The Latest from EnviroBlog

Grassroots opposition to proposals to fluoridate water supplies across the country are gathering community and state-level attention and support, a new piece in TIME Magazine shows.

Key Issues: 

Toxics

The U.S. Forest Service has fired a 40-year employee after he filed a whistleblower complaint related to misuse of pesticides across several forests in Arizona and New Mexico. He said he was fired him because the Forest Service doesn't want controls over its pesticide use in public areas.

Key Issues: 

Pesticides

Using a line straight from the chemical industry's playbook, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have established the nation's first state biomonitoring program last weekend.

Key Issues: 

Toxics

Chemical Policy

W.R. Grace strikes again, the Dallas Morning News reports, with news that up to 450 employees of the company's West Dallas plant and their families are at risk from asbestos-related illnesses.

Key Issues: 

Toxics

Chemical Policy

Asbestos

Environmental Health Perspectives examines the possible connection between a startlingly low male birth rate and industrial pollution among a population of Native Americans in Ontario living right next to one of Canada's largest concentrations of chemical plants. The area is heavily polluted with PCBs, phthalates and dioxins, all known endocrine disruptors.

Key Issues: 

Phthalates

Just before hunting season opens in Utah, state officials are warning hunters not to eat two types of ducks that feed on Great Salt Lake marhes because tests on the animals show dangerous levels of mercury in their flesh.

Key Issues: 

Mercury

Chemicals in Food

The Washington State Toxics Coalition and the Toxic-Free Legacy Coalition have started body burden testing on 10 people in the Puget Sound area, looking for pesticides, heavy metals, PCBs, fire retardants, phthalates and other toxics in their subjects' bodies.

Key Issues: 

Toxics

Chemical Policy

The New York Times has the article, but since they buried the lead, head over to Washington Monthly for the real story on Bush's speech - lip service to conservation efforts while Congress puts its muscle into more drilling.

Key Issues: 

Environment

W.R. Grace has taken the power of positive thinking too far, attempting to cure the Libby, Mont., residents the company knowingly poisoned for decades with toxic vermiculite just by saying it isn't so.

Key Issues: 

Toxics

Asbestos