Environment | WPN World People News

As the 2018 climate talks kick off under the auspices of the UN next week, ‘business unusual’ must be the mantra delegations need heard resoundingly in Bonn, says WWF.

The Department of Justice, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, on April 24, announced a settlement with MarkWest Liberty Midstream Resources, LLC and Ohio Gathering Company, LLC (MarkWest), which is expected to reduce emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by more than 700 tons per year from company facilities in eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania.

On April 24, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board announced that the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) and five East Bay communities will be assessed $389,300 in penalties for violating the terms of a 2014 settlement designed to prevent untreated sewage from entering San Francisco Bay.

The Washington Shorelines Hearings Board on April 20, upheld the denial of shoreline development permits for Millennium Bulk Terminals, an enormous coal export terminal proposed in Longview, Washington. In November 2017, the Cowlitz County Hearing Examiner denied required shorelines permits for the project; Millennium appealed that ruling to the Shorelines Hearings Board, arguing that the Hearing Examiner made legal and factual errors.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded $350,000 to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to implement a nearshore bird management program at Jeorse Park, Buffington Harbor, Whihala, and Hammond beaches on the shoreline of Lake Michigan in Northwest Indiana.

Mekong Irrawaddy Dolphin

At the flat Wadden Sea coast in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, the threat of sea level rise and attempts to mitigate climate change by producing renewable energy can be studied side by side. Wind power is a major source of electricity.

A new, close review of the Trump Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) draft plan to gut federal coal ash regulations established in 2015 reveals that it would encourage states to ignore risks to children and remove the requirement that polluters immediately clean up their coal ash spills. The analysis was done by the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice.