Latest Pollution Headlines

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

National E&S in California Names Skiles Account Manager

Oct 21 2016 // National E&S Insurance Brokers in Palmdale, Calif. has named Brittany Skiles an Account Manager. Skiles works with all lines of insurance including general liability, contractor pollution, professional liability,...

North Carolina Environmental Groups, Regulators Spar Over Coal Ash Spill

Oct 21 2016 // Conservationists and regulators are at odds over how much coal ash was swept away by flooding during Hurricane Matthew – state inspectors say it would fit in the bed of a pickup truck while a watchdog group argues...

Landowners File Lawsuit over 1995 Oklahoma Chemical Spill

Oct 19 2016 // Landowners in Kingfisher County, Oklahoma, have filed a lawsuit against a railroad company over a chemical spill caused by a train derailment two decades ago.The Journal Record reported that public documents indicate a...

New York to Test Blood of City Residents Exposed to Toxic Chemical

Oct 19 2016 // New York is offering free blood tests for residents of a Hudson Valley city where the water supply was contaminated with a toxic chemical in fire-fighting foam used at a nearby Air National Guard base. State Health...

Judge ‘Strongly’ Inclined to Approve Volkswagen $14.7 Billion Settlement

Oct 19 2016 // Volkswagen AG and car owners will likely secure a federal judge’s final sign-off on their $14.7 billion settlement as the automaker continues to seek regulators’ approval of a fix for 482,000 pollution-spewing...

Louisiana Chemical Manufacturer Fined $92.6K for Serious Safety Violations

Oct 14 2016 // Federal safety officials have cited a Louisiana chemical manufacturer for nine serious and two other violations, and issued fines of more than $92,000.The U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health...

Insurance Industry Urged to Weigh Shift to Intangible Risks

Oct 14 2016 // Panelists at a recent New York event hosted yesterday by Lloyd’s, the world’s specialist insurance market, and the American Security Project, a nonpartisan national security think-tank, urged the insurance...

Kentucky County Completes Cleanup of Arsenic Contamination in Soil

Oct 12 2016 // The Kentucky Department of Environmental Protection says the state has finished cleaning up large amounts of arsenic in Ohio County.The Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer reports that the agency spent the summer removing...

Pennsylvania Adopts New Fracking Regulations

Oct 10 2016 // New regulations governing the extraction of natural gas through fracking went into effect on Saturday in Pennsylvania, the first overhaul since the industry took off in the state more than 10 years ago.The new rules allow...

Cunningham to Lead Florida-Based SLB Insurance’s New Environmental Division

Oct 5 2016 // SLB Insurance Group of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., has hired Jeffrey Cunningham to lead its new Environmental Insurance division. Cunningham started the new Environmental division for SLB’s Wholesale Insurance Brokerage...

Jason Cohen

Oct 3 2016 // Cincinnati, Ohio-based Great American Insurance Group promoted Jason M. Cohen to divisional president of Strategic Comp, succeeding Stephen Rosenthal, who will retire at the end of 2016.Cohen joined Great American in 2006...

Microbeads: Bad for You, Bad for the Environment

Oct 3 2016 // You wake up in the morning, brush your teeth and wash your face. The toothpaste and face wash go down the drain and you’ll never see it again… right? Wrong! What if I told you some of the ingredients, known as...

Federal Investigators Conclude West Virginia Chemical Spill Was Preventable

Sep 30 2016 // A 2014 chemical spill into the water supply of 300,000 West Virginians could have been avoided if a company inspected its storage tanks and saw two tiny holes forming at the bottom, federal investigators said...

Study Links Obesity to Higher Workers’ Compensation Costs

Sep 30 2016 // Obese and overweight workers are more likely to incur high costs related to workers’ compensation claims for major injuries, reports a study in the September Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine,...

Florida Governor Issues Emergency Rule on Public Notice of Pollution Events

Sep 29 2016 // Florida Gov. Rick Scott has issued an emergency rule requiring public notification of pollution events within 24 hours, a move that comes after it took weeks to notify local residents about a fertilizer plant that leaked...

Alabama Water Utility Sues 30-Plus Flooring Companies Over Water Pollution

Sep 29 2016 // The Water Works and Sewer Board in Gadsden, Ala., has filed a lawsuit against more than 30 carpet and textile companies over pollution in the city’s water supply.Media outlets report that the lawsuit, filed Sept. 22,...

Investors Urge Food Giants to Lessen Meat Reliance to Lower Risk

Sep 28 2016 // A group of 40 investors managing $1.25 trillion in assets have launched a campaign to encourage 16 global food companies to change the way they source protein for their products to help to reduce environmental and health...

St. Louis Area Landfill Operator Settles Suit with 34 Homeowners

Sep 27 2016 // The operator of a suburban St. Louis landfill where an underground fire is producing a strong odor has reached a settlement in federal lawsuits filed by nearly three dozen nearby residents.Bridgeton Landfill LLC announced...

Duke Energy to Pay $6M for North Carolina Chemical Plant Spill

Sep 27 2016 // Duke Energy Corp. has agreed to pay a $6 million fine for a big spill that coated the Dan River with liquefied coal ash in 2014, North Carolina’s environment agency said Friday.The fine holds Duke Energy accountable...

Supplier Denies Listeria Was in Product Shipped to Blue Bell

Sep 26 2016 // A supplier of cookie dough that Blue Bell Creameries blamed for a possible listeria contamination of some of its ice cream said that its product tested negative for the pathogen before it was sent to the Texas-based...