Category: Environmental Contamination

Co-Authored by Norman B. Berger A comparison of Pope Francis’ recent encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’, with our Supreme Court’s recent decision on power plant emissions raises troubling questions regarding the moral core of our environmental decision-making. The Pope wrote passionate...

Co-Authored by Norman B. Berger If a new environmental regulation requiring power plants to reduce toxic emissions would prevent 11,000 premature deaths every year; prevent many thousands more illnesses every year; and produce benefits that outweigh the costs by as much as $80 billion every year, wo...

Co-authored by Gregory Zimmer of The Collins Law Firm, P.C. Shouldn’t it be that living in a pollution-free community is a basic right of American citizenship? Shouldn’t it be that having clean air to breathe and safe water to drink does not depend on whether you are wealthy, or well-educated? I...

Co-authored by Gregory Zimmer of The Collins Law Firm, P.C. What are the most common harmful chemicals in the water that many Americans drink every day? What harm can these chemicals cause to people? The EPA regulates the nation’s drinking water supply through National Primary Drinking Water Regul...

On May 14, 2015, in a federal courtroom in Greenville, North Carolina, coal combusting giant Duke Energy pled guilty to committing 9 environmental crimes for its years of illegal discharge of coal ash pollution throughout the State of North Carolina. Duke Energy will also pay some $102 million in fi...

In March 2015, Syracuse University hydrology professor, Donald Siegel, and a team of other scientists published a fracking study in Environmental Science and Technology, the bottom line of which is, basically, “fracking is safe”. At least that’s the way that the pro-fracking forces are selling...

The LA Times and environmental advocacy group, Water Defense, recently combined to show what a sham so-called “environmental testing” can sometimes be, because it creates the illusion of protection for the people, when in truth there is very little, or maybe even none at all. In its May 2, 2015 ...

Why isn’t the State of North Carolina doing more to protect its own citizens against contaminated water? For years, North Carolina has departed from the practice of most states, and allowed political heavyweight Duke Energy to store coal ash–the toxic residue of coal burning–in unlined pits ne...

Last year, the groundwater feeding a well located at the Portsmouth, New Hampshire Airport–which was one of several wells supplying water to the citizens of the City of Portsmouth–was found to be contaminated with dangerous levels of a chemical known as perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, or PFOS. Th...

Unfortunately, Deborah and Ralph Graham of Dukeville, North Carolina can now be added to the large and growing list of American families who are learning the hard way that they cannot trust their government to protect them against chemical contamination, even though the Grahams pay their government ...