Environment | WPN World People News

EPA and the U.S. Department of Justice Wednesday lodged in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama a proposed modification of a prior 2006 consent decree with Alabama Power Company that will secure further reductions of harmful air pollutants, primarily sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx), from three of the company’s coal-fired power plants in Alabama. The proposed modifications, if entered by the court, will resolve the remaining claims in a long-running case that alleged violations of the Clean Air Act’s New Source Review program.

The European Commission’s weak response to the first EU citizens’ initiative (ECI) petition, on the “Right2Water”, could discredit the ECI system, warn Environment Committee MEPs in a resolution voted on Wednesday. It “lacks any real ambition and failed to meet the demands of the organizers”, they add. ECIs enable citizens to ask the Commission to propose laws in areas within its competence, if they can muster at least one million signatures from at least a quarter of EU member states.

A male polar bear has its portrait taken by a camera trap.

The Four Corners coal-fired power plant in New Mexico.

Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a federal Clean Air Act settlement with several Arizona and New Mexico-based utility companies to install pollution control technology to reduce harmful air pollution from the Four Corners Power Plant located on the Navajo Nation near Shiprock, New Mexico.

The Great Barrier Reef is under threat from megaport expansions and increase shipping traffic.

On Friday, March 20, 2015 Judge Spearman announced her decision on the Port of Seattle case jurisdiction.

Successful conservation action has boosted the populations of the Iberian Lynx and the Guadalupe Fur Seal, while the African Golden Cat, the New Zealand Sea Lion and the Lion are facing increasing threats to their survival, according to the latest update of The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™. Ninety-nine percent of tropical Asian slipper orchids – some of the most highly prized ornamental plants – are threatened with extinction.

Italy, Romania and Bulgaria should get €66.5 million in EU aid to help repair the damage done by severe floods in 2014, said the Budgets Committee on Tuesday. The aid still needs to be approved by Parliament as a whole.