Latest Pollution Headlines

All the headlines from our Pollution Topic Page, ordered by recency.

Jury Sides With Workers Sickened During Tennessee Coal Ash Cleanup

Nov 14 2018 // A jury has sided with workers who say they were sickened after they were tapped to clean up a massive 2008 coal ash spill in Tennessee. The Knoxville News Sentinel reports that a jury found Nov. 7 that Tennessee Valley...

Arkansas Plant Board Reviewing EPA Decision on Dicamba Herbicide

Nov 8 2018 // The Arkansas State Plant Board (ASPB), a division of the Arkansas Agriculture Department (AAD), announced it has begun the process of reviewing the announced EPA label changes for the herbicide dicamba and will be...

Casualty Losses Provide Impetus for 2019 Rate Firming: Willis Towers Watson

Nov 7 2018 // Commercial insurance buyers are facing upward pricing pressure across most lines of business in 2019, driven in part by escalating losses in the casualty insurance market, according to a report by Willis Towers Watson.The...

U.S. Agencies Split Over Cell Phone Cancer Risk

Nov 6 2018 // Two U.S. government agencies are giving conflicting interpretations of a safety study on cell phone radiation: One says it causes cancer in rats. The other says there’s no reason for people to worry.No new research...

After State Ban Expires, EPA Approves Dicamba Use in Arkansas

Nov 5 2018 // A recent Environmental Protection Agency ruling clears the path for Arkansas farmers to use the herbicide dicamba on soybeans and cotton, ending a state-wide ban on the weed killer’s use.The federal agency on Oct. 31...

Plaintiff in Monsanto Weedkiller Cancer Case Accepts Court’s Reduced $78M Award

Nov 1 2018 // The school groundskeeper who won a jury trial against Bayer AG’s Monsanto unit over allegations that the company’s glyphosate-containing weed-killers caused his cancer, accepted a court-mandated reduced...

Army Corps, Texas Officials Propose Sweeping Hurricane Protection Plan

Oct 26 2018 // Following years of research, studies and public debate, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — in partnership with the state’s General Land Office — has recommended a multi-billion-dollar project that would protect...

GenX Undetected in Bloodstreams of North Carolina Chemical Plant Neighbors

Oct 19 2018 // Dozens of neighbors of a North Carolina chemical plant had industrial compounds in their bloodstreams, but tests by state and federal health officials outlined Tuesday didn’t find the much-debated and little-studied...

Proposed Settlement of $51M Reached in Iowa Industrial Pollution Lawsuit

Oct 11 2018 // A proposed settlement of more than $51 million has been reached in a class-action lawsuit over pollution problems at an industrial plant in southeast Iowa. The Muscatine Journal reports that the settlement with Grain...

Sompo International Taps Pillion to Lead New U.S. Environmental Insurance Unit

Oct 9 2018 // Sompo International Holdings Ltd., a Bermuda-based specialty provider of property and casualty insurance and reinsurance, has established a new business unit to extend environmental liability insurance capabilities to a...

The Dying Continues as Asbestos Cleanup in Montana Town Progresses

Oct 8 2018 // The houses and yards and businesses are cleaned up. The so-called stigma of Superfund designation is fast fading. The Cabinet Mountains and the crystalline waters of the Kootenai River beckon visitors and even new...

Federal Appeals Court Reverses Order Requiring Tennessee Coal Ash Cleanup

Sep 28 2018 // A federal appellate panel on Monday overturned an order that would have required the nation’s largest public utility to unearth and remove a massive amount of coal ash at one of its Tennessee power plants.In a 2-1...

Brown & Riding Names Scheider Environmental Specialty Broker in Colorado

Sep 26 2018 // Brown & Riding has added Harrison Scheider as an environmental specialty broker. Scheider works out of Brown & Riding’s Denver, Colo. office. He primarily handles accounts in Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming,...

AXIS Insurance, DUAL North America Partner on Environmental Risk Program

Sep 24 2018 // AXIS Insurance, the insurance business segment of AXIS Capital Holdings Limited, has partnered with DUAL North America, the underwriting arm of the Hyperion Insurance Group, to provide environmental risk product offerings...

FEMA Chief Long to Keep Job, Repay Government for Car Misuse

Sep 24 2018 // The head of the federal disaster response agency used government vehicles without proper authorization, but will not lose his job over it, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Friday.Federal Emergency...

Dam Breach at N.C. Power Plant Causes Coal Ash Spill into Cape Fear River

Sep 24 2018 // Gray muck is flowing into the Cape Fear River from the site of a dam breach at a Wilmington power plant where an old coal ash dump had been covered over by Florence’s floodwaters.Forecasters predicted the water would...

North Carolina Power Plant Inundated by Flood Waters

Sep 21 2018 // Duke Energy activated a high-level emergency alert at a retired coal-fired power plant in North Carolina as floodwaters from the nearby Cape Fear River overtopped an earthen dike at the facility and inundated a large...

XL Catlin Names Snyder Lead Underwriter for Construction Excess Casualty in Southeast

Sep 21 2018 // XL Catlin’s North America Construction insurance business has appointed Ann Marie Snyder, senior underwriter, to lead its Construction Excess Casualty business in its Southeast region.Snyder joined XL Catlin in 2012...

Bayer’s Monsanto Wants Judge to Nix $289M Roundup Verdict

Sep 20 2018 // Bayer AG unit Monsanto on Tuesday asked a California judge to throw out a $289 million jury verdict awarded to a man who alleged the company’s glyphosate-based weed-killers, including Roundup, gave him cancer.The...

After Florence Floods, Uninsured Awaken to Painful Reality

Sep 19 2018 // Flood insurance was far from Stephanie Walker’s mind in 2015 when she moved her family into a home in Fayetteville in central North Carolina, nearly 200 miles (320 km) from the coast.The next year, a creek at the end...