Five chemicals subject to strict environmental controls in the United States, including an acid powerful enough to melt glass, have been left off Australia’s National Pollutant Inventory. All five of these chemicals are believed to have been released into the environment by Melbourne factories recently. The inventory, the subject of four years of negotiation between […]
Strike the Alafia River off your list of fishing spots. It’s gone, dead as a sewer pipe, killed by the carelessness of yet another phosphate company. The enormity of the acid spill last week is only now becoming clear as biologists continue to study the river. “I think it pretty well killed everything,” said Marty […]
The road is narrow and choked with mud, as it winds through this rural township in China’s impoverished southern highlands and up to the weather-beaten doorway of an aging hut made of earth and straw. Inside the one-room hovel, near the beckoning warmth of an open fire, Li Fa-fa sits on a dirt floor hardened […]
Abstract: In the southern Spring of 1995 (mid-October) the active volcano Mt Ruapehu in the central North Island of New Zealand erupted explosively, spreading up to 40 million m3 of rhyolite tephra over thousands of km2 of farmland during the lambing season. This ash contained a high concentration of soluble fluoride, and more than 2000 […]
Excerpt: SIERRA CLUB P. O. Box 1931 Austin, TX 78767 June 26, 1997 The Honorable Jane Saginaw Regional Administrator, Region VI United States Environmental Protection Agency 1445 Ross Avenue, Suite 1200 Dallas, Texas 75202-2733 Fax 214-665-6648 Re: Criminal investigation requested of CITGO Refining’s May 12th accident at Corpus Christi, Texas due to toxic hydrofluoric acid […]
HEALTH warnings could be placed on tubes of fluoride toothpaste sold in Britain after the issue of a United States alert on the dangers of swallowing the chemical. At least one supermarket chain is considering changes after the Washington-based Food and Drug Administration set out a stringent new labelling requirement. Fluoride toothpaste sold in the […]
Last month, as 8-year-old Molly Statt stood in the bathroom brushing her teeth, something on the back of the tube of Crest caught her attention. She stopped brushing. Looking up at her father standing beside her, she asked, “Is this poison?” “Of course not,” Paul Statt reassured his daughter. “Then why does it say ‘poison’ […]
Last month, as 8-year-old Molly Statt stood in the bathroom brushing her teeth, something on the back of the large-size tube of Crest caught her attention. She stopped brushing. Looking up at her father standing beside her, she motioned to the toothpaste and asked, “Is this poison?” “Of course not,” Paul Statt reassured his daughter. […]
The Texas Sierra Club on Friday disputed the findings of a CITGO-hired botanist who said that toxic gas did not escape into the neighborhoods after the May 12 refinery explosion because vegetation in the area wasn’t damaged. Neil Carman, the Sierra Club’s clean air program director, said he found lots of brown plants. After hearing […]
There is a street called Chemical Row in Matamoros, the shabby Mexican town across the border from Brownsville, Texas, which is lined with some of the most hazardous industries known to man. A long, corrugated-iron shack, now rusting with neglect, was once a lead smelter owned by Asarco, the US metals group. Behind it is […]
