"USA Today’s investigative team found the EPA failed to tell people about or take action on hundreds of former lead smelting sites they’d known about for years. Alison Young and Pete Eisler tested the soil around former plants in 13 states and found potentially dangerous levels of lead remain in people’s yards and in parks."

This multi-part look into long-forgotten lead factories includes nearly 370 site-related documents, using DocumentCloud; video interviews with parents whose children play in their lead contaminated back yards; an interactive map telling you where smelters once were in your area; tips on how ...

Michael J. Mishak, Los Angeles Time, reports that "energy companies across California are injecting a mysterious mix of chemicals into the ground to tap oil deposits while frustrating attempts to regulate the controversial process, known as hydraulic fracturing."

"So far, nine states require energy companies to disclose what they put into the ground but the Brown administration, which has been trying to ease regulation of the energy industry, has yet to draw up any rules on the extraction method."

Stett Holbrook, for the Food and Environment Reporting Network, reports that "nitrate contamination in groundwater from fertilizer and animal manure is severe and getting worse for hundreds of thousands of residents in California’s farming communities, according to a study released today by researchers at UC Davis."

"The report is the most comprehensive assessment so far of nitrate contamination in California’s agricultural areas."

"An investigation by KCRA in Sacramento revealed that Pacific Gas and Electric had surveyed homeowners’ gas meters over the last three years and marked thousands of leaks across Northern California." 

"However, a company whistleblower says PG&E never told homeowners and two years later many homes continue to leak. PG&E insists there is no danger because the leaks are small. In response, lawmakers and watchdog groups say the leaks should be fixed immediately."

An expired federal program aimed to benefit former logging communities means massive budget wholes for hundreds of schools and communities across the country, an investigation by California Watch found.

The Secure Rural Schools and Communities Self-Determination Act provided nearly $3.8 billion for schools and roads in more than 700 counties in 42 states in the past decade, but the fund will be out of money by the year's end.

Lead paint was banned in the United States in the 1970s and leaded gasoline was slowly phased out over the next 20 years. However, a KUOW investigation has found across the nation, hundreds of thousands of engines still run on leaded gas. John Ryan, with KUOW, found that monitoring airborne lead in the Puget Sound region stopped completley back in 1999.

"A USA Today investigation reveals that seven decades after scientists came to the US during World War II to create plutonium for the first atomic bomb, a new generation is struggling with an even more daunting task: cleaning up the radioactive mess.

Several senior engineers cited design problems that could bring the treatment plant's operations to a halt before much of the waste is treated."

"If the Keystone XL oil pipeline were approved today, residents in the six states along its route would not receive equal treatment from TransCanada, the company that wants to build the project."

"In Kansas, for example, lawmakers gave TransCanada a 10-year tax exemption, which means the state won't receive any property tax revenue from the pipeline. Meanwhile, each of the other five states—Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas—would earn between $14 million and $63 million a year, according to U.S. State Department estimates."

An elderly couple was forced to move from their home after petroleum from an old gas station leaked into the ground and contaminated their well water. The couple was unaware of the Inland Protection Trust Fund, which was created by the state of Florida in 1986 "to respond to leaking petroleum storage tanks ... which threaten human health and the environment."

"Following the fund’s creation, the state offered amnesty programs to contaminated site owners to pay for the majority of the cleanup costs. But abandoned sites, such as Imperial Gas in Marion County, were not likely to get access to ...

"In Pennsylvania's shale fields, where the giant Marcellus strike has unleashed a furious surge of development, many natural gas pipelines today get less safety regulation than in any other state in America, a Philidelphia Inquirer review shows.

Hundreds of miles of high-pressure pipelines already have been installed in the shale fields with no government safety checks - no construction standards, no inspections, and no monitoring."