support of the Environment Committee on Tuesday. MEPs voted to remove the Council-backed idea of a phase of negotiations with the GMO company, and supported plans to allow member states to ban GMO crops on environmental grounds.

The European Parliament voted on a new law on national bans of genetically modified (GM) crops. The Parliament’s environment committee voted to amend the position agreed last June by ministers, which, according to Greenpeace, was riddled with legal holes and went against the Parliament’s earlier vote.

MEPs have another busy week ahead of them

Walrus female and pup on an ice floe in the Chukchi Sea.

Cannon Place, LLC (Cannon Place) has reached a settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over alleged stormwater violations at its construction sites along Bald Ridge Marina Road in Cumming, Ga. As part of this settlement, Cannon Place agreed to pay a civil penalty of $110,253.

Should member states be able to overrule the EU when considering the cultivation of genetically modified organisms (GMO) in their territory? New rules allowing them to restrict or prohibit cultivation will be voted on by the public health committee on 11 November.

An owl is treated for poisoning from second-generation anticoagulants. d-Con (left) poisons predators that eat the weakened rodents.

A crop duster sprays pesticides over a farmfield.

In a settlement with the United States, three subsidiaries of the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan (PCS), the world’s largest fertilizer producer, will take steps to reduce harmful air emissions at eight U.S. production plants—including three in Aurora, N.C.—the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Justice announced. The settlement resolves claims that these PCS subsidiaries violated the Clean Air Act when they modified facilities in ways that released excess sulfur dioxide into surrounding communities.