Environment | WPN World People News

On 02-03-2016 the Energy and Climate Change Committee has published their report on investor confidence. Amber Rudd set out the Government’s position on what course energy policy will take over this Parliament in a speech late last year.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) and the USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) made public their final “finding of no significant impact” (FONSI) Wednesday regarding an ill-placed and unprecedented 6500-swine facility just six miles upstream from the Buffalo National River.

A coalition consisting of Albany County Executive Daniel P. McCoy, a tenants association, and two environmental groups Wednesday requested the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to conduct a full environmental justice analysis for pending Clean Air permit renewals for two Port of Albany crude-by-rail terminals. The terminals, owned by Global Companies and Buckeye Partners, together handle more than 5 billion gallons of petroleum products annually and are located adjacent to Albany’s South End, a DEC-designated environmental justice area.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that it is taking final action to approve the state of Georgia’s request to redesignate the Atlanta Area to attainment for the 1997 Fine Particulate Matter (PM2.5) standard. This final action takes three separate final actions to (1) determine that the Atlanta Area is attaining the 1997 Annual PM2.5 standard, (2) approve the State of Georgia’s plan for maintaining the standard for 10 years following the final action, and (3) redesignate the Atlanta Area to attainment for the 1997 Annual PM2.5 standard.

EPA Region 7 reached an administrative settlement with the City of Leavenworth, Kan., that requires the city to develop a plan to eliminate unlawful sewer overflows, and to resolve municipal stormwater violations under the Clean Water Act. As part of the settlement, the city is also required to pay a cash penalty of $46,200, and implement a Supplemental Environmental Project.

Agricultural workers in Florida.

The Paterson Park area of Baltimore may benefit from Maryland's new community solar legislation.

Activists Block Secret TTIP Talks in Brussels

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy and Canada’s Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna Monday announced that Canada and the U.S. have adopted targets to reduce phosphorus entering affected areas of Lake Erie by 40 percent. The targets announced on February 22 was minimize the extent of low oxygen “dead zones” in the central basin of Lake Erie; maintain algae growth at a level consistent with healthy aquatic ecosystems; and maintain algae biomass at levels that do not produce toxins that pose a threat to human or ecosystem health.

Urgent research is needed to assess the possible risks to human health and ecosystems from the ever-increasing amounts of engineered nanomaterials going into household waste and ending up in the environment, according to a new OECD report.