November 10, 2004

The Gilbert Town Council met in closed session Tuesday to discuss whether to file a lawsuit against a company accused of contaminating groundwater and soil.

WASHINGTON - Public health officials expressed concern Tuesday about possible chemical contamination of waters flooding New Orleans in Hurricane Katrina's wake, saying no one yet knows if industrial leaks occurred.

Scottsdale homeowners who are owed a piece of a massive settlement over contaminated drinking water should begin looking for their checks to arrive in the mail during the next month.

Southgate Commerce Park will one day include a dance studio, an orthodontist’s office and other businesses. But on Friday, the site was no more than leveled dirt severed by 16-foot sewer trenches and lined with crusted mounds of recently moved earth.

Honeywell International has agreed to pay a $5 million civil fine and contribute an additional $1 million to fund a regional climate-change study to settle charges the company violated Arizona clean-water laws for more than 30 years.

U.S. industries cut their toxic-chemical pollution by more than 1 billion pounds in 2001 for the biggest decrease in nearly 15 years, according to Environmental Protection Agency figures released Monday.

With local ozone levels rising this week, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality is issuing an ozone high pollution advisory Thursday.

The good news from the Gulf of Mexico is that the oil-spouting BP well has finally been sealed, and that the devastating impacts of the massive oil spill on beaches, wildlife habitats, and marine ecosystem are gradually abating. The bad news is that there are no immediate plans to abate a much larger, deadlier, and continuing spill smothering life in the Gulf.

Tom Purcell: So, supposing human activity were to lead to cataclysm, what could we do? We could mimic the effects of a giant volcano!

The infamous "brown cloud" looked thick and ugly hanging over the Valley on Monday, yet its appearance is an imperfect measure of a complex pollution problem.

For the past quarter-century, state and federal regulators have suspected a growing plume of contamination under defense contractor Talley Defense Systems’ east Mesa burn site but have done nothing to stop it.

My neighbors backwashed their pool and it flowed into my yard. The grass and several of my plants have died. What can I do remedy the soil contamination?

Gov. Janet Napolitano said she will meet "as soon as possible’’ with the state’s congressional delegation to find ways to halt pollution flowing into the Colorado River.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to let the Environmental Protection Agency issue a permit to a mining company to put more chemicals into an already polluted Arizona stream.

BEIJING - A dirty brown haze sometimes more than a mile thick is darkening skies not only over vast areas of Asia, but also in the Middle East, southern Africa and the Amazon Basin, changing weather patterns around the world and threatening health and food supplies, the U.N. reported Thursday.

An ozone high pollution advisory has been issued for the Valley on Thursday.

All East Valley cities will soon have new restrictions on leaf blowers, fires and driving on unpaved surfaces as part of a statewide effort to reduce air pollution.

Feeling a bit slow and depressed? It just might be the air.

Two Democratic contenders for Arizona Corporation Commission charged Wednesday that the Republicancontrolled panel is letting Arizona bear the environmental burden of California’s energy needs.

A state utility regulator is lashing out at the head of the Department of Environmental Quality for agreeing to settle a pollution claim with money for one of Gov. Janet Napolitano's pet projects.

Dust storms in the Arizona desert have been part of local weather for eons. Long before the first automobile spat out the first particle of pollution, each summer monsoon dust storms have rushed out of the mountains to blind people and animals while knocking down structures and trees.