Environment | WPN World People News

A coalition of conservationists, represented by Earthjustice, Thursday filed a legal challenge to the decision by the U.S. Forest Service to allow the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) to conduct approximately 120 helicopter landings in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness as part of a program to manipulate wildlife populations in the wilderness.

One of the three companies proposing crude oil shipping terminals in Grays Harbor said it will abandon its plans to handle crude oil in comments submitted to state and local agencies in late November 2015. The company’s comments state “REG has concluded that its future plans at Grays Harbor do not include handling crude oil.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a preliminary pollinator risk assessment for the neonicotinoid insecticide, imidacloprid, which shows a threat to some pollinators. EPA’s assessment, prepared in collaboration with California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation, indicates that imidacloprid potentially poses risk to hives when the pesticide comes in contact with certain crops that attract pollinators.

An explorer nears a crevasse on Stockje Glacier in the Pennine Alps, Europe in 1894.

More than 80,000 people urged the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban the use of the dangerous, widely-used pesticide chlorpyrifos from use on all crops.

The U.S. Department of Justice, on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Monday filed a civil complaint in federal court in Detroit, Michigan against Volkswagen AG, Audi AG, Volkswagen Group of America, Inc., Volkswagen Group of America Chattanooga Operations, LLC, Porsche AG, and Porsche Cars North America, Inc. (collectively referred to as Volkswagen). The complaint alleges that nearly 600,000 diesel engine vehicles had illegal defeat devices installed that impair their emission control systems and cause emissions to exceed EPA’s standards, resulting in harmful air pollution.

UK's severe flood warnings for the breach at Croston have been downgraded due to successful repair work and an improving picture.

UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills on 1 January 2015 announced the cash pot available for the estimated 2,500 firms on either side of the Pennines left flooded by the Boxing Day deluge in the north of England.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Justice Tuesday announced that a group of 40 parties have agreed to conduct the cleanup of the Cooper Drum site in South Gate, 10 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. The settlement requires an estimated $15 million to construct the additional groundwater treatment system needed, including wells, piping and treatment costs, plus $7 million to reimburse EPA for its past cleanup actions at the Superfund site.

Flooding in the community of Chaco’i, 30 miles from Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, in July 2014.