Environment | WPN World People News

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released an initial assessment of contamination at Tern Island, a remote island in the chain of Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI). The results show that there have been releases of hazardous substances such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and lead from military wastes buried on the island between World War II and 1979, and further action is warranted.

A former senior vice president and chief credit officer of TierOne Bank, a publicly traded commercial bank formerly headquartered in Lincoln, Nebraska, pleaded guilty for his role in a scheme to defraud TierOne’s shareholders and regulators.

The death toll from monsoon rains and flash floods across large areas of Pakistan and India has reached 400.

The owners and operators of four gasoline stations in the Buffalo, New York area have been ordered to pay the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency a total of $287,100 in penalties. In August 2012, the EPA issued a complaint to owners and operators of gas stations in Buffalo, Amherst, and Tonawanda, N.Y., alleging violations of numerous federal regulations aimed at protecting water from petroleum contamination.

New analysis and maps released reveal the alarming speed at which the world’s largest expanses of forest wilderness are being degraded. More than 104 million hectares – an area three times the size of Germany – of the world’s remaining Intact Forest Landscapes were degraded from 2000 to 2013.

International polling revealed that 74 percent of people worldwide support the creation of a protected sanctuary in the international waters surrounding the North Pole.

Costco Wholesale Corporation, one of the nation’s largest retailers, has agreed to cut its emissions of ozone-depleting and greenhouse gases from leaking refrigeration equipment at more than half of its stores nationwide.

Washington Crab Producers, Inc., owner and operator of a seafood processing facility in Westport, Washington, will pay a $16,551 penalty and provide a high-tech thermal imaging camera to the Westport Fire Department to settle alleged violations of the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, known as EPCRA.

Grey reef sharks are common in the Great Sea Reef.